# Great Design Principles with Sheet Metal



## CalgaryPT (Mar 7, 2022)

There's a lot of discussion these days about supply challenges in the military (sadly for obvious reasons). This video showed up in my feed and I was fascinated by it. I love learning how problems in fabrication get solved and how the lessons learned persist for decades—eventually finding their way into our modern design interpretations. This is a great example with sheet metal. In fact, the modern plastic ones used now (and that I recall from my reservist days) can been seen in the Princess Auto version of the can for...wait for it...$99.00.


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## Susquatch (Mar 7, 2022)

CalgaryPT said:


> There's a lot of discussion these days about supply challenges in the military (sadly for obvious reasons). This video showed up in my feed and I was fascinated by it. I love learning how problems in fabrication get solved and how the lessons learned persist for decades—eventually finding their way into our modern design interpretations. This is a great example with sheet metal. In fact, the modern plastic ones used now (and that I recall from my reservist days) can been seen in the Princess Auto version of the can for...wait for it...$99.00.



Guy is wrong about at least one thing and he got himself all wet to prove it.

The top bubble is a bubble trap but not so it can float. It's so that you can't fill it more than what can be handled through thermal expansion of the fuel. The last thing anyone wants is a ruptured fuel can resulting from filling it cold and then letting it soak on a hot day. Besides which, fuel is lighter than water and would float even completely full despite the weight of the steel container.

I quit watching after that.

But I confess that the Jerry can really is a cool and clever design.

I love the triple handles so you can carry two at once.


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## DPittman (Mar 7, 2022)

Interesting, I would not have watched that with out the recommend, thanks.
  While I've always liked the look of the metal Jerry can, I could never figure out why anyone would pay so much for them when there was a plastic choice available at a fraction of the cost.  I didn't realize the original steel ones had a plastic liner in them.  I bet the princess auto version does not.


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## Susquatch (Mar 7, 2022)

Hey @CalgaryPT .  Hope I didn't offend you with my comments above. 

I don't really like YouTube to begin with. It bugs me when people do and say stuff like that when they don't really know what they are talking about. 

But I do appreciate you sharing something you enjoyed and I do think Jerry Cans are cool.


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## CalgaryPT (Mar 7, 2022)

DPittman said:


> Interesting, I would not have watched that with out the recommend, thanks.
> While I've always liked the look of the metal Jerry can, I could never figure out why anyone would pay so much for them when there was a plastic choice available at a fraction of the cost.  I didn't realize the original steel ones had a plastic liner in them.  I bet the princess auto version does not.


In fact the PA version are completely plastic. 99 bucks is quite a price for something you can get for 1/3 of the cost at Canadian Tire in the modern red plastic version. But the plastic liner in the original ones was way ahead of its time. I remember as a young boy going to the military surplus store with my dad, who was infatuated with those cans. They had a bunch there at the time. He bought a few, as well as a surplus tent like the ones he used to sleep in before D-Day. We had them for years afterwards. We eventually strapped them under pieces of wood and made a raft out of them...floating down the Oldman river on them in Lethbridge. Lots of fun.


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## DPittman (Mar 7, 2022)

CalgaryPT said:


> In fact the PA version are completely plastic.


Oh by George I thought there were steel ones at PA every now and then. I must confess that the price of them kept me from investigating them any closer than 10 feet.

Too bad the dumb heads that came up with the "self venting" plastic Jerry can that were so common just a few years ago didn't have the design smarts that the inventors of the original jerry cans of 80-90 years ago had.


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## CalgaryPT (Mar 7, 2022)

Susquatch said:


> Hey @CalgaryPT .  Hope I didn't offend you with my comments above.
> 
> I don't really like YouTube to begin with. It bugs me when people do and say stuff like that when they don't really know what they are talking about.
> 
> But I do appreciate you sharing something you enjoyed and I do think Jerry Cans are cool.


