The coconut palm has a large base as stem which become slightly smaller in circumference as it goes up. Unlike any other tree, coconut tree has fruits covered by bunches of fruits only at the apex of its stem. The stem goes on to reach a height of 25 meters. The color of the stem is light grey which is supported well by the thick mesh structure of roots. Coconut palms produce inflorescences at angle between the base of the leaf-stalk and the trunk which bear both male and female flowers. The fruits, which grow from fertilized female flowers, take a year to develop.

Coconut palms require conditions of high humidity and plenty of sunlight. They will grow on a wide variety of well-drained soils but a constant supply of fresh water is essential. These conditions are often available on sea shores. Harvesting fruits from tall palms can be so difficult that in some coconut-growing areas in Indonesia and Thailand the pig-tailed macaque monkey has been trained to climb the trees to collect the nuts. The monkeys are well-treated and prized for their skill. Coconuts are harvested every two months throughout the year.

The coconut palm may have originated in the lands around the western Pacific. It was also dispersed by ocean currents, with the seeds protected by the fibrous fruit. Germinating coconuts were found washed up on the shores of the newly-born volcanic island, Anak Krakatoa, in the 1930s.Coconut palms have been known and used in India for 3,000 years. A letter written by an Arab trader of the eleventh century noted that the fibre from the palm was resistant to sea water. The Arab traders also taught the population of the Sinhalese and Malabar coast how to prepare the fibre from the nut, since by this time the palm was widespread along the Indo-Malaysian coast. When Marco Polo visited China in the fourteenth century, he was told that coir fibre from the 'Indian Nut' had been used by the Chinese for 500 years. In the mid-sixteenth century the palm was introduced into Spain and Portugal, Brazil and Puerto Rico by sea-faring traders. The name 'coconut' may have been coined by Spanish sailors to describe the monkey-faced appearance of the coconut.

Alpacas are animals living at high altitudes found in Peru in South America bearing striking resemblance to Camels. There are approximately three million alpacas worldwide with approximately 80 percent of these in Peru. The industry in South America does not export the raw fibre material – it is processed in Peru into products for export. Products include clothing, yarns, and knitwear and craft products. Alpacas have big camel's hooves which don't sink into the soil and cause damage. As an animal species exploited for its fibre it is relatively ecologically friendly. There are two types of alpaca; the huacaya, which accounts for 80 percent of the total and the suri which makes up the remaining 20 percent.

The fibre of the suri is the longest and the most prized. The fibre is fine and silky, between 20-34 microns in diameter and 8-12 cms in length. Colors range from pure white to various shades of white, with some reddish browns and grays and black. This color range means dying is not necessary. The fibre is shorn from the alpacas. The fibre is neither allergenic nor itchy and can therefore be worn by people with sensitive skins. In South America where most alpacas are farmed, they are usually raised in their natural habitat where they eat plants they cut with their teeth without uprooting them. This allows the high altitude region where they live to continue to prosper. Alpaca fibers are also bio-degradable and are in good demand during the cold seasons. However Alpaca industry is mainly concentrated across the South American regions only.

Sisal plant leaves are used for making fibres. The sisal plant produces approximately three hundred leaves throughout its productive period. To extract the fibre the leaves are crushed and the pulp scraped from the fibre. This is then washed and dried. The sisal fibre strands are usually creamy white in color. When harvested, the sisal fibre is coarse and relatively inflexible. The process of turning these fibres into silky fabric involves a high degree of beating and pulping. The result is a fabric that is light enough to be worn in the hottest weather. It is able to be woven into nearly invisible sheers and is used as a replacement for silk. Because of the amount of work to process the sisal into this sheer fabric its value is very high.

Despite these excellent qualities, sisal is most commonly used for more practical products e.g. for cordage because of its strength, durability, ability to stretch and its resistance to deterioration in salt water. Other common products are sisal twine, matting, rugs, and brushes. In recent years, China has maintained approximately 12,000 hectares of sisal production. This area produces around 40,000 tonnes of fibres. This level of production means that China accounts for approximately 11-13 percent of total world production. Sisal products of Chinese origin first entered the world market in the late 1970s. Sisal fibre is a good replacement for silk fibre. As sisal fibre is obtained from plants its kind of bio-degradable this is the need of the hour for better environment, globally.

Nearly every construction project involves some form of cutting concrete or core boring. While cutting concrete may seem fairly simple and straightforward, in actual practice there are several considerations to keep in mind to have a safe and successful concrete cutting or boring project.

Fist, you must know that concrete dust is potentially damaging to the lung sinuses and eyes. Concrete dust also becomes corrosive and abrasive and may damage surrounding finish.

Dust control becomes an important consideration when cutting concrete either with a saw or a drill or core boring bit. The two most common dust control methods are wet cutting where the dust is collected in the cooling water and pneumatic devices that pull the dust away in an air stream.

When using a diamond cutting blade or other abrasive disk cutting device such as concrete saw, the water also serves to lubricate and cool the cutting tools. Consideration must me made to handle the spillage of cooling water on to the surface being cut. Drainage must be provided or a vacuum system like a wet vac can be used to control the spread of the cooling water.

When using electric powered tools, adequate grounding, insulation and appropriate ground fault protection must be provided. Standing in a puddle of water while operating and electric tool can be fatal if proper protections are not in place.

An extra precaution must be added when using core drilling machine. Many of these machines rely on suction to keep the bas in place during the drilling operation. The friction of the base suctioned against the floor provides the resistance to rotation while drilling.

