What Did You Do Today (2017)

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Still battling with the strange soft, brown metal that makes fluffy swarf.

Just tapped the spec for two 2m lengths of 25x50mm beech into a website.

The price of 12.980 seemed OK, but then it told me the minimum order was £750…

Ho hum…

Neil

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Almost finished a ball turning attachment for a friends lathe, just an hour or so left now but to cold. My friend saw the one I made for myself last year and asked for a sketch so he could make one. He is 78 and not in the best of health so I decided to make it for him. It is actually better than my own !

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 12/02/2017 09:10:12:

Still battling with the strange soft, brown metal that makes fluffy swarf.

Just tapped the spec for two 2m lengths of 25x50mm beech into a website.

The price of 12.980 seemed OK, but then it told me the minimum order was £750…

Ho hum…

Neil

On Friday I bought two 3m lengths of "beech upstand" from Howdons. If you want to buy similar from Screwfix, there is the £750 min spend – I assume that was where you looked (me too, originally, as that was where I bought the beech worktop). The local Howdons depot had them in stock and I was able to pick them up on the way home from work – £30 each including VAT. The wrapping label said made in France.

Slight edit – the worktop was bought from B&Q but their upstand takes up to 14 days and is only available for home delivery. But as Screwfix and B&Q are the same outfit, they are interchangeable in my mind. So, either £750 or 14 days from Kingfisher or £30 from Howdons….

Edited By Muzzer on 12/02/2017 10:49:17

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Went to the range for a rimfire shooting competition, keen to try out my new barrel tuner design.

Based on Michael Gilligan's interesting article about the 'negative thixotropic' (high frequency vibration damping) properties of Blu-Tack (MEW Nov 2015) I tested my modified design a month ago with satisfying results. (1st pic)

Today tested it in anger and cleaned up at both 50m and 100m in crap conditions (wind and thunderstorms – 2nd pic).

When shooting in competition, I try to eliminate the variables (the biggest is the operator) so MEW and my mini-lathe have been invaluable to improve my aim. Practice also helps

The centre ring on the 100m fly target is 25mm dia. One gains 0.1bonus for hitting the fly. The 3 shot 50m test target has a 10mm centre ring

* Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 12/02/2017 10:35:11

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 10/02/2017 16:28:01:

Fitted a Warco DH1 mill vice, not used in anger yet but pleased with it's versatility compared with the old one.

Sharpened some HSS and turned a test bar on my lathe with pleasing results (0,01/0.02 over 100mm). But now I'm thoroughly unhappy with my cheapo DTI.

It's was a little sticky from new and has got markedly worse recently. Is it because my workshop is cold (about 6C today), or should I buy a decent one?

Dave

It might be a symptom of cheapo d.t.i's i'm afraid, I had a Clarke plunger type that has remained persistently sticky, I didn't make this decision lightly but I changed over to a Baty metric dial indicator from Cromwell tools and haven't seen any stickiness so far.

Then again I also have a Clarke lever type indicator which has remained in good service without any faults.

Michael W

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Danny M2Z on 12/02/2017 10:33:00:

Went to the range for a rimfire shooting competition, keen to try out my new barrel tuner design.

.

Excellent results Danny.

Nick

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Multiple woohoos are in order.

Recently I've been able to sneak out into the new workshop in between other jobs and make a start on flashing up the Shizuoka CNC milling machine. It was kept in storage for 10 years before I acquired it and has spent the last 4 months in a building site (literally). During that time a workshop sprung up around it and it is now warm and dry again. It was said to be functional when last stored up but that's a long time given how much stuff is in the control cabinet.

As I wasn't planning to get a 3-phase supply installed, I've removed the giant (>50kg) 3-phase transformer and substituted alternative power sources so it can run from a 240V single phase connection. The 80Vdc servos are now powered from a 3kVA 110V CTE site transformer, reconfigured to give 55Vac (spot on, voltage-wise). The 110Vac for lube pump, drawbar etc is another site transformer while the VFD and all the original 240V stuff (various modules in the cabinet) are now running directly from 240V single phase supply. Bit of a job figuring out how it is all connected up without a wiring manual but I seem to have got most of the way there.

Last night I finished connecting up the AC supplies and turned it on. All 3 axes jog and the VFD can be heard fluxing the spindle motor. Early days yet and the X axis trips when I fast jog it but the old telly at the front seems to work OK. I may have to try out one of the example programs in the software user manual and see if it will cut air. Excitement (and confidence) builds!

Murray

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

The dial gauge sounds just like mine. I had the same sticky plunger. Cleaned it with a rag and meths, then a couple of drops of thin oil , hydraulic ? , Works fine now, for the last 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Muzzer on 12/02/2017 11:09:37:

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Multiple woohoos are in order.

That's a capital letter WOOHOO!

And presumably without tripping the house RCD this time, with consequent loss of brownie points?

We expect to see swarf generation soon.

Andrew

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 12/02/2017 09:10:12:

Still battling with the strange soft, brown metal that makes fluffy swarf.

