What did you do today? (2014)

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Picked up a 1 x 2m sheet of 1mm steel for £24 from a stockholders today. Just mild, no zintec off the shelf in easy range of home for love or money.

Tomorrow my stepson and I will try and turn the colander back into a van. I could do with an article on sheet metal work

Nice rack of shortends, but all colour coded which blew my brain a bit.

purple EN1Apb

green EN1A

red EN8

Pink EN3 (I think)

Funny how everywhere I go still uses EN numbers… my understanding is that many stockists use their 'own' colour codes, or is their an informal standard?

Neil

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

There is a standard colour code for not only steel but other materials see **LINK**

EN1a leaded (pb) is Magenta

Edited By Bob Brown 1 on 18/07/2014 15:09:37

Edited By Bob Brown 1 on 18/07/2014 15:09:56

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Just to keep up to date with the bees, I have just come back from collecting honey but it was so hot that i had to give up after getting two boxes. At home I checked the thermometer and it was 31 in the shade. My shirt, trousers, socks etc were absolutely soaked in persperation. ( Sweat) I am home now and showered and in dry clothing, I do not think in my 40 + years of bees having worked in so much heat. There were no stings during the work but, as I was packing up and putting the gear in the car I picked up the smoker and squashed a bee on my finger and he stung me.

Clive

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

…^…he?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> EN1a leaded (pb) is Magenta

Thanks Bob, I've printed a copy of that for the glove compartment.

The guy told me it was purple and it looked purple to me

The EN3 may well have been blue.

Neil

Nice cool 28 degrees in here…

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 18/07/2014 16:59:47

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by Les Jones 1 on 18/07/2014 08:59:16:

There is the" Langbridge & Co. Diagonal" engine in the Bolton steam Museum that seems to be a similar design.

Les.

Our own Ramon has a very nice model of that one, he had it down a Guildford the other week and it ticked over at 30-40rpm for the whole two days with just a few added drops of oil.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

We're forecast for well into the 30s tomorrow weather warnings and all, I'm reminded of "Interior – Scorchio!! Exterior – Scorchio!"

It looks like the new Met Office pages for the last 24 hours now give the extremes across the UK, this was very hard to find on the old system.

This is what they list for YESTERDAY (16 July)

UK extremes

Parameter	Location	Value
Highest maximum temperature	Hampton Water Works	29.5 °C
Lowest maximum temperature	Fair Isle	14.5 °C
Lowest minimum temperature	Katesbridge	6.3 °C
Highest rainfall	Resallach	4 mm
Sunniest	Leconfield	14.4

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

You may wonder why I spend time looking at the Met Office website – I'm doing some work that involves Heat islands.

I've made this crude map today. It shows major UK settlements mapped over the MINIMUM temperatures during the 2006 heatwave. Not statistically sound approach, but somewhat compelling, not least for London up through the Midlands to Liverpool.

Neil

PS I have to add: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0"

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Bah Humbug! 31degrees and test match commentary going on about sun cream while I'm sitting in a damp cloud until 3pm and the wind not helping while up my chimney but finished the pointing on one side. Rain forecast for much of tomorrow.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Rain here in North Kent Medway area now, bucketing down so that will hopefully cool the air a bit. Also Thunder and Lightning now all around us. looking at Raintoday Radar map the storm stretches back all the way to France.I have to say the Thermometer is only a spirit one in the garden. Finished the honey spinning and cleaned up for the night. I will bottle tomorrow and find out how I did. Put the empty boxes back on the bees tomorrow as well.

All the hives had bees out the front on the step fanning air out of the hives. I cleared the ventilation gauzes on the top boards. These they usually bung up tight with Propolis. ( Bee glue)

We have had a Sparrow Hawk around us for a few days and the smaller birds are petrified, all hiding under the shrubs. I was out the front and the Hawk swooped down and took a male Blackbird and today the female is searching all over for him and calling. The Hawk is very bold and took a Dove in next doors garden and only feet from the window. It also did another Dove in my front drive right in front of me a few weeks back, I can only assume its got young. More nature stuff, we have a large colony of sand Lizards in the orchard and I often see them near the front of the hives taking dead bees thrown out of the hive. Some of them are 6" long.

Clive

[Bob RodgersonParticipant @bobrodgerson97362]

I spent a pleasurable late afternoon wandering around Chester, It amazes me how busy the place is even at four o clock in the afternoon, most city centres would be getting quiet but people were still cruising the car park looking for a free bay.

When I got back home I did battle with my new mill, I got into all sorts of difficulties trying to install the software and set up the auto tool changer, I kept getting messages telling me the power draw bar USB cable wasn't connected. ~Via emails I was advised to run the restore disc, I did this but couldn't get the controller to shut down after installing and it kept trying to re-install the software during re-start.

I cleared all the CNC files off the hard disc using the control panel (Remove programmes) and after another attempt I got the software re-loaded properly. This time the controller shut down automatically after install. I then loaded the software for a machine without the Auto Tool Changer. This was followed by then installing the software for the machine fitted with an auto tool changer and hey presto it loaded properly and seems to work OK. I enjoyed operating the tool changer and draw bar, watching the tool tray moving in and out and so on.

Tomorrow I shall get the alignment of the tool tray sorted and concentrate on fitting the fourth axis hardware and installing the software for that.

Right now I am enjoying a nice glass of wine watching the thunder clouds building up over SK8. I think we are in for a spectacular display tonight.

