What did you do today (2015)

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Hi Murray, when the bees were thrown onto the ramp a few went to one side and as I squatted down looking at them a few must have thought my trouser leg a good place to hide. Initially I feel them crawling up my leg and then I stand up and move off a few yards and divest myself quickly. Thats when the fun starts as they get trapped and sting, one on the inside of my knee and one a bit higher! I had a look at the Nuc. at dinnertime and they are in the sugar water feeder but not flying as its wet and cool. None of the other hives were active.

Clive

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

(Saturn is in space Neil (it doesn't hide behind trees) and the Earth is a sphere in space. )

Tried hard to make valves but couldn't overcome vibrations set up in the job.

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Gentlemen,

My wife and I have just spent the last two days in total chaos as weve had all of the windows in our house replaced with double glazed units, previous windows were Crittal with secondary glazing inside, yesterday it was warm and dry but today once all the downstairs had been removed it rained , and just to top the week off I open the garage door on Tuesday to have it fall off as the mechanism collapsed, thats another £600 out of the kitty, at least the new door comes with four point locking so should be secure.

Martin P

[mick70Participant @mick70]

made start on sorting out my southbend 9" model c that arrived yesterday.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Just watched this

Quote of the day: 'Wow; that was scary"

MichaelG.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 14/05/2015 21:02:15:

Just watched this

Quote of the day: 'Wow; that was scary"

MichaelG.

.

Bloody show off's. Not content to crash once he had to go and do it 5 times.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Went out and bought meself a new lathe. A Colchester Bantam 1600 MKII

Well new to me and was new in 1980 but has been in storage ever since, a bit tatty and needs a real good clean up as it's had stuff piled on top of it for the last 35 years.

At the moment it's hard to see full condition but to having to literally climb over mountains of gear to get to it.

Looks like this one off Tony's page but has the stand with the central drawer in it.

Got gears, chucks and faceplate but couldn't see any steadies.

Need to pop back in two weeks to collect it as they need to get a large 10 tonne or so fork truck in to move some power presses that are in the way.

Bought it for me new girlfriend as it's an imperial machine and she spent all of her working life in the States and don't do metric and my lathes confuse the hell out of her.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Nice one John – finally accepted British is Best eh?

I can see that chuck guard and toolpost heading binwards very quickly.

Neil

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Some more bits for my educational engine…

Cylinder end caps, more to do on these, & cam ( with template )

George

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 15/05/2015 18:08:01:

Nice one John – finally accepted British is Best eh?

I can see that chuck guard and toolpost heading binwards very quickly.

Neil

How many times do you see a 35 year old brand new machine ? Does happen, there is a Myford on Tony's site but this is a lathe and not a Myford, plus it also cost less than the average Myford

[Alex CollinsParticipant @alexcollins55045]

Paid £700 for my Long Bed ML7-R with Gearbox, Steadies, Metric and inch screws, Metric gear kit , Milling slide, QTCP. All in their sealed packaging.
There were still grinding marks on the bed.
I have added the Clutch. Makes tapping so much easier.

A Colchester would have been nice but my workshop is up 2 flights of stairs….

How many times do you see a 35 year old brand new machine ? Does happen, there is a Myford on Tony's site but this is a lathe and not a Myford, plus it also cost less than the average Myford

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Alex Collins on 15/05/2015 22:17:16:

Paid £700 for my Long Bed ML7-R with Gearbox, Steadies, Metric and inch screws, Metric gear kit , Milling slide, QTCP. All in their sealed packaging.

.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

… oh the luck of some people… some pics would be nice… just to rub it in, so to speak

[Bruce EdneyParticipant @bruceedney59949]

Having recently purchased a mill I have been reading through WPS 35 by Harold Hall.

After work I made a couple of sets of parallels.

Quite easy really

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

This arvo I sat out in the garden reading a Model Engineer Magazine after cleaning and oiling a few model engines.

At about 1700 I heard the throaty roar of a low flying aircraft, so, as one does, I looked up and there at about 1000 ft was a P-40 just turning over the lake (Lake Hume). It was close enough to see the shark's teeth under the cowling. 45° bank right overhead showed off the wheels pointing backwards – definately a P-40 Kittyhawk.

Thus intruiged I checked out the local air museum website **LINK** but they do not list a Kittihawk. Maybe they just acquired one. Very interesting!

* Danny M *

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I was doing a small commission job on the ML10 ( 24 Alu. spacers for the suspension of GT40) when I noticed the motor drive to the layshaft was wobbling, a quick check showed that the cone pointed bolt that supports the casting had become loose, easy to fix by undoing the locking grub screw and tightening the bolt into the cone seating. As its locked up how did it become loose? I ended up with a black bin bag full of swarf.

Clive

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

"Bought it for me new girlfriend"

The last of the great romantics, John!!!

