What Did You Do Today (2017)

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by Ady1 on 23/03/2017 01:07:35:

Some of the decisions taken on replacement items like windows, kitchens, gutters etc, by the authorities, are downright stupid, and in some instances, backward! Common sense seems to have been phased out! It does seem sometimes that the authorities would rather see a building fall down than allow somebody to sensitively refurbish to a reasonable more modern standard.

Have you not realised yet?

Governments do POLICY they don't do common bluddy sense.

Governments do Dogma.

Then they slag off religions for being tied to dogma…

signed

Chairman Ady

having had a joinery business that did lots of conservation work for English Heritage etc I think one needs to comment on the other side.

I have seen many buildings that in the first case would seem silly to replace as existing but if done properly have actually turned out very well. I have also seen so called " modernisation" that has totally ruined old buildings that would have looked fine if restored with care. A lot of restoration needs an " attitude of mind" & once those involved can be convinced that the end product is worthy of effort some really good buildings can be maintained quite easily.

I had a 16th century house & wanted planning permission to build another in the garden alongside. It took 3 years to finally get planning permission & meant that i had to put the house right on the pavement line. Something I had resisted . however, once my architect turned to me after the second rejection & said " can you let me design the house now" it was passed & won the European Architectural Heritage Year Award. I had to admit I actually liked the house more than what i originally wanted.

I used to spend hours discussing minute joinery details with architects & conservationists & if I listened I could often find ways of doing things to achieve the results they wanted quite easily.

I did work on houses, churches, castles, Woolwich Arsenal, Lighthouses, Bridges & the like. Having a contract with the London Docklands Development Corporation for 3 years was really interesting to see the host of fine buidings we have in London . I do not feel that any did not benefit from the care that was put into them.

To let some of the butchers run amok with these buildings would be a betrayal of our past & a loss of some great buildings.

So whilst some may seem not worth saving I think the principle of conservation is an important one to be cherished.

My biggest disappointment was not to be able to rebuild a local windmill complete with sails because the owner went into liquidation.

Some forumites here soon get the hump if people start chopping bits off steam engines at will

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 23/03/2017 12:32:24

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Sam,

In some ways I absolutely agree with you. However, much of the character of old buildings is developed from a hodge-podge of modifications accreting over the centuries. None of the changes were done under the oversight of nanny, yet we still like them, as they add character & layers of history to the house. Just, for goodness sakes, trust people. OK, some people will be stupid, but there are a lot who won't be and really don't need nanny overseeing every last move they make. And with the stupid people, they will pay through the nose for their mistakes with lowered property value. As it is, you are treated as stupid regardless of whether you have proved that you are not.

It's the over- and un-necessary regulation that gets on my wick. It's as if some petty little tyrant with no financial, or any other interest, is simply showing how important they are by exercising their obnoxiousness.

There is a problem with architecture, though. How many modern architects are capable of designing a gracious Palladian pile? Or a soaring Victorian Gothic one? The 'Modernist' infection has got so deep into them that many actually like grey concrete (evidence: BBC2's 100k house 8 Mar 2017 where one of the presenters came out with this damning admission and wrecked any last dregs of credibility he had). How distorted are those values? It's unsurprising that many new houses are so poorly designed when you have a large number of professionals who actually like & admire the worlds most boring building material.

Regards,

Richard.

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

+1 for Sam's comments.

As an ex owner of a listed thatched cottage I feel I have a bit of experience on the issue.

The like-for-like replacement is legitimately used to avoid the need for listed building consent (LBC) but IME sensible improvements or changes which required LBC seemed to me to be treated reasonably even when they were to be undertaken by me, a competent DIY'er. It was much the same story for me as when dealing with Building Control – reasonable and pretty fair.

IMHO, the balance between preservation and progress has to be a compromise and it was more or less in the right ballpark when I had to apply for LBC for my old house.

Jon

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Paul Lousick on 22/03/2017 21:30:43:

Just completed a 4 day road trip in a Fowler traction engine from Wellington in the central west of NSW to Maitland (Australia), a distance of 350km, travelling at an average speed of 10km/hr. The engine was driven by an 8 man crew, stopping every 2 hours to refuel, oil and fill up with water. We burnt 8 tons of wood, 200kg of coal, 20 litres of oil and used 5000 litres of water.

Our club at Maitland is hosting the Hunter Valley Steamfest next month and it is much more fun to drive the engine than put it on a truck. (Steamfest link http://www.steamfest.com.au/ )

Paul.

