What did you do today (2015)

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Ran my Bridgeport at 4200 rpm to do a little wood routing using a 6mm solid coated carbide, good clean down after use, face mask on at all times.

[capnahabParticipant @capnahab]

Discovered this in supermarket. Had it with dinner. Nearly as good as Landlord.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Clearing/cleaning the caravan while the wife is at work (took today off myself…)

Good trip to Algonquin park – two bears, one in the camp, another while we were out walking.

New moon, so the night sky was magnificent. No towns nearby, nor lighting other than fire pits, and the odd LED flashlight, so it was *dark*.

A few Mergansers (ducks) around – always fun to watch them feeding, believe it or not. Loons on the lake, making their haunting calls.

No Internet. No electricity. Swimming in the lake.

Model Engineering content: did go through the SSN 23023 3-1/2" gauge loco construction series that I have photocopied from the NL magazine De Modelbower. That one may go on the queue…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Bought a neat little 30cwt 'Lake & Elliot' hydraulic bottle jack, at the Car Boot Sale today. … It was missing the original handle, but the seller had kindly substituted an 18" length of 5/8" diameter Brass.

£2 well spent

MichaelG.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Finished the Tidman crankshaft. Sillver soldered and cross pinned, 10.375" long, 0.625" dia.

[Roger HartParticipant @rogerhart88496]

Not exactly a model, more an experiment in aluminium evaporation that worked. My thanks to friends and this site for help. The main vacuum pump is an old 1950s unit coupled to a modern turbomolecular pump. Most of the kit came from boot fairs and fleabay. Evaporation is from a 1mm tungsten TIG rod loaded with cooking foil. The transformer is an old microwave oven unit rewound with flexible copper cable 4mm dia. Feedthroughs are old stainless rods from scrap printers. For the economically minded the turbo pump splinter guard is a sink drainer. Yes I did use an implosion guard and eyeshields.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Nice one. So now you can gold flash all your skeleton clock parts.

regards Martin

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hi Kwil

"Ran my Bridgeport at 4200 rpm to do a little wood routing using a 6mm solid coated carbide, good clean down after use, face mask on at all times."

Pretty scary on / (for!) your Bridgeport I guess but my father had a woodworking business with a router that ran at 24,000 rpm !!! The speed was achieved, I believe, by running a 3 phase motor driving, on a common shaft, a generator which changed the frequency of the supply to the router head. Very noisy in operation with chips flying in all directions but extremely effective at carving out wood !

Norman

[john carruthersParticipant @johncarruthers46255]

Excellent Roger, what size mirrors can you fit in the chamber?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Might as well list a couple of things over the weekend.

Made the world's simplest lens hood for a 400mm lens – I noticed an old fire exstinguisher bottle was about the right size, bandsawed (carefully it it was only about 1.2mm thick) both ends off, deburred, wiped clean, sprayed with Bauer adhesion primer, then matt black (only had enough for the inside, so need to finish). A touch loose, so make it a snug fit on the lens I put a single strip of black gaffer tape around the inside at one end. The slightly giving surface of the gaffer tape was ideal!

Next task – a bar to allow a camera and telescope to be mounted side by side. The standard dovetail is 45mm wide with a 85 degree angle. Two dovetail sockets on a dovetail bar will cost £60–£75, and I wanted something that allows the camera to be adjusted independently of the scope!

Well I've got a 10" long dovetail bar, so I got my old tripod and unscrewed the head, it had a ~16mm by 1mm pitch thread, so I stuck one of those in a thumb-sized block of ally, together with an M6 hole. Screwed and superglued the mount into the block, screwed the block to the bar. For the other end, I've milled a 45mm chunk out of the middle of a thick slice of square ally bar. Just need to put the dovetail in one side and fit clamp screws to the other, then fit it to the other end of the dovetail bar.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Update – made the dovetail block, fitted it with three M5 screws, then made an M6 screw with a plastic knob by taking a knob with an M6 nut moulded into a depression in it and winding in a hex head M6 screw with some JB Weld, then fairing over the top of the hole with more JB.

Realised I can swap the camera on the pan & tilt head for a 50mm guide scope which might make finding bright stars easier.

Neil

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

Not today Sunday went out to Sydney Antique Machine show 0945 to 1500 beaut day still didn't see everything. Shot some video this being the thrill of the day.

Edited By JasonB on 22/09/2015 10:16:42

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

>fume<

Not impressed by the provider for my personal website. I checked my backup and a large proportion of files were missing from it. It turns out they know full well their 'one click backup' is broken and their technicians are 'working on it'.

You might think they would alert users, rather than letting them find out the hard way.

Neil

[mick70Participant @mick70]

fitted a light to my sb 9" i am re-furbing just fitted at mo to see if ok.

doesnt look like it will get in way so now need box and flexible conduit to protect switch/wiring and got plastic lens to protect bulb.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, well yesterday I started to change both the front shock absorbers and coil springs plus drop links on my Astra. Having jacked up the front of the car and supported it in a level position on my axle stands, I measured the camber angles with a digital protractor before removing anything. After removing the shock absorber/coil spring assembles, the top mountings needed to be retrieved for fitting to the new ones, but of course I needed my spring compressors that I made many years ago. However after wasting a couple of hours looking for them yesterday afternoon to no avail, today I decided it was time to do something new. So after breakfast I found up a short length of 150mm x 75mm channel iron, a couple of lengths of scrap 2 1/2" x 1" aluminium channel from some roller conveyors that I had to rebuild a couple of years ago and two short lengths of 40mm x 40mm x 3mm box and in a couple of hours I made this new spring compressor using a bottle jack.

