John Stevenson

[ronan walshParticipant @ronanwalsh98054]

Just stumbled across this thread as i only drop in here occasionally, but what terribly sad news to be greeted with. Sadly people like John are a dying breed, down to earth, knowledgable and helpful. Rest in peace to the man and condolences to his family.

[thaiguzziParticipant @thaiguzzi]

RIP John.
Condolences to your children and family.

My J A Radford lathe book came via him (long story) so i'll remember him every time I pick it up.

Love and Respect,

Mike.

[john carruthersParticipant @johncarruthers46255]

A great loss, at least there is some small comfort that John's vast knowledge is not lost in this digital age. His wisdom will go on help generations of engineers.

[MM57Participant @mm57]

RIP John – we never spoke or interacted but I always enjoyed your postings and other Internet activities – thank you so much.

Condolences to Debs, your family and all friends, and a special thanks to Ketan at this difficult time.

Martin

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Vasbyte to Debs and family.

Cannot add much to that already said, other than to say that a more helpful individual would be hard to point to.

One of a kind.

Geoff – Sad!

[Steve SparrowParticipant @stevesparrow87985]

What an intelligent and practical man we have lost.

What a good friend he became with his readiness to help and his astonishing wit.

All of these things added up to a unique mix, something to be valued – and he was.

I write here with tears in my eyes not only for John but for the cruelty of life that takes so many good people well before their time.

Be thankful to have known him, being able to stand in his shadow, as only we can next to someone so talented.

Every loss diminishes us.

Rest in peace John.

Steven P. Sparrow

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Hello everyone,

Here is a picture provided by Deborah…

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

I never met him but admired his great skill and intelligence. R.I.P.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

What sad news!

I only met John once, but already knew of his skill, innovation and ready wit. To send condolences to Debs and family seems inadequate, but words are not really adequate.

The world has lost a good, down to earth, practical Engineer with a tremendous sense of humour.

Not only will he be missed in the world of Model Engineering, but throughout Industry. His skill returned many machines to productive use, rather than to the scrap yard.

He would probably never have admitted to it, but he was an environmentalist, keeping machines running that would otherwise have had to have been replaced, entailing vast expenditure of energy and material.

His work was often an inspiration.

He will be very greatly missed, by many.

Howard

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

That is very sad news indeed. I have had innumerable phone conversations with John over the years since I first met him (when he sold me his old ML7) – a typical phone conversation would last at least an hour, and would cover wide-ranging topics from gear cutting, CNC, and machining, through to reminiscences of his biking days and the time he spent in various engineering companies. I will always remember him for his generosity, his humour, and his honesty – he is a great loss, to his family, to the engineering community, and to those of us lucky enough to be able to call him a friend. He was always up for a practical joke, and sometimes his methods of conflict resolution were, shall we say, somewhat direct, but his stories about them were always told with a twinkle in the eye. A couple of anecdotes that illustrate this:

I was showing my DivisionMaster at Harrogate one year, and John had said he would drop by on the Saturday morning. He arrived a bit later than expected, looking a little sheepish. "I've had a visit from Plod" he said. Apparently, the teenage son of a neighbour was into repairing old bangers, and had two or three parked in the street – he wasn't particular about where he parked them and John had to have words a few times about said bangers blocking his driveway. This happened again on the morning of the show, so John's patience finally ran out. John got out his forklift truck, raised the forks to car side window height, and drove the forks through the side windows of the banger, raised the forks and lifted the car up bodily, took it across the road, and dropped it squarely on top of one of the other old bangers. Job done – he could now get his car out of the drive. However, apparently plod was not amused…

Or there was the time he was in his workshop and spotted a customer coming up the drive. John happened to have an old, broken portable phone lying on the bench, so he picked it up and pretended to be on the phone having an acrimonious conversation with a supplier – just as the customer came in the door, John was in full flood, turning the air blue and foaming at the mouth. He paused for breath, slammed the phone down on the bench, and beat it to smithereens with a large hammer. He turned to the customer, who was stopped in his tracks by the invective, John's glare, and the smashed phone. "Err…I'll come back later!" he said, in a trembling voice, and beat a hasty retreat.

I will miss him greatly.

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 24/10/2017 17:37:13

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

Typical – managed to miss out the best part of the second story. Here goes the full version:

Tony – I hope you don't mind, that story was so typical of John and so wonderful to read I've put the corrected version into your original post.

-Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 24/10/2017 17:38:38

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Posted by Tony Jeffree on 24/10/2017 17:33:38:

Typical – managed to miss out the best part of the second story. Here goes the full version:

John happened to have an old, broken portable phone lying on the bench, so he picked it up and pretended to be on the phone having an acrimonious conversation with a supplier – just as the customer came in the door, John was in full flood, turning the air blue and foaming at the mouth. He paused for breath, slammed the phone down on the bench, and beat it to smithereens with a large hammer. He turned to the customer, who was stopped in his tracks by the invective, John's glare, and the smashed phone. "Err…I'll come back later!" he said, in a trembling voice, and beat a hasty retreat.

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 24/10/2017 17:34:22

 

It was good even before you added the hammer

Edited By David Standing 1 on 24/10/2017 17:48:17

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Here he is grinding my milling cutters at Doncaster in 2016:

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

Posted by Tony Jeffree on 24/10/2017 17:33:38:

Typical – managed to miss out the best part of the second story. Here goes the full version:

Tony – I hope you don't mind, that story was so typical of John and so wonderful to read I've put the corrected version into your original post.

-Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 24/10/2017 17:38:38

Neil

That's absolutely fine – the "edit" option had gone away by the time I noticed the omission!

Regards,

Tony

[Ian HewsonParticipant @ianhewson99641]

RIP John , why do the good ones go before the dross?

Sue’s and my condolences to Deb’s and the family.

Edited By Ian Hewson on 24/10/2017 17:50:58

Edited By Ian Hewson on 24/10/2017 17:51:29

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

John's sad demise should make us all think about our own mortality and make the best use of the precious time we all have. Life is not a rehearsal and should be lived to the full, so grab every opportunity that life throws at you.

It was very nice to see a picture of John, a man I never met, but respected greatly.

Doug

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I have not been on the forum for a while and had come back on to ask John when the Chinese CNC controller review he was writing was likely to be ready for publication.

I then saw this thread and feared the worst.

Reading through, initially my fears were set aside with hopes that John may yet recover and I would still be able to ask my question as some form of amusing chastisement, but as the thread progressed I eventually reached the news that he had sadly lost the fight.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but we did have a couple of exchanges on this forum on CNC related topics, and I always enjoyed reading any thread he had chosen to post a response to – every one brought a smile to my face.

My condolences to the Delectable Debs, friends and family – RIP John you will be sorely missed.

Tim Moores

[Anonymous]

Posted by Douglas Johnston on 24/10/2017 19:07:21:

John's sad demise should make us all think about our own mortality and make the best use of the precious time we all have.

Too true. I was shocked to find that John wasn't much older than me. I'm going to have to get my rear into high gear if I'm going to finish my traction engines before kicking the bucket.

Andrew

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

First met His Highness at Arrowgate yonks ago. Couldn't believe he wasn't Yorkshire bred with his sharp sense of humour. On one of his forays into Gods own county with Gert to buy some porcelain from Huddersfield got a message to "Put t' kettle on." Where are you said I? "Parked outside"

They came in for a cuppa and chin wag and after a while decided they were going for a "Pint and a pie" at a pub they'd noticed down on the border. That was three hours later, couldn't believe where the time had gone. Met again at the big "H", despite trying to escape, every time I turned round, like Connolly's proverbial "F*rt in a space suit," John was there. Managed that year to block one of the isles with a gathering of "Madmodders", John Rudd should remember and Boggy had acquired his electric Ferrari and proceeded to be an objectionable s*d trying to mow everybody down with it.

Last meeting was at the last Harrogate show, looked a bit weary then, but still lively conversation while grinding cutters on the moon lander. Not only will a lot of ME's regret him not being at the exhibition again, but wonder how many businesses in the Nottingham area will have to build in increased costs due to having to buy new and the attendant delay in delivery rather than rely on John's "Get the show back on the road" service?

Was a pleasure to meet and know a practical engineer, You will be sadly missed mate. Sincere condolences to Adam and the old family and Debs and his recent "new" one.

 

Ian Holdsworth.

 

Bet the awd bu**er reground and sharpened the reaper's scythe before he was allowed to use it.

Edited By Circlip on 25/10/2017 12:56:15

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

Absolutely gutted by this very sad loss.

I first came across John probably over ten years on uk.rec.me The group was being plagued by a disruptive troll and had been for some time. John decided enough was enough, posted the troll's real name, full home address and telephone number and signed off the post with a John type challenge. End of troll. How he tracked the guy down I never found out.

I only met John once, at Harrogate quite a few years ago now.

Despite that, his 'fingerprints' are all over my workshop.

My variable speed chinese lathe now has two ratio's – thanks to John
My Stuart Victoria uses bevel gears to drive the governor – parallel depth method, explained freely by John
I have a digital caliper on the bench, with the lower jaw ground away to make an 'odd legs' pair – bodge by John
The liner on my Nemett – my first model – rescued on the final cuts by John explaining sharp HSS, low speed…
Then of course the 'cat's cradle' for holding odd shaped bits in the lathe.
Almost forgot – I use Sharpie Magnum black markers for marking out, rather than engineers marking out fluid.

There will be more – this just the stuff 'at hand' so he is all over my workshop and that's true of so many of us.

John to me was THE stand out guy.

Condolences and deepest sympathy to his family and friends – if we miss him, imagine what it must be like for his loved ones.

Steve

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Neil,

This is a big ask but could all of John's posts, obviously subject relevant, be grouped in one place for access to all.

Martin P

[Bill StarlingParticipant @billstarling10428]

Excellent idea and a fitting tribute.

Bill.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Like any other forum member, present or past, you just have to click the number of posts under their name to see all their posts, so find one of his posts and click the number or use this link:

John Stephenson's posts

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Excellent in principle, Neil

Regrettably they [254 pages of them, since 2009] only appear to be indexed by date.

I know it's "a big ask" but … is there any reasonable way that they can be searched ?

[sorry, I'm not volunteering to build a database … just wondering]

MichaelG.

[RobboParticipant @robbo]

Perhaps the "Bodgers Lodge" series could be extracted and kept as a link rather than just left as a thread

[Author]

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