What did you do Today 2018

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Posted by Mike on 05/02/2018 12:21:56:

Was it A4 or American Foolscap? Just thought I'd throw in another measurement…

Foolscap paper size actually predates the invention of America…

[EugeneParticipant @eugene]

Managed to fit the motor / countershaft assembly to one of my M type lathes after the move from Wales.

That 70 year old, half horse Higgs motor is a bear of a thing. Very heavy, very big, unbalanced, and not a symmetrical surface or hand hold on it. An absolute pain in the hacienda to conjure into position when you're on your Tod. What we used to call "a right trusser". Shifting the lathe body onto the stand was a doddle in comparison.

Does anyone have a grasp of the total weight of a standard M Type, plus cast iron stand plus the motor and countershaft? Felt like a block of flats when I tried to shift the whole issue; I fitted some heavy duty castors which solved the problem, but without them I'd be lumbered. Or lumbagoed, one of the three.

Eug

 

Edited By Eugene on 05/02/2018 23:58:46

[Joseph Noci 1Participant @josephnoci1]

Don't think this has been mentioned – pardon if it has –

Go look at your 300mm long trusty hacksaw blade – see how it classifies the number of teeth…

Even the European blades come marked 300mm xxTPI.

Joe

[LimpetParticipant @limpet]

Posted by Mick B1 on 05/02/2018 15:47:46:

Posted by Martin Kyte on 05/02/2018 15:10:04:

So why can't we have a decimal week? We could get a whole 3 extra days !!!! and surely we should standardise the month.

regards Martin

Yes, if we moved Earth out to a 400-day orbit, only a few people would find it colder, and we could have 4 Quarters of 10 x 10 day weeks. Months are obviously dodgy, irrational, variable and old hat, so we should Monxit.

I only want a 10 day week if the extra days are at the weekend! And nobody has mentioned 72 points (I think) to the inch for font sizing – still used on all computers

Lionel

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by richardandtracy on 05/02/2018 16:36:07:

Posted by Martin Kyte on 05/02/2018 15:10:04:

So why can't we have a decimal week? We could get a whole 3 extra days !!!! and surely we should standardise the month.

regards Martin

The Romans used an 8 day week, so it must have been a bit of a dislocation throughout the Empire when they moved to the 7 day week when Christianity was adopted as the official religion.

Regards,

Richard

When I was at grammar school they decided that there was not enough time to fit the curriculum in a 5 day week .

The solution was to introduce a 6 day week. That meant that the first week of a term started on Monday; the second started on Tuesday ;the third on Wednesday & so on. That was hard enough to get one's head round as it was always a job to remember what day homework had to be in.( lots of detention !!) Worse still if one was off sick & lost count of what day of the week it was. If one returned on PE day without any kit then one had to swim in the nude if it was a swimming lesson.( the school had its own indoor pool) After a while so many missed it that the rule was that no one wore swimming trunks ( it was a boys school before you all get excited ).

No one thought much about it then, but we had about 40 borders & every Saturday morning the headmaster insisted on swimming lessons & would strip off & jump in with them. I just wonder what the reaction to that would be in the current climate.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Yes, Limpet – 72 points to the inch is right. The British-American points system was something I had to learn when I started designing newspaper pages in 1960. I won't confuse you with ems and nuts. In rifle and pistol shooting, bullet weights are still given in grains (7,000 to the lb), and shotgun bores (gauge to Americans) are the number of lead balls to the lb that will just fit down the barrel. Hence, the classic 12-bore barrel diameter is 0.729 inches. I'm full of information that is useless to most folks!

Sam: when I was at grammar school we used to have to go to school on Saturday mornings, but got Thursday afternoons off. I can only think it was because so many dads were shopkeepers, and Thursday was early closing day in our town.

And going back to paper sizes, I can recall an artist friend having to acquire some Double Elephant paper for a project – just looked it up, and it's 26.5 by 40 inches.

Edited By Mike on 06/02/2018 08:36:22

Edited By Mike on 06/02/2018 08:58:24

Edited By Mike on 06/02/2018 08:59:43

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Rob Rimmer on 05/02/2018 16:59:48:

Not engineering-related, more planning…

Just finishing off my kitchen tiling today, and I'm two-thirds of a tile short.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Now you need to find an imperial tile, You can only get metric ones in preferred sizes and 0.7 tile will be too big and 0.5 tile will be too small.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Another victim of the falling down club… yesterday my wife was in Leicester and tripped on one of the bands they use to bundle newspapers etc. Having broken her left wrist last autumn she twisted to land on her shoulder instead, and broke her arm just below it.

Neil

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 06/02/2018 10:39:09:

Another victim of the falling down club… yesterday my wife was in Leicester and tripped on one of the bands they use to bundle newspapers etc. Having broken her left wrist last autumn she twisted to land on her shoulder instead, and broke her arm just below it.

Neil

Oh dear, my sympathies to your wife Neil.

A few years ago we had a pesky mouse plague here in Oz. I would mow in decreasing circles until a solid mass of mice were concentrated into a 1m circle and then send them to where mice go where they meet again.

My problem was a smarty pants little mouse that ran around all the mousetraps and chewed my magazines so I took drastic action.

Loaded the trusty .22 with ratshot, fitted and zeroed an expensive laser sight and waited for the little **** to show up.

It ran down the outside stairs, I ran after it.

Trip, busted arm and dislocated shoulder. 2 months in a sling.

Mouse got away.

