What did you do today? (2014)

[ScottParticipant @scott]

Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 12/05/2014 19:54:29:

That said, they have lathes on board big ships !! So what do I know.

and trust me, there's absolutely no precision work done on them!

Turning/threading screw-in zinc sacrificial anodes for jacket water systems is about all I see them used for these days. Not much else

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

Those pads aren't going to move.

Today I managed to get a lick of paint on the frame – that was starting to get in the way a bit – that I built for the Donkey. Might even get a chance to do a bit on it tomorrow.

graham.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I did some more Bees today, I have been unable to visit them and open them up for a while and I wanted to see how well they were working in the poor weather we are having. Also i wanted to place more empty combs for them to draw out and fill. They have been working and I found mostly filled but not sealed combs. They evaporate the water until the honey is about 14% which is the legal limit, mostly it is far less than that. I also took a swarm that was out on the Holly bush, it was quite easy to take and put in a Nuc. box. I will start feeding it sugar water tomorrow.

Clive

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Scott,

I have made precision parts on board a ship with the ships lathe, one was a pump shaft about 18" long with several different diameters two for ball bearings and a keyway (cut on the lathe) on one end and an assortment of other things. People on board said it could not be done so just to prove a point….

Lathes on ships are bolted to the floor and although all the ship flexes and the whole ship moves about it is not too much of a problem.

The pump shaft was still running two years later!

When your in the middle of the pond there is no AA to call out.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 12/05/2014 19:54:29:

Hi Nick, are cushion feet a good idea.

 

Hi,

The rubber / compound on the base of these feet is quite firm stuff. If you look on the last photo each one is rated for a load of 2000 pounds. So it's not 'squidgy' stuff.

It's actually what they are designed for. e.g. http://www.sunnexmounts.com/content.cfm/Anti-Vibration-Mounts/OSM-Series/category_id/102/page_id/157

 

Nick

Edited By Nick_G on 13/05/2014 00:29:14

[julian atkinsParticipant @julianatkins58923]

a very great late friend of mine built an LBSC BANTAM COCK in the toolroom of HMS George V battleship! from what i remember the lathe in the toolroom wasnt that big.

cheers,

julian

[ScottParticipant @scott]

Posted by Bob Brown 1 on 12/05/2014 22:32:28:

Scott,

I have made precision parts on board a ship with the ships lathe, one was a pump shaft about 18" long with several different diameters two for ball bearings and a keyway (cut on the lathe) on one end and an assortment of other things. People on board said it could not be done so just to prove a point….

Fair play to you Bob. I've sailed with a lot of older engineers who used to use the lathe a lot more (screwcutting valve spindles and all sorts) and our lathe is actually reasonably accurate despite the abuse it gets. Unfortunately most of the younger generation of marine engineers these days don't have enough machine shop training and experience to really know what to do with a lathe and it's highly unlikely they would be worrying about the accuracy of the thing. As with most training these days the system is letting them down.

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Posted by Scott on 13/05/2014 06:38:12:

Fair play to you Bob. I've sailed with a lot of older engineers who used to use the lathe a lot more (screwcutting valve spindles and all sorts) and our lathe is actually reasonably accurate despite the abuse it gets. Unfortunately most of the younger generation of marine engineers these days don't have enough machine shop training and experience to really know what to do with a lathe and it's highly unlikely they would be worrying about the accuracy of the thing. As with most training these days the system is letting them down.

Thats a bit harsh Scott, we still teach all Naval engineering apprentices Bench fitting, Fitting and Turning, sheet metal work and all sorts of welding as part of their craft training.

Trouble is there is very little need for it on board these days with everything 'Contracted out' or 'Repair by Replacement' and a recent visit to a T42 revealed a Colchester Student that I honestly believe had never been used.

[ScottParticipant @scott]

Lofty

I don't doubt that the training is far superior in "Grey Funnel Line" but sadly the same can't be said of the commercial side. I agree that there is little need for it on board these days and yes, it's definitely becoming a case of throwing new bits at it or getting a contractor in.

Our company is considering sending newly qualified engineers to a shoreside engineering company for six months hands-on experience of fitting and machining because the training they are given to get them through an MCA Certificate of Competency isn't equipping them for the practical aspects of the job. They're all good at filling in forms on computers though!