[julian atkinsParticipant @julianatkins58923]

very interesting neil that you quoted the temperature for Hampton Waterworks. my great grandfather lost a finger on the beam engines during a long career working there. my late grandad and his brother frank remembered very well the Metropolitan Waterworks narrow gauge railway supplying coal to Kempton from Hampton, and the Kerr Stuart 0-4-2T locos. my late uncle frank remembered them being not scrapped but crushed after WW2.

cheers,

julian

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

Bazyle people here ar also using sunscrean but to protect from wind burn and snow glare LOL.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Has anyone seen the TV programme, 'The Cross London railway', it is a 3 part series and documents all the problems and how they use the Tunneling mole machine. Of interest to me is the Surveying monitoring of the tunnel and the buildings and land above the tunnel and how they go about making good the things that the tunneling bring about. It seems that the tunneling makes the ground sink and they then sink a shaft and bore a hole under the sink and force grout into it to bring it back to the same level. Buildings also suffer and have cracks appearing in the structures. The Company i work for supply all the Surveying equipment and it comes back through our hands for repair or adjustment. It is interesting to see how it is used in 24/7 monitoring with automatic theodolites fixed to the corners of buildings in London, target prisms are placed in strategic positions and the data is sent back to a monitoring station in real time for assessment and then remedial work. The Theodolites are programmed to measure to each prism in sequence. If you missed the first part perhaps you can see it on the BBC programme retrievel .

Clive

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Hi Clive,
I have tried to find the programme you mention in the online "Radio Times" and on the BBC web page but failed. I have also tried a Google search for "The Cross London railway tv program" without any success. Which channel was it on and how long ago ? It sounds a very interesting programme.

Les.

[DurhambuilderParticipant @durhambuilder]

Wednesday night at 9.00pm on BBC2, it was called the Fifteen Billion Pound Railway.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Thanks Durhambuilder. It is not yet available on Iplayer but I will watch the next episode on Wednesday.

Les.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Very interesting programme, Clive … with some astonishing hardware, large and small.

I was, though, particularly amused to see the guys on the Underground Station platform "innocently" gazing up at the roof to make sure there were no water leaks that might worry the travellers !!

MichaelG.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Sorry about the wrong name for the programme, 15 Billion pound railway is correct. As i mentioned the optical measuring systems are state of the art and the most up to date Instruments.

Re the Honey, i took 53lb altogether and its all bottled now and labelled. This leaves me with another 8 boxes to go!

Clive

[Pete Gilbert 1Participant @petegilbert1]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 18/07/2014 16:10:32:

Just to keep up to date with the bees, . There were no stings during the work but, as I was packing up and putting the gear in the car I picked up the smoker and squashed a bee on my finger and he stung me.

Clive

Ouch! Fingers are the most sensitive part! Oh, and just as a by the by, don't you mean 'she' stung me?

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Hi Pete, I am pretty immune to stings now and only have a minute or so of sting and then it dies off and no swelling. I think I prefer to say that i was stung by a worker bee as Drones cannot sting and Queen will not sting in its own defence and only uses its sting to kill other Virgin Queens. It was late and I was tired so that was the reason.

I use no smoke on them and have used a method of comb extraction from the honey boxes that does not seem to make the bees angry. I take out 1 comb at a time and shake off the bees over the front of the hive where the entrance is. Then I stash the comb in another shallow box with a mesh screen over it. It is totally different to lifting complete boxes and placing a Bee excluder and having to wait 24 hours as they sometimes glue up the excluder and its a waste of time. They never do what you want them to do so you have to think, 'Bee' and work that way and they still confound me!

Just been next door to replace a ceramic tap insert, it was totally perished and the seal was u/s and its all good now.

Clive

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I went to see Chesterfield MES, a quiet day due to the rain! I saw a nice 3 1/2" Masie 14XX and a 5" Deltic on the raised track, a bright yellow Sweet Pea and some very powerful looking 7" Diesel outlines on the ground level track.

My own shunter had a system failure – one leg of the 7805 voltage regulator for the logic broke clean through

Someone said 'electric is great, you just turn up and switch on' after I had been 'fault finding' without success for ten minutes!

At least I 'proved' my driving trolley (very smooth) and I've got an excuse to turn the 'prototype' speed controller into a proper one now.

I got lots of pictures of tools and tooling, but they will appear in a short profile in MEW.

The debate elsewhere about 'watchmaker's lathes' – they have a second hand Pultra for 8mm collets in their shop for £150 and Mitotoyu dial and bore gauges for £10 each, both boxed! Sadly/fortunately I forgot to take any cash with me!

Neil

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

We had a dry day today although it did threaten to rain around lunch time, afternoon bright sunshine.

I was going to try the sound system but although I had tested it on 12v battery the loco runs on 24v so had a 30v max to 12v step down regulator, as soon as I connected the power it went bang and destroyed the regulator. So back to the drawing board with that one. Did manage to get the controller (4QD DNO-10) set up a little better now can push the controller to full speed and let the acceleration ramp winds it up nicely to full speed or rather the full speed I had set, also set the deceleration ramp a little better.

Edited By Bob Brown 1 on 19/07/2014 20:06:10

[Anonymous]

Had a go at milling out the internals of the HP hollow pistons for my Burrell SCC traction engines:

I've learnt a lot making these pistons. But I'm not satisfied with them, so they will be going in the bin, and I'll make another pair. Metal already on order!

Regards,

Andrew

[Pete Gilbert 1Participant @petegilbert1]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 19/07/2014 18:01:29:They never do what you want them to do so you have to think, 'Bee' and work that way and they still confound me!

Clive

I love how nature can always teach us a lesson or two.

[Author]

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