* Danny M *

[Nigel Brown 7Participant @nigelbrown7]

Posted by Joseph Noci 1 on 06/02/2018 06:02:40:

Don't think this has been mentioned – pardon if it has –

Go look at your 300mm long trusty hacksaw blade – see how it classifies the number of teeth…

Even the European blades come marked 300mm xxTPI.

Joe

Reminds of the mate who worked on Concorde parts at Filton.

He swore blind that he had seen a drawing that said a required size was "52mm +- 3 thou."

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

I took out all the electric storage heaters out of my bungalow,ready for central heating instalation.Found out the bricks stay hot for a long time!
Mark P.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

We've got a falling-over club, of which I am a founder member – and all sympathy to Neil's wife. Mark, don't tell us you're trying to start a serious burns branch!

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

As this thread seemes to be the location of the ministry of silly ideas and in response to the Part Built Sweet Pea thread could I make this suggestion. If anyone is starting a project he or she would profit by starting at the end rather than the beginning. The obvious logic being that if the project is abandoned in the half way stage it would be easier to sell and command a higher price on the basis that the half that has been completed will match the multitude of halves that are already on the market in a part built state which were begun at the beginning. Perhaps this thought could be included in the words and wisdom of the buying a project article as being a wry idea?.

regards Martin

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 05/02/2018 15:10:04:

So why can't we have a decimal week? We could get a whole 3 extra days !!!! and surely we should standardise the month.

regards Martin

If you suggested a 12 day week I'm sure the Brexiteers would go for it, but 10 sounds like johnny foreigner territory to me.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Yes, but would you only want to limit it to 10 points on your driving licence ??

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Thanks for the best wishes for the SO

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Neil,

Please add me to the list of well-wishers; I missed your post this morning.

.

What I did today was well-intentioned but foolish:

We have a rather good cross-cut shredder, and I habitually shred all of the 'personally identifiable' paper, etc.

'etcetera' generally includes the address-panel cut out of the plastic MEW mailing envelope.

Today, I decided to do my bit to help protect the oceanic wildlife; by shredding the whole of the last three MEW wrappers. [shredding goes to landfill] …

The shredder jammed solid, and I am still trying to remove the strips of thin plastic that wrapped around, and between, all those cutters. … The machine looks like a lunatic plumber has run amok with a reel of PTFE tape.

Learning point: The plastic is sufficiently thin that cutters designed for copy-paper don't reliably shred it.

MichaelG.

[paul raynerParticipant @paulrayner36054]

MichaelG

I always put plastic wrappers in an envelope then shred. Iv'e never had a problem

regards

Paul

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by paul rayner on 06/02/2018 21:54:55:

MichaelG

I always put plastic wrappers in an envelope then shred. Iv'e never had a problem

regards

Paul

.

Thanks, Paul

Yes, that's what I have always done with the cut-out address panels from the MEW mailers.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to do it with the three complete wrappers that I shredded today.

The first two appeared to go through O.K. but the machine jammed on the third.

Having spent about three hours pulling plastic out of the cutters, it's still jammed solid; so I will have to strip it down properly.

MichaelG.

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Michael- Run the shredder in reverse, might not clear it but will help-slackens off the ribbons. I have an oil drum with holes and burn all that stuff.

[egaParticipant @ega]

As well as minimising the size of the plastic and wrapping it in paper I occasionally put a sheet of lightly-oiled A4 through as recommended by the shredder manual.

[JimmieSParticipant @jimmies]

This morning on instructions from above I relocated the shredder under the loaded clothes horse in the ute room. Following the shredding of some paper I wondered where the micro fibre cloth was. After a search it was discovered. In the shredder bin. Silly me trying to help.

Mike, not to belittle your and some other members recent painful experiences, thank goodness it is a ‘falling-over’ and not ‘falling -out’ club which would appear to be somewhat prevalent these days on some other forums.

Jim

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

When winding up the affairs of a defunct charity I had to buy a professional-quality shredder, and with it came oiled paper for lubricating the cutters. Unfortunately, it didn't like damp paper, which jammed it on a regular basis. I finished up burning the papers in a cheap garden rubbish incinerator bought from B & Q. The papers had been stored in a rather damp garage for six years, as required by the charity regulator here in Scotland.

I have to confess I have never been fussy about burning or shredding papers with my name and address on them. I'm in the phone book and on the electoral roll. As a journalist, I can tell you that you can't really hide from someone who is determined to find out your personal details.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Gordon W on 07/02/2018 09:38:15:

Michael- Run the shredder in reverse, might not clear it but will help-slackens off the ribbons.

.

If only it was that easy, Gordon !!

The shredder, which has a 380W induction motor, is in 'self-protection mode' and will not run in either direction. I think it's the little strips that are jammed between the cutters that are jamming it.

MichaelG,

[Clive FarrarParticipant @clivefarrar90441]

Damn freezing in the garage but I persevered.

Two jobs ticked off.

Small G clamp modified to grip to a boat gunnel with a side bracket to stop it from rotating upwards due to the fish finder transducer leg that was added to the outside end. Also bracket made to attach the transducer to the bottom of the leg. All in stainless steel but not too difficult now that I have learnt to use SLOW speed and cutting paste with LOTS of pressure.

Turned up some thin wall brass spigots to go in side RC model exhaust flexi tube. Theses are to get an in cowl exhaust on the Flair Pupeteer biplane I am finishing off. Once I have braised the blank in I will tap it M10 x 0.75 to fit onto the header tube. This will than get bent to shape before braising the other end complete with stinger pipe.

Regards Clive

[Author]

Posts