.

That's fantastic.

Sounds an interesting 'expedition' – Whenever a traction engine passes everybody from 3 to 103 stops and watches until it's out of sight.

Nick

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Museums as we know tem will soon become – well museums ie things of the past.
It should be possible to 3D image every artefact in such a way that you can view them with a suitable headset from any angle and if appropriate moving and as if in their original environment also computer generated. Some could be scaled and printed if you wanted that. Perhaps getting inside or taking apart machines in the virtual world.
Then you won't be restricted to a few hours viewing when you can afford the trip, perhaps abroad, nor will a privileged few living a few miles from a particular museum have unlimited access to what is aid for by everyone. Endless possibilities for comparing items thousands of miles apart as if they were in the same collections.

Lots of possibilities for virtual exhibitions too. Want to buy a lathe – try it out for a while first with no penalties when you crash it.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Decided it was time to start engraving dials on the Quorn T&C Grinder. As I didn't have a suitable way to index the lathe spindle I was tempted to set something up on the mill. I decided to put this rig together instead, it looks a bit Heath-Robinson but it works and I'm quite pleased with the results so far.

The dial to be engraved is sitting on the table, Test piece in the chuck, good job really as I discovered I had not sent the engraving tool on centre height. After a bit of adjusting and fiddling to get things set up this is the result of the first engraving

Just gotta stamp the numbers – which is going to require another jig

[Boiler BriParticipant @boilerbri]

Played around with pin striping in preparation to line my 5" Brittania. 😩

I bought a draughtman pen and a few nibs with little tanks on them. The .4mm size gave a nice line that was even.

Now I have to be grave and try it on the loco.😳

Bri

[John GardenerParticipant @johngardener91897]

Richard the Lionheart. I stand corrected.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Keith-palmer

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Lets just keep things to showing our respects to the victims. Once we open the door to a political or religious debate it will get rowdy; there are plenty of places for those debates.

Thanks

Neil

[John GardenerParticipant @johngardener91897]

Members all,

I apologise for hi-jacking the thread.

John

[Anonymous]

New toy day; bending rolls, ordered yesterday, delivered 9:30am today:

Rolls are 610mm long. I need them for work for rolling some perforated stainless steel sheet. But they will come in useful for the traction engine chimneys.

Andrew

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Nice bending rolls Andrew. Are the roll(er)s made of any special hardened material to help keep them rigid?

——————

Started reading "Gears And Gear Cutting" by Ivan Law today, thinking about adding a High-Low gear train to the mill power-feed I'll be making.

Also recently I managed to sell a set of the brass knobs I was making – the ones that required a 30° pitch and a set of custom knurls were made. The chap would like a second set, so it's a good job I made a few.

Ed.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Ed Duffner on 24/03/2017 18:44:17:

Nice bending rolls Andrew. Are the roll(er)s made of any special hardened material to help keep them rigid?

——————

.

Ed.

rigidity (stiffness) is a function of Young's modulus, which is pretty much the same for all steels. Hardening would have no effect unless you were approaching the yield stress, and I doubt Andrew is going to get that enthusiastic.

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

Posted by Mike on 22/03/2017 10:14:06:

Has anyone visited the Glasgow Riverside (formerly Transport) museum lately? They have some very fine cars and bikes, but they have mounted most of them on shelves on the walls, so you can't see them in detail. Looks terribly arty-farty from a distance, but useless to anyone really interested in the exhibits. Next time I'm in the city I'll be giving the place a miss…

We did four weeks ago, totally agree, the way it is does not make me want to recommend it to anyone, good items wasted by the display methods.

Mike – have you been to the Moray Motor Museum, last time I was in there it was fascinating or even better the Knockando Wool Mill.

Visit Moray, got lots more to see and do, good eating and drinking to be had.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Hi Clarihew: I live about 12 miles from the Moray Motor Museum, and a few months back I took the group of stroke survivors with which I am a volunteer on a visit. Not only were the staff very helpful to us, but the displays are great and you can actually see the cars up close and in detail. And how I would love to own that Lister-Jaguar! We have also taken our stroke survivors grpup to the Knockando Wool Mill – wish I could afford to ask them to make me a tweed shooting suit!