Just tapped the spec for two 2m lengths of 25x50mm beech into a website.

The price of 12.980 seemed OK, but then it told me the minimum order was £750…

Ho hum…

Neil

What annoys me when I read stuff like that is how the private buyer gets ripped off.

When i had my joinery business that would have been skipped if left over from a job as it was just not worth the space saving it.

Likewise pieces of hardwood that I would now have to pay a fortune for, I used to put on my wood burner

If a person came to our yard we would let them look in the skip –provided they made a decent contribution to the blind box. The better the contribution the more often they could come.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Thanks Muzzer,

Its solid beech I wanted, to make a hinged frame to carry wheels for my mobile display. The timber merchant I selected only does things by the lorry load.

Inspired by a soft-toy labrador push-along…

I can haul over to a timber merchant in Tamworth or Stafford tomorrow and get some.

Neil

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

This stuff is solid – as in "engineered" ie blocks glued together. The upstand is lengths of 400-600mm typically, glued together with those sawtooth joins. The worktop is similarly made up of glued together blocks (see pic). Much better than those nasty chipboard worktops that turn into sponge at the slightest hint of moisture.

I suppose you could call this a woman's workshop if you were chauvinistic. Ready for the washing machines to move back in from the upstairs bathroom.

Murray

[Bob RodgersonParticipant @bobrodgerson97362]

Muzzer,

you should have gone for Granite, would have made a nice layout table.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Heheh yes but I'd end up with damp clothes on my precious work. Damned heavy stuff too – the kitchen worktops are granite and lifting them is a multiple-man job.

Just been out there again (wife was still asleep) and programmed in a simple demo program (circular pocket) and it works! I don't have the spindle belt fitted or compressed air ATM, so it gets a bit confused about the lack of spindle speed or range selection but that doesn't seem to stop it doing all the X, Y and Z movements. Turned the feed override up to 150% and it seems happy.

Another X cap went up in smoke. Nasty smell. That's the second X or Y cap that's gone up. They are decent quality Rifa PME271 caps but I guess humidity has got in there. I've removed some of them now but at least 3 remain, ready to catch me out. Lovely fizzy sound, filthy acrid smoke but everything continues to work of course. All part of the fun….

Merry

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Went up to the track for the planned clear up day and was all alone Maybe someone without a gate key had tried earlier. It was only light drizzle so spent an hour raking leaves. Sigh There are so many joblets to do up there.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 12/02/2017 12:13:40:

Thanks Muzzer,

Its solid beech I wanted, to make a hinged frame to carry wheels for my mobile display. The timber merchant I selected only does things by the lorry load.

Inspired by a soft-toy labrador push-along…

I can haul over to a timber merchant in Tamworth or Stafford tomorrow and get some.

Neil

Are you within range of Great Barr Sawmills? They're simple, reasonably priced and helpful. I've started using them after the two decent timber merchants in Rugby turned themselves into low grade builders merchants.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Grrr.

My iPhone 6 won't take any more pics or vids because it is full. Obviously it's "just" a question of copying them off the phone and then deleting them from the phone to free up space. If you simply delete them from the iphone they will also disappear from the icloud folders, so you have to copy them off before deleting them, either fromthe iPhone itelf or from the iCloud folder.

It gets really messy here. If you connect the usb cable, hoping to see the image files and simply copy them in file manager you will be disappointed, as only a few of them show up (something like 40 out of the 500 I know are there). WTF?? Alternatively you can use the Windows Photo program (in W10) to grab the photos and then copy them from there. But the same issue happens – you only get to see a fraction of the total. WTF?

It gets worse. Apple have a sort of browser called "iCloud Photos" that allows to you see the photos that have been already (automatically) uploaded to the iCloud server. But this is really clunky, like REALLY clunky. It doesn't allow you to see the names of the files or sort them by date, name, size etc etc. And if you want to select files for download, the ONLY way you can select them is by holding down Control and clicking every single one of them individually. Yes, all 500 of them. And if you accidentally click outside of any one of the thumbnails, all the files you have selected become unselected. WTF? As for "normal" shortcuts like Control+A (to select all) or holding the shift button and selecting the first and last files, that isn't implemented. Nor can you simply select a whole folder for download. Somewhere in Apple is a team of "developers" that decided that this was the right way to go about it. This is infuriating, even by iTunes standards. Even Microsoft haven't managed to come up with anything quite as unusable. Given that the iPhone and Windows 10 are the most commonplace phone and OS respectively, they have done themselves proud here by managing to come up with such an insurmountable problem.

So I've had to manually download all 500+ files in batches, with no clear idea which photos I have successfully managed to download. What a nightmare. I honestly doubt I could have made the operation any more difficult and frustrating if I'd tried.

Grrr.

