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Highlands Motoring Festival
On the second Saturday of June, the Town of Highlands hosts an annual charity car show known as Highlands Motoring Festival. “Gearheads”, from far and wide, take over the town for the week. After more than a dozen years Highlands Motoring Festival has grown to nine events spanning four days. Great Moments of Highlands Motoring…
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KiteHouse
Modernist architect Jim Fox designed masterpiece sits on the crest of Cowee Ridge at 4,500 feet. The design was created to emphasize the incredible view of Whiteside Mountain. Fox was given two criteria. First was to allow the mountain view from everywhere in the house. Second was a large covered deck, running the length of…
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Chrysler 300
The Chrysler Letter Series Cars The glory years for the high performance automobile has to be the years after WWII. In Europe, the great marques emerged- Ferrari, Porsche, Jaguar, Mercedes, Maserati, and Aston-Martin. In America something different was brewing. The muscle car was born from the war between the big three for the performance car…
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Bugatti Masterpieces
Ettore Bugatti, coming from a family of successful artists, brought automotive craftmanship to a higher level with the design and manufacture of cars bearing his name. Many describe these cars as rolling art and the pinnacle of pre-WWII automobiles. They were inspirational for contemporaries and the generations that followed. Bugatti was one of Enzo Ferrari’s…
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External Gas Molding
External gas molding represents the latest advanced method of injection molding thin walled parts with large surface areas. The process involves the injection of a blanket of gas assist to one surface of the molded part to compensate for shrinkage on the other surface. Resin shrinkage is the cause of molded in stress, sink marks,…
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BMW Kidneys
BMW’s most enduring styling element, spanning eight decades, is demonstrated in this recollection. Photography- Steve Ham
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EGM White Paper
Measuring In-Mold Pressures with the External Gas Molding Process (2006) Jim Hendry, Brian Brookshaw, and Kamal Vinning – Cinpres Gas Injection Steve Ham – Steve Ham Plastics Abstract External Gas Molding (EGM) is an emerging new method of injection molding. One of the main claims of the process is drastically reduced packing pressures allowing low…
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Design for Function (White Paper)
STRUCTURAL PLASTICS- DESIGN FOR FUNCTION Steve HamSteve Ham Plastics, Highlands, North Carolina Abstract A methodology in producing highly functional designs is discussed. The family of injection molding processes referred to as Structural Plastics offers product designers more design liberty with net-shape moldings. The inherent high cost of “plastics” is offset with highly functional and value…
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Starship
Beechcraft Starship Model 2000 Starship The Beechcraft Starship is a twin-turboprop six- to eight-passenger pressurized business aircraft produced by Beech Aircraft Corporation (now Textron Aviation). Contents Development Development of the Starship began in 1979 when Beech decided to explore designs for a successor to its King Air line of turboprops that would fly faster and…
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Froneberger House
She is officially The “Froneberger House” circa 1892 …………. We usually just call it “Our House”. She is a grand old Victorian and has also been called: Welcome to the official web page for the Ham family residence. The home has a long history both for the town of Highlands and our family. It is…