Two competing factors come in to play during the lock down operation. The slicker the floor, the better the suction seal will be. However, there will be less resistance to rotation due to friction from the slick floor. Especially if the concrete is wet. Also, while a rough floor may provide more friction, the roughness will not allow a strong vacuum seal against the floor.

In either case the vacuum seal is not completely reliable and may fail during the drilling operation. The operator must be keenly aware of the possibility that the machine base my rotate violently without warning. The operator must keep his body out of the possible rotation path of the machine bas at all times during a core drilling operation.

A more reliable method of securing the machine is to set a simple concrete anchor through the base in addition to the vacuum seal. Most machines have a provision for such an anchor and the small hole required for the anchor is easily repaired in the concrete floor.

When making any kind of cut in concrete be it a straight line cut with a concrete saw or making a round hole with a core drill, you must also consider what is hidden in the concrete.

Not only will the concrete contain re bar and rocks that can snag the cutting tool, but often plumbing lines and electrical conduit are often buried in the concrete. And they will likely not be exactly where the drawings show them to be.

Before any concrete cutting operation take care to locate as precisely as possible any pipes or conduit that may be buried in the concrete.

A cutting blade will slice through a conduit with ease often shorting the wires together on the blade. However, care must be taken that the operator does not become the ground path instead of the conduit or other wires. If possible, de energize any power lines that may be in the vicinity of the cutting or drilling operation.

Concrete cutting requires sharp tools, quality equipment in good repair, a good supply of cooling water and a skilled operator. Operating concrete cutting equipment can be simple and safe, but the operator must be familiar with the potential hazards and know all the functions of the equipment he is operating.

London, it goes without saying, is big. Very big. Twelve million people, 117 square miles, it is the largest city in Europe and the most important financially. It has an extremely complicated infrastructure with varying degrees of efficiency. So much so that skip prices vary massively from Cockfosters to Morden and from Ealing to Walthamstow.

This is mainly down to real estate prices, haulage and landfill costs (although we recycle most of the waste in our skips, there is a small percentage that has to go to landfill).

One of the biggest expenses pertaining to skip hire in London is the cost of the skip permit. If a skip is placed on a public highway then permit must be obtained from the council. In a city like London where driveways are scarce and on road parking even scarcer, many people looking to hire a skip will find themselves with this extra expense.

In London, there is no set rule for these permits - each borough has their own set of rules. Some councils like Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham and Islington insist that the customer has to organise the permit. Others demand that the skip company has to arrange it. This is because it is sometimes necessary for the house owner to outline fully where the skip will be positioned. Some councils like Wandsworth charge up to £107 for a permit, others like Ealing cost £20. Some permits last one week, others last three months. The variance is incomprehensible, but one thing is certain, they are STRICTLY NECESSARY. Without one, both the skip hire company and the customer could face fines running into thousands of pounds.

Of course there are other charges, including the infamous congestion charge. If you need a skip in the following postcodes, W1, W2, W8, W10, W11, W14, WC1, WC2, SW1, SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10, EC1, EC2, EC3 or EC4, you are required to pay congestion zone charges. This charge is £8 each day the skip wagon enters the zone. So if you want the skip delivered on Monday and picked up Thursday it will cost £16. If the skip is going to be delivered and collected on the Monday, it will only be £8.

To keep the cost of skip hire in London down to a minimum, Topskips can offer is a 'wait and load' service. This is where the wagon arrives at your site with an empty skip and waits for 30-45 minutes while you load all your waste in to it. This eliminates the cost of a permit and keeps the congestion charge (if you live in the zone) to the £8 minimum. It also prevents the old and extremely irritating problem of your neighbors using your skip to get rid of their waste!

As a product manager for EZset LLC I wonder why OEM's, machine distributors, reps etc will not stress the need for the customer to maximize their CNC machines. As I walk the shows everyone is so anxious to get their machine sold that the customer along with their jobs are being sold overseas. Everyone wants to go fast, and keep machines running, yet most everyone I talk to do not provide the customer with the full picture of why off-line tool presetting is necessary.

"We have a laser, that gets our dimensions for the machine. We have a probe we use." That is all well and good, but what is the machine doing while this process is happening? Sitting and not producing chips. Touch off, cycle, touch off, cycle, touch off, what is happening there? Manufacturing facilities are wasting valuable material they paid so much for and now it is going into the waste bin for someone else to profit. Did you ever wonder what your operator is doing while his machine is running? I'm sure they are checking their work to make sure everything is going to specs, but once that it is determine, why not setup their next job by presetting his tools. Everyone of us has to multi-task in our jobs and hopefully you have your operators doing the same. Off-line presetting while rather old in terms of using height gauges, v blocks etc has come to play an important part in the manufacturing industry. As companies prepare to get into the "lean manufacturing concept", technology has given us a new way of preparing our tools. We can increase revenue, reduce cost, and increase productivity.

In under 10 seconds you can get your offsets printed to a label or sent via software to your CNC machining centers. By doing this, your company can bring additional business, increase its revenue as time constraints have been reduce along with set up times. You have no more touch offs, saving money and not wasting valuable material, your first part is a good part. Most presenters can give you the advantage of viewing tools via a camera. They check for wear, quality issues or even tell you a story of how the machine is running. This saves money and time because the operator can change the tool before it goes on the machine. These little things can add up to a big savings each year for a company. One presetter in your facility can increase revenue 12-15% and your ROI will be realized depending on machines within a matter of months.

You can visualize from my article, we don't need bigger faster machines to do the work. We need to become educated, analyze our internal processes, become lean and more competitive against the foreign market. Machine distributors, reps and OEM's need to provide their customers the full picture, not just selling what their machines can do. We need to give the customer the best possible way to maximize those machines and remain efficient and productive.