[JimmieSParticipant @jimmies]

Spent the past hour working on the family tree and now realise how similar it is to our hobby. Where a 'component' does not fit, it would be very tempting to tweak it until it does. Wonder how often it happens? Especially when you share a name with a famous person.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Mark Rand on 12/02/2017 19:00:24:

Are you within range of Great Barr Sawmills? They're simple, reasonably priced and helpful. I've started using them after the two decent timber merchants in Rugby turned themselves into low grade builders merchants.

Yes, but Tamworth is 20 closer for me and has a big sawmill in Fradley.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Muzzer on 12/02/2017 20:16:39:

Grrr.

My iPhone 6 won't take any more pics or vids because it is full. Obviously it's "just" a question of copying them off the phone and then deleting them from the phone to free up space. If you simply delete them from the iphone they will also disappear from the icloud folders, so you have to copy them off before deleting them, either fromthe iPhone itelf or from the iCloud folder.

It gets really messy here. If you connect the usb cable, hoping to see the image files and simply copy them in file manager you will be disappointed, as only a few of them show up (something like 40 out of the 500 I know are there). WTF?? Alternatively you can use the Windows Photo program (in W10) to grab the photos and then copy them from there. But the same issue happens – you only get to see a fraction of the total. WTF?

It gets worse. Apple have a sort of browser called "iCloud Photos" that allows to you see the photos that have been already (automatically) uploaded to the iCloud server. But this is really clunky, like REALLY clunky. It doesn't allow you to see the names of the files or sort them by date, name, size etc etc. And if you want to select files for download, the ONLY way you can select them is by holding down Control and clicking every single one of them individually. Yes, all 500 of them. And if you accidentally click outside of any one of the thumbnails, all the files you have selected become unselected. WTF? As for "normal" shortcuts like Control+A (to select all) or holding the shift button and selecting the first and last files, that isn't implemented. Nor can you simply select a whole folder for download. Somewhere in Apple is a team of "developers" that decided that this was the right way to go about it. This is infuriating, even by iTunes standards. Even Microsoft haven't managed to come up with anything quite as unusable. Given that the iPhone and Windows 10 are the most commonplace phone and OS respectively, they have done themselves proud here by managing to come up with such an insurmountable problem.

So I've had to manually download all 500+ files in batches, with no clear idea which photos I have successfully managed to download. What a nightmare. I honestly doubt I could have made the operation any more difficult and frustrating if I'd tried.

Grrr.

My daughter has suffered similar issues, in fact her iphone decided to 'lose' a huge number of pictures permanently.

I have problems with people sending me photos for articles from iphones – Apple are convinced people only want to see the images on their phones and automatically downsample them

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Posted by JimmieS on 12/02/2017 20:58:43:

Spent the past hour working on the family tree and now realise how similar it is to our hobby. Where a 'component' does not fit, it would be very tempting to tweak it until it does. Wonder how often it happens? Especially when you share a name with a famous person.

 

Hi, quite agree that some people seem to tweak things to fit their tree nice and neatly. I've been doing my family tree online for some time now, with a well known web site, which also allows you to view other public trees. One of my great grandmothers in someone else's tree seems to be a bigamist and apart from having fifteen children between her two husbands, four of them were in four consecutive years and in the 1911 census she was in two different addresses on the same day. While both these ladies had the same married name and were the same age and came from the same county they were both born in different places and had different maiden names. One of my great, great grandfathers seem to have a similar problem in someone else's tree also, alas, he had only a first and last name and there were a few others in different parts of the country who had exactly the same name in the same period and with a wife with the same first name also. It's important to do your research intensively in this field and check everybody's background and get the documentation about births etc. before committing pen to paper, which takes an awful lot of time, which some people just don't seem to do and some of them seem to just copy other peoples mistakes. Having said that, I find it a very interesting venture and very rewarding when you find the truth, even though there maybe the odd skeleton in the cupboard, luckily my pedigree is all in order as far back as I've been able to go so far.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 12/02/2017 22:24:56

[JimmieSParticipant @jimmies]

Cheating is so much easier than the time consuming practice of accepting nothing without three different sources which can be independently verified.

Here in Ireland we suffer from a great lack of such information with the destruction of much of the birth, death and marriage and other records in the early 1920s.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I have spent many happy? hours in the past looking at my family tree. If you do so expect anything, there are things worse than madness and bastards. Try bestiality for a start. You should realize the interesting stuff is not on the internet but in county and national archives.

I have now got most of the ancestry business out of my scheme, thankfully.

JA

[OldMetallerParticipant @oldmetaller]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 12/02/2017 12:13:40:

Thanks Muzzer,

Its solid beech I wanted, to make a hinged frame to carry wheels for my mobile display. The timber merchant I selected only does things by the lorry load.

Inspired by a soft-toy labrador push-along…

I can haul over to a timber merchant in Tamworth or Stafford tomorrow and get some.

Neil

Neil, have you discovered Harlows in Long Whatton? Not too far from you, I used them a lot when I built my narrowboat 20 years ago, they are still there.

Regards,

John.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

Took delivery of some new signage for my lathe.

Nick

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