Member postings for Keith Wyles

" for example using metric drills (available in straightforward 0.1mm increments) rather than Imperial Letter and Number drills, which are bonkers illogical. "

I have often wondered how number and letter drill sizes came about. does anyone know or is it lost in history?

A mixture of metric, imperial and letter / number drills does give you even more choice for fine tuning sizes.

I bought mine from machine mart many years ago.

Why not use 4BA?

Vic, i also assume that electric cars ought to be cheaper. Love seeing an ancient electric car when ever I go to Driffield Steam Rally. It looks really simple although range and speed are very limited, but if it had been developed rather than IC engines?
As I have got older I get more annoyed that things are thrown away rather than repaired or reused. For example, i still use a 50 year old, ex tumble dryer electric motor in my workshop. drives a picador shaft. Initially it was my grinder but more lately used for buffing, wire brushing. I am surprised that it has lasted this long due to its dusty environment. I guess most of its stablemates ended up in landfill.

From what I have seen on" vintage voltage" the gearbox is retained, but sometimes upgraded. Suspension gets upgraded to cope with the extra weight. Most upgrades seem expensive, but the vintage cars get many other upgrades to improve them. The issue is often finding space for the batteries. The biggest issue seems to be the dangerous current involved, and final fine tuning.

I have watch a couple of the vintage voltage TV programmes.
This got me thinking, with the push towards electric vehicles will there be a need for conversions as demand outstrips supply in the future.
To some extent this will depend upon what happens to the price of existing fuels and possibly if hydrogen cars become a possibility.

There are many that run cars on a shoestring and rely on a supply of old bangers.
It would seem to me that conversions of popular makes could be done on a production line. This would seem to be a green solution if it can be done for a realistic price. It might need some government intervention. My suspicion is that the car industry won't want this to happen. However, not doing anything could cause a public outcry when they realise that they can't afford to run a car any longer. Another big issue will be how the government replace the lost fuel taxes.

" Yes, agreed. I think the Whitworth form, including BSF & ME, is the optimum. Perhaps because it is product of one person's work and not a committee? "
Thanks - that sort of answers my original question. I had a feeling that this was true, but felt that standardisation at 60deg might mean this was better, I also understand that the rounded profile of the thread reduces the chance of failure due to stress, although there is a version of the Unified thread that copies it?

JA is it as simple as a greater angle means greater thread surface area, therefore greater static friction and greater lock?

Martin, I think that you have posted this on another thread. it was partly the memory of it that made me think about the initial question in the OP.

Thanks Michael.

" Only a heartless fool would suggest ,even as I assume made in jest, denying treatment to the unvaccinated as a policy of victim shaming based on the totally false "doctors have refused to treat the fat or smokers"narrative. "

Paul not false - if you are overweight doctors do refuse operations.

I get amused by anyone decrying genetic manipulation, the vast majority of food that we eat has been genetically modified, albeit using Mendalian genetics. Your genes will have been genetically altered by chemical and the other organisms that made upto 50% of your body.
I remember when Ivomectin was first being pushed by Pfizer as a pour on wormer. It has been around for animal use for some time.
No medical intervention is 100% safe. i wonder how many read the side effects of the drugs that they take? Some certainly list death as a side effect. It is a judgement on the advantages and possible side effects that has to be undertaken, the few of the general public have the ability to do this. One thing that is obvious from this pandemic is that many have read scientific papers, but lack the ability to understand what they have read..

If you don't like the idea that other organisms in your body genetically manipulate your DNA you could have them killed, but I wouldn't recommend this, it will make you very ill.

Thanks Dave, that does all make sense and answers my,possibly, simple question.

Michael, I like your idea of using a wiper motor to drive a 12" hacksaw. Have you a photo of your setup.

Anthony, the green hydrogen is made by the electrolysis of water, so burning it just recreates water. thus will have zero greenhouse effect. It has the potential to store excess renewable electrical energy for later use. It also makes use of the existing gas pipelines.

The downside is that the electrolysis does need a lot of energy, again we are back to thermodynamics.

