Member postings for Russell Eberhardt

Add to that mercury being played with at school, making various explosives in my parent's garage (the best one was nitrogen tri-iodide), etching glass with hydrofloric acid, etc.

Regards from another mid septagenarian surviver.

Russell

+1 for Onshape. I have used Solidworks in the past (before retirement) and I find Onshape similarly intuitive to use, being produced by a group of ex Solidworks people, so I might be biased. It is free and shows no signs of disappearing after six years or so. It will export STL files for 3D printing and create 2D drawings from the model.

The only downside is that, being browser based it can get rather slow for complicated models. I have however managed to import a complete Antikithera mechanism into it so it will certainly handle most of our needs!

Russell

For RF transparency I would avoid any black plastics as the common pigment used is carbon black which will make it rather lossy depending on frequency. For making printed UHF antennas we used to use clear high impact polystyrene but I guess that is not what the OP wants.

Russell

Russell.

Polycarbonate.

Russell

I've found Abbey blue gel to be effective and long lasting. I've used it on an old Laguiole David knife that a visitor had put in the dishwasher and removed the original blueing! After use they should just be wiped down with a drop of red wine to clean and sterilise them. Just dip your finger in the wine that accompanied your steak!

Russell

When I bought my first milling machine, about 17 years ago, I followed Harold Hall's "Milling a complete course" and found it very instructive. The first project after making T-nuts was an angle plate, again using the CES castings. While buying chinese angle plates is quicker and cheaper that doesn't give a beginner the same experience.

I commend the OP for trying to take that route.

Russell

Not much of a secret. Lanchester used that idea back in the 1930s they even used it with the shafts geared up to remove vibration harmonics on six cylinder engines.

Russell

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 12/05/2021 10:03:46

If it's the X1 type mill the column should come off O.K. with the nut removed. I would try a bit of penetrating oil and work it up and down a bit as you pull. ARC have some dismantling guides on their websites for their versions that might help.

Russell

Unfortunately very few FM radios are fitted with a proper aerial socket and the built in whip aerials are woefully inadequate. For best operation a whip aerial should be 1/4 wave, that is about 75 cm, long. The other problem is that in a house the signal will come from multiple paths each with a slightly different delay and interfere with each other. For compact reliable reception a WiFi receiver of some sort is much more reliable and easy to set up.

Russell

If you have an Android phone or tablet the "ClockSync" app gives you clock time derived from NTP with better than 10mS precision. Alternatively there are GPS time apps but they (only !) give 300 mS precision due to deficiencies in Android.

Russell

I have suffered similar problems for years with my FM radio alarm clock. Some days good reception of our local (about 15 km away) radio station other days reception would come and go as I walked about the room. DAB is not available in this area.

I spent about £40 on a Google Nest Mini and told it to set a daily alarm for 7 AM and play our local station. I can also use it to play any one of thousands of radio stations by just saying "Hey Google, play BBC radio three" for example. The sound quality is much better than I expected from such a small device but if I want real quality I can cast to my TV which outputs sound to my HiFi.

Russell

If they are glass, use jeweler's rouge. If Acrylic use Perspex polish but note it's not suitable for polycarbonate.

Russell

Just received a new subscriber number by email. It now works thanks.

Still can't figure out why it stopped working while the website showed that I still had about three weeks left of my subscription.

Russell

It's difficult not to buy Windows if you are buying a new computer. Very few vendors sell them without it so you pay for it even if you don't want it.

Russell

O.K. Thanks and have a good bank holiday.

Thanks Jason,

Yes, the ME one expired a few years ago. The MEW one was due to expire just before the end of May so should still have been valid, however I renewed it yesterday and still have no access to subscriber content.

Russell

Yesterday I tried to read the latest MEW issue on this site as I haven't yet received it in France. When I click on Magazines in the top menu bar I am told that it is subscriber only content but I AM a subscriber and have been for many years.

My subscription was valid until the end of May but as the renewal date is not far off I decided to renew it anyway in case the date was a problem. After some trouble with the Captcha on the subscription site thinking my computer was giving automated responses I eventually got my subscription renewed.

I tried again and still no access to magazines. I checked my profile and it still has my subscription number entered so no problem there.

I can access the magazines on Pocketmags but I find the web preferable.

Can someone help sort this out?

Russell

Yes they are expensive for a one off job. You could try making one yourself. As you are not meshing with an existing wheel you could use involute gears I seem to remember John Stevenson published a method for making cutters some time ago.

Meking cycloidal cutters is described here at length: making-clock-wheel-pinion-cutters

Russell

Clock wheel and pinion cutters are made in increments of 0.05 module so 0.55 is what you are looking for. You can buy them on line from Meadows and Passemore.

Russell

I still have one of these. Bought in the early 70s. The diagonal bracing makes it much more stable than the modern ones.

The bench top is high quality 13 ply, doubled up at the clamping edge. None of your MDF here!

Russell