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Scott,

You could well be correct as the site in Southampton that housed the training workshops has been redeveloped and no doubt not moved or replaced. I found that it was dependant on the level of qualification as to how much hands on training was given in the case of a BSC then it was almost zero and I worked with a cadet with a BSC in marine engineering who had problems operating a spanner!

That said I have seen instances where the supposed outside "expert" contractors have not had a clue.

In one instance they were called in to sort out the automated control system on a large marine boiler and after spending some weeks trying to sort it out with out success. After they left took me a few days to sort out their error which was reasonable easy after I had read the manual.

Off to finish plumbing in the new central heating boiler (water side), I have made an allowance for the new workshop .

Edited By Bob Brown 1 on 13/05/2014 09:53:42

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Great fun getting my bandsaw not to throw it's new blade yesterday. The Tuff-saws blades are very nice Starrett vari-pitch, but they kept jumping off the driving wheel.

After some head-scratching i discovered that when I took the slide apart to try and increase its travel, I completely banjaxed the tracking. It seems to be much happier now and I have four blanks for the suspension arms of my driving truck.

Neil

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

I was taken to Harrogate event centre (Northern ME show site) to a car trade show on Thursday by a young lad in his personally restored Triumph TR6 sports car.

He is interested in my side of the hobby but will probably never become a model engineer.

But he is creative as his car proves there are many young lads interested in various forms of engineering as a hobby.

To me personally it was so pleasing a person of his age thought of an old codger like me and gave me a pleasant day out in a car trade show.

I will be taking him to one of my lifelong interests on Sunday to National car and bike speed record attempts at Elvington.

There are worries about the young not being interested in engineering but I have found if you can communicate with them it gives them another focus in life.

Windy

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

Started making two double sided V-blocks.

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Finally have planning permission for new garage/workshop (7m x 4.5m (23' x 14.7&#39) next building control drawings then time to start digging hole!

[StevoParticipant @stevo]

Well good luck then come round and do mine..

planning permission? Not needed any so far.. what are the circumstances?

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

You need planning permission if attached, and a couple of others like conservation area.

[StevoParticipant @stevo]

Aha. Thanks… that explains

mine have been detatched in downtown suburbia!

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Went out today for some good old fashioned control line racing, the blokes from Melb & Sydney came to my home town, Albury as we have a hard racing circle. Held a stopwatch and counted laps … great fun.

When reading this thread I realised that I like to hear about Clive's bee's.. Is it just me?

* Danny M *

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Hello Danny, I have a fan club it seems. Yesterday a bee swarm interrupted the London streets when it attached itself to a shop front. 3 Beekeepers attended and safely removed them and no one was hurt. Many big name companies in London have bees on their roofs. Fortnum and Masons are one of them and sell their own honey at £20 per jar. Westminster abbey are also host to several beehives on the roof. A few days back i opened a hive and was astonished to see the honey boxes full of Drones. I went through the hive box by box and found that the Queen excluder was perfectly OK and I then removed it and looked into the brood chamber and found no Queen nor eggs or any brood. From this I assume that an egg laying worker had taken over the hive and laid eggs that all hatch as Drones in the honey boxes. There was not a lot I could do at that time so I closed them up without the Queen excluder to allow the Drones to escape as they were dying on the Queen excluder as they could not get through it. The next day i returned to clear the hive as it was not possible to save it. I found it besieged by robber bees from other hives. I took out all the honey combs so that I could spin out the honey and when I got to the brood chamber I shook off all the bees and burnt the combs and wax in a prepared fire. This left homeless bees and Drones. The worker bees would find a hive and be accepted but the Drones may not be so lucky. (They are thrown out of the hive in late Aug, anyway) The honey combs I took home and spun out the honey, I took nearly 30lb of nice clear honey and it was mainly fruit and Hawthorn as I could smell the Hawthorn fragrance. The spun out combs clear of honey I have now placed on other good hives and they will soon fill them.

