What Did You Do Today (2016)

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by Bazyle on 13/08/2016 14:10:04:

Just had a go on a Kubota mini digger on a friends farm. Wheeee! I want one.

I have had a Bobcat 320 for years & it is surprising how many " friends" Suddenly appear from the dim & distant past

[Anonymous]

Had a relatively quiet weekend for a change. Saturday morning picked a few gages and then set up the lathe ready to profile the traction engine valve rod couplers. About midday the cloud started to break, so trotted off to the gliding club to see if it was worth flying. It's the beginning of a club competition, so wall to wall gliders, mostly on the ground. Several airborne gliders were flying straight and level under the scrappy clouds rather than circling – not good. The decision not to fly was sealed by a couple of experts landing back. Neither could I find the guy whos' glider inspection I was going to do. At least I had a look through the glider paperwork, which highlighted a query about weighing dates. Went home and spent a few hours profiling the couplers – two for real, a spare, and one foul up.

The gages I picked on Saturday had gone off by Sunday morning, so consigned to the compost. Picked a load more gages, saved a few slightly underripe ones and halved the rest, removed the stones and packed them for the freezer. Also picked the blueberries. Then went out to the gliding club to do the glider inspection. Bit of a blast from the past – a wood and fabric glider. Found a few minor issues like some ply biscuits unglued and some items needing adjustment, but generally good for a 70+ year old glider. Sorted out the weighing date issue; paperwork problem, so we didn't need to reweigh the glider. Came home and milled flats on one side of the couplers and drilled and reamed the holes.

Now going to start filling in the paperwork for the glider, after I've had a couple of gages and a bowl of blueberries.

Andrew

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Disassembled my S10V & packed glands; gave the castings a clean down & etch primer sprayed on, gave the box base a coating of black & the rest a brush on coating of Stuart Green, not overly thrilled on the colour… someone once mentioned using light Brunswick green as an alternative… any advance on colour choice ?

George.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I am slowly getting back into the workshop after have a hip replacement. The surgery went OK but the the skin on my legs reacted very badly to the DVT stockings. The skin is now healing well after 11 weeks from the operation.

I ignored the more than sensible advise given three months ago about fitting the four jaw chuck to the lathe. Instead I have been using collets because I have got a back log of small jobs. This afternoon was spent silver soldering and I guess tomorrow will be the same. Then the results will be turned. This is for a model Boulton & Watt bell crank engine .

JA

[thaiguzziParticipant @thaiguzzi]

Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 14/08/2016 07:34:46:

Thiaguzzi, I hope the box marked 'Fingers' next to the screwdrivers is empty. Looks like a great job, but its not fair showing us that you saw the holders off in pairs!
BobH

Edited By Speedy Builder5 on 14/08/2016 07:35:29

Edited By Speedy Builder5 on 14/08/2016 07:37:21

# Fingers box is full of punches and chisels. Thankfully.

# The first 2 were sawn as a pair. After that, not shown, was one at a time as my pre war Denbigh told me she preferred it that way. Who am i to argue…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Today … Found my wallet

… when I emptied the Washing Machine

MichaelG.

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hmmm Michael – I hadn't got you down as a money launderer !

Norman

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Last night I was going out, but I couldn't find my house keys, I went and got the spare one. Then when I came home, I found the keys, in my pocket??

Ian S C

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by NJH on 16/08/2016 11:13:28:

Hmmm Michael – I hadn't got you down as a money launderer !

Norman

.

Nice one, Norman

MichaelG.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Last time I lost my house keys (actually, first time I lost my keys) they showed up about a week later in my wifes' rucksack, in a little pocket she puts keys in when she goes for long walks.

Of course, as she supports my hobbies 100%, I did not rub it in that I did not actually loose my keys, but they were taken…

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

I was weeding in the garden with workshop keys in my hand, threw weeds away with the keys should have been easy to find keys but they have disappeared from the planet and never seen since, I blame the resident jackdaws

Mick

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

G'day.

These may be useful if you have a habit of loosing things: **LINK**

A few people are even attaching them to locate downed multi-rotor drones.

Yesterday I managed to temp a 6lb 2oz brown trout from the lake using a lure from the bank, water storage has nearly doubled since May, it's now almost 88% and tipped to be full by Oct. **LINK**

So today I'm off to try to catch another a bit smaller as my neighbour complained that it was too large for his fish cooker! Never had that complaint before.

* Danny M *

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by Danny M2Z on 16/08/2016 23:50:00:

G'day.

These may be useful if you have a habit of loosing things: **LINK**

A few people are even attaching them to locate downed multi-rotor drones.

That's interesting. It seems to use Bluetooth to communicate and presumably needs to be close to another Trackr-enabled smartphone to communicate with yours, once you are outside of direct range. Without that network of other Trackr-enabled phones, the GPS position information will not be recoverable. They say 100 feet (30m) but that will clearly depend on whether it is outside or locked in a steel box. I know from my own use of Bluetooth that the actual distance can vary significantly.