Of course not. I agree with you totally and thought the point about the bubble missed the mark entirely. But it's hard to be a expert on an item that is almost 100 years old and has been copied endlessly w/o the benefit of the original designer being still around. I suspect it got into my feed because of the pressings in the sheet metal, which could be done with bead rolling which I am always searching up. I don't think they were there for expansion purposes, as they would actually make the metal _less_ flexible, not more (think bomber seats). So I think he may be off base about that too. But I like the two part design, the handles, the fact that no wrench was required, the rubber seal, the recessed welded seam and a few other points. If you ever use an older Fluke multimeter, they use the exact principle—the outside protruding yellow rubber is high enough above the plastic controls and display that it protects it when it falls. I actually saw a guy throw one across a shop once and it survived perfectly. There was a video (can't find it now) about the engineering in that rubber case and how much math was crunched to get it right so as to protect the face of the meter. (Sadly the newer ones seem to abandon this principle I think).

The cynic in me says the poster got the idea in his head about buoyancy from an old timer who passed it on. I can totally picture a Master Corp. or Sgt. telling a group of recruits, "Don't worry boys, if you get tossed overboard and you can grab a Jerrycan, that bubble there (LOOK WHERE I AM POINTING DUMB*SSES) will save your bacon." It's the exact kind of thing I was told in the reserves in many cases, about many things. It was total B.S., but calmed you down and made you feel safer. 80 years later everyone remembers those instructions, and thus history is falsely created.  But no one questioned it at the time.


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## Susquatch (Mar 7, 2022)

CalgaryPT said:


> Of course not. I agree with with you totally and thought the point about the bubble missed the mark entirely. But it's hard to be a expert on an item that is almost 100 years old and has been copied endlessly w/o the benefit of the original designer being still around. I suspect it got into my feed because of the pressings in the sheet metal, which could be done with bead rolling which I am always searching up. I don't think they were there for expansion purposes, as they would actually make the metal _less_ flexible, not more (think bomber seats). So I think he may be off base about that too. But I like the two part design, the handles, the spout, the fact that no wrench was required, the rubber seal, the recessed welded seam and a few other points. If you ever use an older Fluke multimeter, they use the exact principle in reverse—the outside protruding yellow rubber is high enough above the plastic controls and display that it protects it when it falls. I actually saw a guy throw one across a shop once and it survived perfectly. There was a video (can't find it now) about the engineering in that rubber case and how much math was crunched to get it the right so as to protect the face of the meter. (Sadly the newer ones seem to abandon this principle I think).
> 
> The cynic in me says the poster got the idea in his head about buoyancy from an old timer who passed it on. I can totally picture a Master Corp. or Sgt. telling a group of recruits, "Don't worry boys, if you get tossed overboard and you can grab a Jerrycan, that bubble there (LOOK WHERE I AM POINTING DUMB*SSES) will save your bacon." It's the exact kind of thing I was told in the reserves in many cases, about many things. It was total B.S., but calmed you down and made you feel safer. 80 years later everyone remembers those instructions, and thus history is falsely created.  But no one questioned it at the time.



I have an older fluke and love it for that reason and more. I have some newer flukes too - not as robust but still nice meters. 

Had a similar demo done by HP when they introduced their first scientific calculators. Pitched it like a baseball! Then asked someone to pick it up and turn it on. Amazing! PalmPilot did it again with their Centros. But when Samsung tried that with their phone the device didn't just break, it shattered. Too Funny!


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## DPittman (Mar 9, 2022)

They are on sale.   Still too much more than the red alternative if you ask me.


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## CalgaryPT (Mar 10, 2022)

Just an update here. I was at PA yesterday killing time and looked closely at the plastic one. Holy cow that thing is robust. The plastic is thick and yes, there is a vent tube to the back of the can. The rubber seal is solid and the cap is captive. The handles are super strong. 

I get the price tag now, but it’s still too dear for my retirement salary. 

If I were a clever type and wished for any improvement it would be a handle on the base. That way when only one person is tipping it, you would have somewhere to hold on to.


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## Susquatch (Mar 10, 2022)

CalgaryPT said:


> If I were a clever type and wished for any improvement it would be a handle on the base. That way when only one person is tipping it, you would have somewhere to hold on to.



Excellent idea! I'd buy that!


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