[James AParticipant @jamesalford67616]

Slowly adding the scales to the copper dragon that I am building. 200 scales so far, and barely any of the carcass covered yet. I shall be so glad when they are all on as the appeal of cutting them by hand soon evaporates. Once this is completed, though, I shall be able to move onto the clock that I want to make with a clear conscience of having finished something first

I made myself another compressed air-propane torch a few weeks back. I spent time on a new design and this version is smaller, much, much more controllable, less ferocious, but just as effective for brazing the bulk of this thing.

James

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by James Alford on 25/03/2017 09:34:41:

Slowly adding the scales to the copper dragon that I am building.

That's going to look great when it's finished James. As they say here, "bon courage!"

Russell

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by James Alford on 25/03/2017 09:34:41:

Slowly adding the scales to the copper dragon that I am building. 200 scales so far, and barely any of the carcass covered yet. I shall be so glad when they are all on as the appeal of cutting them by hand soon evaporates. Once this is completed, though, I shall be able to move onto the clock that I want to make with a clear conscience of having finished something first

Great project!

Neil

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Mike on 24/03/2017 22:16:24:

And how I would love to own that Lister-Jaguar!

Well, you can buy a new one. The resurrected Lister company is building ten special edition cars at a price of £1M each. Each car will be handed over by Sir Stirling Moss.

http://www.listercars.com/

Russell

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 25/03/2017 10:45:08

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Wow! I'm off to buy a lottery ticket right now!

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Got busy today, ripping out all of the 1980s electronics from the control cabinet on the CNC mill. It was 99% still functional but annoyingly the display stubbornly stopped working during the week, so any further operation became impossible. Pity, as I'd hoped to do a bit more playing about with it before getting on with the retrofit.

The cabinet is almost big enough to sling a hammock inside. Similarly the operator console / telly thing is very sizeable by today's standards. My cunning plan is to dispose of the cabinet and bung everything into the console unit. So now the cabinet is waiting for a trip to the dump and the machine is just a jumble of cables from the servo motors, spindle motor, limit switches, coolant and lube pumps, gear change solenoids, tool changer etc. There's no going back now. The stuff on and under the step is the antique electronics and there's another pile that came out of the console.

My new 4-axis Chinese (Newkye 990M) controller should fit nicely into the console box and the modern servo drives are minute compared to the originals. Even the new Yaskawa VFD is tiny. This approach should also enable me to remove the head / ram assembly next time I need to move it. We actually built the workshop around the machine and I can tell you that it won't fit out of the door as it stands.

I connected up a CNCdrives servo drive to the X axis motor, a bench PSU and the configuration software on a laptop. I seem to have connected up the encoder, power supply and comms connections correctly, as it works rather nicely. I took the opportunity to do a sanity check on the backlash. I only have a Xmas cracker DTI (Chinese made, "Kurt" branded) with a resolution of 1''' per division. It seems to be better than the DTI will register when I traverse the table and return to the original position. It seems that would normally warrant a willy waving post on most of the US forums but I'd rather give it a representative (significant) load before getting too excited. Certainly it's considerably better than the Blidgeport and encouraging enough for the moment.

Murray

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, yesterday I managed to find a little time to drill and tap my new backplate for my slim four jaw chuck, having received some cap head bolts off ebay.

It's now sitting on my mini mill table to be lined up and drill the pilot holes for the holding down bolts. As it happens the T slots are the same distance apart as they are on my Chester Champion mill, so just need to get it central on the table and drill the holes on the PCD, using the DRO's to get the positions over the T slots.

Regards Nick.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Yesterday actually. Dismantled a 3300kVA isolation transformer (110V CTE wall mounted) and removed some secondary turns to reduce the output to 100VAC. I need around 140VDC (no load) for my new servo drivers, so this would be about right.

Unlike the yellow site transformers that are potted with black resin, the wall mounted ones are simple to dismantle and modify. Once down to the basic transformer, I used a cutting disk to grind out the welds holding the "I" laminations and pulled the winding assembly out. Seemed to have about 72 turns in total, so I removed 12 turns.

Bolted it all back together and the voltage seems to be where I want it. I haven't welded the laminations back (welders not yet recommissioned) but they are back where they started with a minimal gap and the bobbin is held in place with silicone elastomer (to keep the noise down!). This will be fine for now.

Murray

[MikelkieParticipant @mikelkie]

I think the trfr in the pic is a wee bit small for 3300kva?

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

That's what it's sold as. In fact 3300kVA intermittent, 1700W continuous. It's a conventional site transformer. The ratings are determined by the allowable temperature rise of the windings and insulation system.

[Author]

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