They are available from Argos, John Lewis and the UK distributor at around £23-25 each. Obviously they are significantly cheaper in the US. However, there needs to be a critical mass of them near you in order to offer any significant benefit. I suppose it's handy to be able to locate something directly when you are within Bluetooth range but these things will come in to their own when there is a decent concentration of them. At which point you could use them to track animals (including humans). I don't expect the UK distributors will want to tell you how many (few) there are in your locality.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

If its larger items like humans then plenty of trackers available. Just been foillowing a 4000KM cycle race where each riders position was updated every 5mins by one of these and I could view them all overlaid on a google map

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Again, pretty interesting although you have to pay for a satellite phone service that costs over £150/yr. If you are doing a 4k km ride, that's probably not a bad deal though!

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

This stripped Fireblade engine (and boxes of parts) arrived onto my bench.

Nick

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

A little to warm for workshop today so to Cambridge and the Botanical Gardens where in the cactus house saw these window closers/openers. Looks like they were designed by the same bloke who designed signal box controls – maybe he went of the rails and ended up in the glasshouse.

Rik

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Parting off is such sweet sorrow. 30mm diameter free cutting mild steel, rear tool-post. Dug in and tore the holder. The work and 3mm insert both survived!

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

Just found a Bluetooth GPS Tracking Tag. in local Tesco filling station. £5 each marketed by a company called Falcon. At £5 I though it worth a punt. Only problem so far is trying to read the instruction sheet. Its written in letters 1mm high, no chance with my eyes. Need the stereo microscope I picked up from local hospice charity shop yesterday.

Colin

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by Nick_G on 17/08/2016 17:07:02:

.

This stripped Fireblade engine (and boxes of parts) arrived onto my bench.

Nick

So why is it with you. Are down to re build it. Or just work on a particular part. I ask because to my untrained eye it looks like something Rodney & Trigger might buy. It does npt even look as though the parts are being properly cared for. But it might just have a future in the right hands

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Nick_G on 17/08/2016 17:07:02:

.

This stripped Fireblade engine (and boxes of parts) arrived onto my bench.

Nick

Friend of mine had a Honda K4 250cc twin many years ago. He had it apart once in its long life to replace the cam chain. Compared to the British parallel twins I was used to it was built like a BSH (brick sh** house). No less than 4 main roller bearings when the Triumphs and BSAs of the period had to manage with 2. It took 2 of us complete with camping gear to Corsica and back without falter, apart from the tyre we blew on what they laughably called roads back then

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

You all beat me to the punch in making cracks about money laundering, but always was behind the times!

First time of owning up to actually doing anything. Today, finished the extension shaft, outrigger bearing, and graduated sleeve for the Leadscrew Handwheel on the mini lathe. Since the Leadscrew bearing blocks have no facility for lubrication, installed a ball oiler between the brass bush and the face of the outrigger destined to be fixed to the bearing block. Even managed to stamp numbers on the sleeve; like the graduation lines, anything but neatly, but will probably suffice. Not much is actually to my back of an envelope drawings, so it is definitely "Bespoke"!

The problem now is that it will be even more difficult to find an excuse for not stripping the mini lathe to fit the parts, and a ball oiler in the Headstock end bearing block. Must pluck up courage to start on it on Friday!.

Howard

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Air brush issues. My wife, bless her soul, decided a number of years ago that my dollar store external mix air brush (held together with tape) should be replaced with not one but two Paasche brushes that were on sale at a meeting.

Ok – today I tried spraying oil-based paint (Tremclad, for those in the know) outside in the back garden. No luck getting the paint on the model, but did get it everywhere; on the table, then the ground, on my forehead, on the bottom of the shoes that then transferred to the carpet down the stairs.

Then the fun started – cleaning oil based paint out of the carpets. Finally got to cleaning the air brush a few minutes ago and finding the issue. I left the Tremclad-black grass as-is, and the shoes will eventually dry, so they are outside shoes for now.

Fans still going strong – wife should be home in a few minutes – wish me luck…

Then, we'll see what tomorrow brings!

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, today I went up north to Yorkshire with two other guys from work. We had to do a bit of pre-installation work and myself and one of the other guys will have to go again tomorrow. We paid a visit to a popular supermarket which was very close to the site we were working on. No prizes for anyone who knows the general area of Yorkshire we were in, but out of interest, does anyone recognise the supermarket car park where the photo below was taken.

On Monday this week myself and two guys from work were in Yorkshire doing an installation job, which involved the use of a wheeled mobile crane and the site was about half a mile or so from this place below.

So a little bit of early morning travelling to work this week.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 17/08/2016 22:04:36

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

Nick,
All those power station cooling towers is probably Drax.
The other photo has a faint image of a tower in the background – the sort used to hold up bridges – not Humber by any chance?
John.

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