I disagree that being vaccinated doesn't reduce the risk of you spreading the disease. Because your immune system is primed to fight the virus, you respond quicker and reduce the seriousness of the infection. As you therefore have a lower viral load you are shredding fewer virus particles reducing the risk of infecting others. Those not vaccinated also act as a reservoir for the virus.
However, antivaxxers seem to like using the argument that you can still spread it as a reason not to get the jab. One thing that has become apparent is how little people understand about risk and medical intervention. All medical interventions carry a risk, but hopefully this is less than the risk of the medical problem. Just because someone who was vaccinated gets COVID doesn't mean that the vaccine doesn't work overall.

The symptoms of the disease are not caused by the disease per se, but your immune systems response to it. Indeed in some cases death is caused by the immune systems over reaction and not the disease. Our complex genetic makeup means that some are more susceptible.
All you can do is protect yourself as best you can.

Gary, you are correct i was mainly thinking about the role of the angle, and the actual profile as well.
But i guess that it is also a question of manufacturing costs as well. For the majority of application it probably doesn't matter. I was interested in why we went from a combination of 55 and 47.5 deg to 60deg. Is 60 better or cheaper to make. Or was it simply Unified and Metric happened to be 60 and became standard.
Martin, thanks for sharing the BA minutes, they do make interesting reading. I had forgotten that I had briefly read them before. It would be interesting to see a similar discussion of Whitworth and the 60 deg threads. Although I understand that Whitworth arrived at his standard by examining threads already in use.Perhaps he arrived at a course thread because that was the norm then, and thus the need for BSF. Perhaps Unified and metric became 60 deg, just to be different and that is were we have arrived, or is their an argument for 60 deg being better.
Like many things perhaps the original reasons have been lost to history. I was, am, just curious why we arrived were we are. Is it more to do with standardisation and ease of manufacture than sound engineering principles.
Equally Whitworth spanner size shrunk to match BSF or at least a new standard allowed that to save steel (money), was the initial size because of the quality of steel, or an extravagance or for added strength or to reduce rounding from badly fitting spanners.

I will continue to use whatever I happen to have to hand, usually over-engineered, Mainly because I get fed up of fixing commercial products that have been built to a cost rather than longevity.

Again thanks to everyone who has given up their time to add their contribution.

The one thing that is always avoided is reducing the human population. Many so called greens point out that the rate of increase is slowing, but that is still an increase when in reality it needs to be reducing.

Edited By Keith Wyles on 15/11/2021 18:33:41

Gary, it was the angle that I was thinking of in my OP. Somehow I omitted to mention it. Thanks for the comments so far. The reason i said that finer threads being stronger seemed counter intuitive was that if you take it to an extreeme with tpi approaching infinity you effectively get no thread depth. As well as being impossible to thread without cross threading. So there must be an optimum beyond which getting finer shows no benefit.

As we are effectively "taxing" ourselves with the green initiatives it would seem fair to make global trade fair by taxing, heavily, imports from the likes of India and China to level things up.

Yesterday I needed some 7.5 " coach bolts, but not having any I cut up some 8mm threaded rod and added washers and nuts rather than make a trip to get some. This reminded me of a question I have often thought of asking. I have a lifetimes collection of Whitworth, Unified, BA and Metric nuts and bolts. Assuming that they are made from the same quality steel which thread form is the strongest and least likely to fail? I understand that finer threads tend to be strongest, although this seems counter intuitive to me.
i am also curious why smaller threads were not small Whitworth rather than BA. Did BA have advantages.
I understand why we have standardised, but i guess I am asking if we have standardised on the best thread form or just the most universal.
I have tried to answer this question with a google search, but failed to find an answer. perhaps it is just too complex and I need a good book. I did see one recommended, but the cost of £50 -90 did seem a lot to satisfy my curiosity.
Thanks in advance to any that share their wisdom.

Edited By Keith Wyles on 14/11/2021 18:14:11

I think that 10 by 10 might be harder to get because of its use in the Paul Sellers router design.