Good to hear your personal life has turned for the better

rgds

Bill

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Narrowed down the visiting P-40 to a few likely candidates; **LINK**. VH-ZOC owners are located nearby and VH-KTY apparently visits Temora regularly. It's just up the road.

Dismantled a few ancient hard disks and discovered some likely looking ball bearing races (1/8 thick x 3/8 od x 1/4 id) for a Dremel bearing upgrade.

* Danny M *

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, well today started well, took my little shopping trolley (1 lt Corsa) for its MOT after breakfast and it passed OK. Got my washing hung out on the line to dry and then it was time to do a bit of welding on my lathe stand that I'm currently making.

Got my MIG welder all set up and did a couple or three test welds to get the wire speed ect. correct and proceeded to tack the bits together. Pressed the trigger and nothing happened, no sparks, no wire feed. The light in the power switch was still on, so I could see that it hadn't tripped or anything. Tried turning it off and on again, flipped the high/low switches and still nothing, so gave it a bash on the side of the casing and away it went, for a couple or so times, so came to the conclusion that there was a loose connection somewhere.

After a long winded search and going over the control circuit board with a soldering iron on suspect joints, finally found that the mains transformers primary winding was an open circuit.

I had a hunt around in a box up in my attic where I knew I had various salvaged ones and found a suitable doner one, but it was not PCB mountable, so I plumbed it up with four short wires.

I then drill a couple of bolt holes through the front of the casing and bolted the new transformer on.

Tried it again and all was well, so put the casing back together and set up for tacking up once more. I made about three tacks and then ran out of gas. What the! I thought, it's a brand new bottle, and upon inspection I found that the body of the regulator itself had become loose, venting all the gas to the atmosphere and more it fact £15:00 worth of .

On the up side, at least all my washing got dry. but no progress on my lathe stand.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 17/05/2015 01:01:30

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

This week I decide to start rehanging the front gate and drive gates after some serious reworking of my drive and footpath, the builder had to remake the wall of the front gate and forgot to mount the gate latch in the brickwork so I modified it so that it could be mounted, when I finished for the day I closed the garage door, up and over type, which when half way closed fell off the rails and jammed, rang a garage door fitter and the upshot is a new door, frame and mechanism, old door is over thirty years old, to get old door shut was told to cut wires which I did, door now shut but to heavy for me to open and prop up for access so now stuffed for a week until new door fitted. This week had all of our house windows replaced with double glazed units so been freezing in house, to finally cap the week I was signed off by the hospital as fit for work but work wont let me start because my specially made safety boots are not ready and hospital hasn't a clue when they will be so back to thumb twiddling.

Martin P

[Clive IndiaParticipant @cliveindia]

Posted by Bogstandard2 on 17/05/2015 07:47:12:

Retirement birthday yesterday, usually a day by myself as grandson had gone to visit his girlfriend.He came home just after lunch and we ended up at the Skoda garage to look at my next new car, I ended up buying him a very nice Skoda estate. But at least he bought me an Indian takeaway for my birthday. John

I wish I'd had a grandad like you. Golden times – to be treasured.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Yesterday I got the 1/2 scale Gade all wired up with cotton braided cables and painted the fuel pipes, screwed those together today and took a few pics of the completed engine.

Also got the crankshaft done for my 5cc aero engine

J

Edited By JasonB on 17/05/2015 19:26:20

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Started to make a jig to hold some brass volume knobs to line up letter punches. It's basically a block of ally 70 x 60 x 40mm with up-and-over guides and after drilling some holes for dowel pins and screws I needed to cut the top section off, about 30mm. Checking the slitting saw I found it will not cut very deep i.e can only cut the top 10mm or so off the top of material. So decided to start making a new arbour to take the saw blade.

Ed.

[Bob Unitt 1Participant @bobunitt1]

Posted by Danny M2Z on 16/05/2015 09:03At about 1700 I heard the throaty roar of a low flying aircraft, so, as one does, I looked up and there at about 1000 ft was a P-40 just turning over the lake (Lake Hume). It was close enough to see the shark's teeth under the cowling. 45° bank right overhead showed off the wheels pointing backwards – definately a P-40 Kittyhawk.* Danny M *

I had a similar experience about 20 years ago. I had an 'office' in the attic of my house at that time, with a window that overlooked the local airfield. One day, just before lunch, I heard the unmistakable sound of a Merlin engine. I looked up to see a propeller plane landing, but I couldn't see what it was. An hour or so later I heard it again, and saw a Spitfire taking off. I was then treated to a fascinating display of aerobatics, as the pilot put it through its paces for the benefit of his friends on the airfield. A real treat, all the more so for being totally unexpected.

[Robert Turner 1Participant @robertturner1]

Nothing better for a petrol head than an unexpected Merlin…… During my last summer in Chester before going to Uni (1987) the last flying Mosquito was based at RAF Sealand, so every weekend it would fly over on it's way to various air shows. Aural heaven…

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