Military Grade Foam

[Eric]

I was just watching an episode of How It's Made. They were building electric fiberglass boats. The narrator explained how they use 'Military Grade Foam', which makes the boat unsinkable.I enjoy watching shows about how things are manufactured, but whoever writes the copy for How It's Made is a ******* idiot. At least once every episode, they will say something ranging from incorrect, to completely ridiculous. I'm assuming that this is usually because the person writing the copy didn't understand what the rep from the company who manufactured a given item told them about the process. How difficult would it be to get that rep to proofread what they write though? I'm guessing they just don't give a ****.

FWIW, in my experience, 'Military Grade' simply means the crap built by the lowest bidder.

[railfancwb]

Military Grade - once a subtle inference of quality and value, now a warning?

[Fog]

Military grade foam won't sink because someone somewhere with some rank told it not to.

Just ask the rank guy and he'll tell you.

[Batesmotel]

The foam won’t sink because the military contract was for high density non-buoyant sealant. 

[tous]

Just like aircraft-grade aluminum.

It's an aluminum alloy.

They put in aircraft.

 

[gwalchmai]

I enjoy the breathless internet warnings about guys with "military training". 

[janice6]

On 3/26/2024 at 8:15 PM, Eric said:

I was just watching an episode of How It's Made. They were building electric fiberglass boats. The narrator explained how they use 'Military Grade Foam', which makes the boat unsinkable.I enjoy watching shows about how things are manufactured, but whoever writes the copy for How It's Made is a ******* idiot. At least once every episode, they will say something ranging from incorrect, to completely ridiculous. I'm assuming that this is usually because the person writing the copy didn't understand what the rep from the company who manufactured a given item told them about the process. How difficult would it be to get that rep to proofread what they write though? I'm guessing they just don't give a ****.

FWIW, in my experience, 'Military Grade' simply means the crap built by the lowest bidder.

I worked with and on Mil-Spec and even was a party to writing some Mil-Specs.  "Military Grade" means absolutely nothing at all.  And yes.  Those writers are idiots for the most part.

[tous]

Never give a petty bureaucrat the power to do anything.

I suspect that janice is very familiar with this phenomena.

If I needed a resistor, do you think that I could just go one down to Radio Shack and buy some, but -- no!

i had to assign member of my group to write specifications, the mil-spec, for the resistor I wanted.

After many months and many reviews by both company and military superiors -- and lawyers, many, many lawyers -- an RFP would be written and published.

Months turned into years as proposals to supply resistors based on that mil-spec were evaluated, politicians were informed and urged to comment, more lawyers reviewed them, RFPs were modified and re-issued.

Finally, after a year or two, two suppliers, recommended by the politicians, were awarded a contract to produce the resistor -- 500,000 of them.

Per year.

For ten years.

Military projects were not allowed to use single-source suppliers for critical parts.

 

It required 500 people and two years to get a resistor that I couldn't remember why I wanted it.

 

Next time, I just bought the part locally and shut up.

 

 

[janice6]

58 minutes ago, tous said:

Never give a petty bureaucrat the power to do anything.

I suspect that janice is very familiar with this phenomena.

If I needed a resistor, do you think that I could just go one down to Radio Shack and buy some, but -- no!

i had to assign member of my group to write specifications, the mil-spec, for the resistor I wanted.

After many months and many reviews by both company and military superiors -- and lawyers, many, many lawyers -- an RFP would be written and published.

Months turned into years as proposals to supply resistors based on that mil-spec were evaluated, politicians were informed and urged to comment, more lawyers reviewed them, RFPs were modified and re-issued.

Finally, after a year or two, two suppliers, recommended by the politicians, were awarded a contract to produce the resistor -- 500,000 of them.

Per year.

For ten years.

Military projects were not allowed to use single-source suppliers for critical parts.

 

It required 500 people and two years to get a resistor that I couldn't remember why I wanted it.

 

Next time, I just bought the part locally and shut up.

 

 

We used to do our own Mil-Spec testing to verify the batch met all requirements.  You are right in the procedure to "buy" resistors for use in a military product.  However, we were a Research Department and we could use the resistors that passed all Mil-Spec testing, for experimental use.

The rule was very specific for us that we could not use those tested devices for anything that was to be in a "deliverable" to the customer (the Military).

[tous]

Now folk know why toilet seats cost $500.00.

McDonnell Douglas didn't really make much money from the unit sales of an aircraft.

It was the long-term spares and improvement programs that lasted 30 years or so that rung the cash register.

That, and foreign sales -- subsidized by the US taxpayer.

 

Those that were never exposed to the government way of doing business will not believe the stupid that went on and the cost of stupid.

Every six months or so, the FBI would come in and seize about every piece of paper in sight based on DoD and GAO subpoenas to make sure that we we following every one of the arcane and bewildering rules.

GAO had a huge lawsuit against us because they disagreed with the method our accounting departments rounded to the nearest penny. 

We followed GAAP, but GAO made up their own rules.

It must have cost hundreds of millions and involved hundreds of lawyers on both sides to litigate.

In the end, GAO just shrugged and decided, never mind. 

 

NEVER give a bureaucrat, especially the idiots, the power to do anything!

 

So, there.

 

[Silentpoet]

Just buying tires was an exercise in frustration when I worked for the state.  They pissed off the supplier in our town over disputing a 5-7 dollar valve stem fee.  So I got to drive 50 miles to the nearest approved tire dealer.  One time I got to drive back with one tire minus 2 lug studs because they broke on out old state car.  We could get repair and service work done locally, but the tires were a special ordeal.  I can't imagine the federal government is any saner.