The State of New York is selling granite slabs. These slabs are not polished but are sheets. Each sheet is 3" thick! Each sheet measures 6 foot x 6 foot. These would be wonderful Holography tables!
Presently, the cost is at.....$550.
The catch is, one must pick them up or have them shipped.
YES! I said...'them'...for you see, that $550. buys not one, not two...nope!...but 60 (sixty) slabs!! That is $8.50 each!! not including shipping BUT!....someone of you must pick them up on a large flatbed and drive around the country passing them out. Now I would pay $50. and consider it a wonderful deal if someone wants to truck one up to my lab! I'd maybe pay more, and so would the other 59 Holographers who have a clue about what a great table top these would make... Let's say, 60 Holographers were willing to shell out $100. (or slightly more?), well, that's $6,000. minus the truck (borrow or lease), gas, and time to drive this beautiful country in the summertime!! European folk who want to see the U.S., meet 60 Holographers!!, get in serious shape, and make some good money might consider this deal as a great way to finance the experience....so,
"... granite slabs. These slabs are not polished but are sheets. Each sheet is 3" thick! Each sheet measures 6 foot x 6 foot. These would be wonderful Holography tables!"
Agreed, granite is a wonderful stuff for holography tables!
At an average granite density of 166.5 lb per cubic foot, I calculate that 60 6x6x0.25 ft. slabs (a 15 foot high stack) would weigh about 15,000 lbs. Might need to tip the UPS guy when he delivers it to your 13th floor apartment:)
> Might need to tip the UPS guy when he delivers it to your 13th floor apartment:)
Having rode the frieght elevator all day and all of most of the next night, John...the friendly neighborhood UPS Guy, finally gave up trying to deliver the 7 ton granite slab..."Damn elevator! Doesn't seem to stop on no damn! 13th floor! Dang nabit!" The 7 ton granite slab from New York state, can be found lodged deeply into the concrete sidewalk, 2 feet from the curb ...after being rolled out of a 'damn!' 14th floor, window. When asked for a comment, ...neither UPS, nor John, had one.
A reasonable flat bed and a small forklift could do the whole job. Figure $25. per day, and $.22 per mile. Crisscrossing the truck across the U.S. twice = 8,000 miles or $1760. and 60 days = $1500. as the driver would stay that evening to rest, eat and shower at the Holographer's place. That's $3260. A 15% contingency of $500. in addition for extra days and weird side trips... = $3760. Figure that each Holographer would pay $150. for a slab = $9000. - $3760 = $5240.profit! Now imagine taking pictures the whole way, alerting the media, and then writing a book (with Holograms bound in of course) on the 8,000 MILE <PROJECT HOLOSLAB!>: Cross Country Art Junket! Pass out embossed foil business cards and sell T-Shirts! I bet!...it would make the national news and even earn an invite onto a talk show!?
A quick run through the math tells me that the table would deflect 5 wavelengths of 658nm light with a 100lb applied weight and simply supported ends. That is slightly better than my 8 wavelengths on my table. I could use more room. I'd take one. Jon, are you volenteering to make this happen?
Surprisingly, granite tables are brittle and will break under their own weight if not handled correctly. ( We broke a 4'x8'x1' reference plate learning how to pick it up with a fork lift. ) Something with a ratio like 6'x 6' x 3" ( architectural facing materials ) is meant to be well supported.
Also granite for facing materials ( unlike industrial reference plates ) is usually fairly coarse grained and often has interesting esthetic features that can act as fracture points.
Buy 3-4 and epoxy them in a stack. It gets around the fracture regions and gives you a better stiffness ratio. Of course, it's a little heavy for most residential use. But granite makes a wonderful table.
I know where there's another granite slab in NY...
My very first table was a leftover from somebody's kitchen countertop - a very lovely red granite... which was unfortunate for a holographer with only a HeNe.
Anyway, when we were moving away from NY, the moving van was adding up the weight - and $$$ - of all my "stuff" and at the last minute we abandoned the slab. However, I lived in somebody's attic, and didn't want to mess with disposal, so, well, we wrestled the slab into a cubby hole in the eaves and beat feet.
Lol...I suspect there are a few that suffered a similar fate. I built one of my first tables using a stack of 1" granite facing epoxied together. Easy to build since they only weighed about 90 lbs each ( a really small table ) but if you epoxy 4 of them together.... It was in a 3rd floor condo store room and somehow didn't get packed. A great table though..
...when the small earthquake hit the area, few were concerned as only a scattering of picture frames were set asunder... but the owners of Condo 2A and Condo 1A arrived home that evening to find a rectangular hole in their ceilings (and in the case of 2A, in their floor too!)!
After repair, the mistress of Condo 1A reports that the new kitchen cutting block, apparently made of layers of granite, makes a dandy cutting board.
.. the mystery continues as many ponder just how the strange monolithic meteor managed to materialize inside! of Condo 3A without even damaging ...ITS ceiling???
