The Great Escape

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

I listen to audiobooks while pottering in my workshop. Today it was the 'The Great Escape' by Paul Brickhill. I'd seen the film, but never read the book, which goes into much more detail about the various escape plans. What struck me was the enormous ingenuity of the would-be escapees – double action air pumps constructed out of stuff to hand, wire cutters made from soft iron sprinkled with sugar, heated and quenched, did the job.

I'm never going to read a tool catalogue again.

Honest. Almost. Perhaps. Maybe.

Robin.

 

 

Edited By Robin Graham on 03/11/2019 01:39:47

Edited By Robin Graham on 03/11/2019 01:42:19

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

I suppose using sugar to case harden steel you will go through the caramelisation stage.

Mike

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Sugar is basically water and carbon, so no spare elements to interfere or surplus oxygen to oxidise the metal. As Mike says, caramelisation occurred and enough to completely char the sugar to carbon after all the water was driven off.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

However did they manage without Carbides, souperglooo ……..

Regards Ian.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I remember reading about someone cutting through iron bars using thread wetted and dipped in sandy dust off the floor. Took ages so the cut was disguised with more dirt.

Hmm. May have been Robert Redford in a movie…

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

IN times of war, the ingenuity of those seeking to survive knows few bounds…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colditz_Cock

Another story was a Phillipino scientist Maria Orosa who invented some concentrated, powdered food supplements (and banana ketchup). The powders were smuggled into Japanese POW camps in lengths of bamboo in WW2.

Neil

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/11/2019 12:43:28:

I remember reading about someone cutting through iron bars using thread wetted and dipped in sandy dust off the floor. Took ages so the cut was disguised with more dirt.

That was how jade carvers cut the extremely hard jade.

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