It was quite easy to use and I did not even have to use the jack handle to pump the jack and in less than 20 minutes the top mounting was off the old and on the news ones.

Should have just made it yesterday, but hey ho!

Regards Nick.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Looks like me and Volkswagen are in contention as I bought a PASSAT in May last and it's on the list of cars that have this,'Defeat' software. AM tomorrow is supposed to be the day when everything will be explained and what and when the car will be modified. Worst thing is I bought it given that it was advertised as low emission and fuel frugal so Car tax was low, now it looks as if i will be back up to the £230 touch per annum.

Clive

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 24/09/2015 21:01:03:

Looks like me and Volkswagen are in contention as I bought a PASSAT in May last and it's on the list of cars that have this,'Defeat' software. AM tomorrow is supposed to be the day when everything will be explained and what and when the car will be modified. Worst thing is I bought it given that it was advertised as low emission and fuel frugal so Car tax was low, now it looks as if i will be back up to the £230 touch per annum.

Clive

.

Don't worry, Clive … I'm sure there will be plenty of 'Legal Firms' phoning to offer their 'No Win, No Fee' handling of your claim against VW.

Just when PPI and Solar Energy was wearing thin, the Call-Centres get this gift .

MichaelG.

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Edit: Whilst 'researching' this fiasco, I came across this little gem, about AdBlue

 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/09/2015 21:43:01

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

For info. This seems quite a good summary of the VW story so far.

MichaelG.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

I have been distracted away from the No.4 for a week of my spare time now making 6 stainless exhaust stubs and clamp plates to fit onto the cylinder head of a motorbike my 'mad mate' is fitting a turbo to.

Once I have done my bit another friend is going to weld up a custom pipe system for the 6 to feed the turbo.

Nick

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

Thanks Michael.

That article incuded a ref to another incedence from the 1998.

I had a case of deja vu..I knew I had read about this “identify if under test” wheeze before. .

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

on the VW …

A well-considered irony, in The New Yorker

MichaelG.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I have to say I am impressed with my 2015 Passat, It is my 2nd one as I ran the first one for 16 years and then gave it to my eldest Son in May this year and he is delighted with it.

The new one has good handling and steering and the engine is perfect as it is called, 'Blue Motion' Powerful and extremely responsive with good fuel economy. The car has a lot of Automatic features like electric hand brake and auto lights etc. A good solid car.

I must say that one of the things that made me choose it was the blurb about low emissions and i thought no further, trusting VW to do what they say as I was brainwashed by the first car. 10 miles to a Ltr is quite good economy and the new one I feel is somewhat better but have not as yet tested that bit.

I feel no qualms about driving it even if it is now deemed to be an emissions monster because I see worse cars and lorries on the road, even petrol cars belching clouds of smoke. I realize now my car tax will rise but so what as all I am doing is catching the others up!

I will follow through any legal procedure as it was mis-selling and the threat of loss of value is quite unnerving but I will maybe drive this car as long as I live now at my age.

I have had 11 cars and some were great and others were dogs, like the Triumph herald. Then the SAAB V4 which was a belter of a car and an Opel Kapitan x 2 both excellent.. 2 Ford Estate cars each doing over 100,000 and sold for more than I paid for them, then a Ford Granada diesel prone to breakdowns.Then onto Volkswagen which served me well. We shall see as the days and the story unfolds and the legal eagles gather.

Clive

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hi Nick,

i've lost count of the number of Astra/Vectra springs I've replaced, I'm surprised you couldn't just undo the top nut and let the suspension drop free, although I've never done a Mk 5.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

The calibration and emissions control strategies are contained within the engine management system which is provided by the likes of Bosch, Delphi, Siemens etc. In the case of VW, they seem to use Bosch EDC16 / EDC17 almost exclusively for their diesel EMSs. Knowing the Germans, this software feature ("device"??) isn't likely to be widely marketed, so possibly just limited to German vehicles and possibly even just to VW (by special request?). You'd imagine there must be some nervous, sh*t eating grins at Bosch right now as they watch the sorry story emerge. VW couldn't done this by themselves without the software guys at Bosch implementing it for them….

This fiasco must have set back the introduction of diesel into N America by decades and the other German manufacturers must be furious (if they weren't at it too). Diesel engines are about 30-35% more (thermodynamically) fuel efficient than gasoline and there are highly effective NOx filters, particulate filters etc in place – assuming that the OEMs bother to set them up properly.

We'll also hear that old chestnut about test drive cycles "not being like real world conditions". The usual answer to that is to create your own drive cycle that you reckon is more lifelike. Which is why there are literally hundreds of test drive cycles. No single drive cycle can ever reproduce every driving environment and style. And fitting the emissions measurement equipment onto the vehicles as they drive on real roads isn't terribly realistic if you've ever seen the size of the gear involved. They are going to have to make the test gear small enough to fit to the car if they are going to do testing on the test track rather than a rolling road.

Murray

[mick70Participant @mick70]

knocked up some tool holders for my ml6.

used up some inch bar offcuts i had lying around.

[Author]

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