Clive

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Finally made some more progress on my driving truck. Not looking for medals, just a functional design. I'm going for suspension arms with very small but powerful springs to give about 3/16" travel. The ones I got will compress 2.5mm with a load of 50lbs, which is a quarter of me. The M3 screws will give spring preload adjustment. The disk brake mechanism next, and, of course, some pivots for the suspension arms, which if designed right will stop teh springs from being able to fall out.

I'm banking on the travel not being enough to lock the bearings =:-0

Buffer blocks will be wood and large enough to be compatible with 3 1/2" and 5" buffers.

For ground level a simple wooden box will go between the seat and the chassis.

If it doesn't work, I can always use it as a skateboard

Neil

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I have a friend who is a novice who has just emailed me and he says one of his hives, A Nucleus that he has just started off is being robbed by other bees from the nearby hives. The trick is to place a sheet of glass at 45 Deg. against the front entrance of the hive. The home bees work their way either side but the robbing bees bounce off the glass as they come in straight. I have asked him to check if his Nuc. is Queen right and has brood and eggs showing, if not, that is why the other bees are robbing it! If robbing is not checked then it will spread throughout the Apiary very quickly. There is always something with the bees. As a beekeeper you get a lot of bees wax from the hives, this being, 'Cappings' that are cut off the combs prior to spinning out the honey. Also wax from old combs. How I do this is to place all the wax in a, 'Solar extractor', this a cabinet with a double glazed window and it is placed in the Sun and very high temperatures are achieved which melts all the wax down. I put the wax bits in ladies tights so it is filtered through the tights and comes out clean. I also use ladies tights to filter honey. Honey should be natural and contain Pollen, too much filtering is not good.

Clive

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Clive.

Perhaps you can help with this:

In my garden there is a low pile of sandy soil left from recent building work, I noticed today that some bees are busy flying in and out of it through various entrances.

I thought bees nested in hives etc, I did not know that they nested in the ground!

 

Apart from watching the bees I spent my day fitting a new drive belt to a Garden Tractor, amazed at the amount of pulleys and cables that I had to remove to do what looked like a fairly straightforward job.

Edited For missing letters.

 

Edited By V8Eng on 17/05/2014 21:43:31

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Oops think I should have put something like: above ground in nests etc, rather than hives.

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 17/05/2014 09:46:31:

Hello Danny, I have a fan club it seems.

Clive

Clive, it is the bees that I am a fan of. Just a few days ago I saw a BBC program about bees. The comment was made that without bees, there would be a lot less fruit, vegetables and flowers and many varieties would become extinct overnight… like 30%+ of worldwide food production.. pretty heavy.

So please keep up the good apiary work.

I went today for another fabulous day of control line flying. People came from Melbourne (180 miles) and Sydney (300 Miles). I asked a renowned speed flyer Andy K about finishing pistons and also Steve R who makes the fabulous R.250 Oliver replicas that are setting records at Barton C/L. It's in another thread, but both agreed that honing a bore and lapping or grinding a piston is how they get fabulous fits. That's also how I make them.

Regards * Danny M *

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

To V8eng, sorry no name. There are over 300 various insects that can pollinate flowers and fruit trees, it is not the domain of honey bees alone. For instance, Bluebottles are used in Tomato greenhouses to fertilize toms. Colonies of Bumble bees, ( Bombus Bombus) are used in closed cloche type greenhouses to pollinate Strawberries. The bees you are seeing are Fossor bees that make a small tunnel in soft sand or even in a stem of a plant and they lay 1 egg and seal it off then another on top and so on. A Leaf cutter bee does much the same thing using a precisely cut piece of leaf, often from a Rose bush. I have seen the whole end wall of a house mined by these bees as they burrowed into the soft mortar between the bricks. The answer was to spray it with Kero mixed with diesel. In general leave well alone as its unlikely that they will return as its a one off nesting site. They are called Solitary bees and do not have a social heirechy, things like Ants and wasps and bees are Social insects and believed by the Victorians to be the perfect society! On Fri. I was shown a pic. of Bumble bees that had taken over a bird box and they wanted a hive to put them in, needless to say it was not possible as the Bumble bee does not make comb but little thimble size honey pots.A Bumble bee colony may only consist of a Queen and about 40 workers. I will be pleased to answer any questions about bees and things.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 18/05/2014 10:31:23

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