What did you do Today 2018

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Interesting comments on employment practice.

I always think my biggest mistakes as a boss were persuading people to stay in jobs they weren't entirely happy in.

Neil

[Roger ClarkParticipant @rogerclark]

Today I helped collect a Schaublin 12 mill for our new men's shed, going to be an interesting rebuild project!!!

That will then join our 2 Harbinge lathes, 1 imperial and one metric complete with collets, change wheels, oh just say fully equipped.

Never thought this kind of kit would be willingly donated, kind gobsmacked.

Roger

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Do you really need 2 Hardinge lathes? Our shed has several chisels we can swap for one. We were pleased to be given a second mallet. (wooden for hitting chisels with, not type of loco)

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

I moved the lathe off its stand onto my bench, to join the milling machine. The garage is disappearing at the end of this week and a new workshop is to be built around the existing concrete slab. The lathe and milling machine are to cumbersome to move into storage, and both have problems that I'm planning to work on while I can't use them.

The lathe motor needs a new capacitor. The milling machine needs a new motor capacitor, a few new gears, new bearings, and new gear change handles (which I need to lathe to make!)

The gears are coming from China, on a slow boat, for AU $122 freight! The company I bought the machine off don't carry them as spares so had to order them from the factory. Feeling a bit ripped off. Fixing this one is about 1/2 the cost of a new one. At least it will have good bearings and I can ensure the gearbox is put together properly this time.

David.

[Martin DowingParticipant @martindowing58466]

@David Taylor,

Did you use your wife's scarf to lift that lathe?

If so what it is made of?

Martin

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

That would be those purple nylon scarves that have a 1000kg SWL for a straight pull 

 

Edited By JasonB on 31/03/2018 10:16:57

[Roger ClarkParticipant @rogerclark]

Posted by Bazyle on 30/03/2018 22:38:15:

Do you really need 2 Hardinge lathes? Our shed has several chisels we can swap for one. We were pleased to be given a second mallet. (wooden for hitting chisels with, not type of loco)

A bit of a story about these lathes Baz, they were built in '62/63 and installed in the Rank Xerox toolroom. with the demise of RX in the UK they were auctioned off and went into barn storage for about 6 years and then were offered to us on ongoing loan. They literally came as last used, swarf and all.!!

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

David, did I read it right, the garage is disappearing at the end of the week, it looks to be in very good condition but I suppose a new workshop building will be ideal. I know that a lot of us here in the UK would love to have a building such as your garage that we could use to house our machines and activities, shame you live on the other side of our planet, I am sure many would have taken it off your hands. Dave W

[davebParticipant @daveb17630]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/03/2018 21:49:30:

Interesting comments on employment practice.

I always think my biggest mistakes as a boss were persuading people to stay in jobs they weren't entirely happy in.

Neil

I suppose I made mistakes but that wasn't one of them. If I or the employee were not entirely happy with their job, I helped them to move on as soon as possible.

Daveb

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/03/2018 21:49:30:

Interesting comments on employment practice.

I always think my biggest mistakes as a boss were persuading people to stay in jobs they weren't entirely happy in.

Neil

The art of good management is to find out what people are good at and enjoy (usually the same thing) and divide up the work accordingly. If you can't find a match then consider retraining. If someone is only interested in being a saggar maker's bottom knocker and you stop making saggars then it's probably best if they go and work for someone else. I was fortunate enough to enjoy what I did in real life until the final year of full time, where I didn't have enough work to fill my time, and what there was was a waste of time, deeply unsatisfying. I got an offer I couldn't refuse and then did another 8 years as a contractor doing the interesting stuff, none of the modern management gibberish, just proper engineering.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by daveb on 31/03/2018 15:29:51:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/03/2018 21:49:30:

Interesting comments on employment practice.

I always think my biggest mistakes as a boss were persuading people to stay in jobs they weren't entirely happy in.

Neil

I suppose I made mistakes but that wasn't one of them. If I or the employee were not entirely happy with their job, I helped them to move on as soon as possible.

Daveb

These were people who could do the job but found the lack of rapid results frustrating. Keeping them on worked OK for me at first but their enthusiasm continued to wane, until results suffered and they chose to move on.

Recognising my mistake helped me later.

Neil

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

You're supposed to enjoy work? Sounds like most of you must be chief chocolate tester for a team of cheerleaders based in Hawaii. sigh, I missed my calling.

Having just go my poll tax bill I notice that the earnings of the remainder of my working life will just about match the amount I have to pay the parasites during the rest of my life.

Meanwhile anyone copying David T's lathe lift pictures above please put a rope through the spindle tied round the purple scarf to stop any attempt to roll over.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

David T, From your photos of lifting your lathe, you got away with the lift, but the C of G looked above the centre point of the lift . Ie: that it would have been possible for the lathe to turn turtle in the slings. A safer option would be to bolt a bit of box section to the foot of the lathe bed, protruding out either side beneath the chuck. Then have slings from the hook down to each side of the bed and around the box section forming an "A" and of course the sling around the tailstock end.

I don't mind being told that I am wrong, but just writing this in the interests of safety.
BobH

I have just seen the post "Lifting or Hoisting a Myford 7"   Honest,  I saw that after writing and have just added these last lines after viewing that post.
Bob

Edited By Speedy Builder5 on 31/03/2018 17:53:53

[Anonymous]

I did another riveting experiment last night. Only this time I did it properly and wrote down what I did in a logical order. Not surprisingly the rivet length is important. If the rivet is too long you get a dome on top of a short cylinder as the snap is filled before it reaches the work being riveted. Conversely if the rivet is too short you get the same, but smaller, as the snap reaches the work before the snap is completely filled. Armed with this new information on rivet length I threw caution to the wind and riveted up one side of one of the traction engine front wheels this afternoon:

This is a detail of the outside, using the commercially formed rivet heads:

And on the inside are the formed rivet heads; not perfect, but they'll do (paint can hide a lot):

The 3/16" steel rivets were set using home made snaps and support, and a #3 Denbeigh flypress. Only seven more sides to go; plus the rear wheels of course.

I also cut the keyway in the flycutter shown previously.

Andrew

[WatfordParticipant @watford]

Posted by duncan webster on 31/03/2018 16:07:05:

……………. I got an offer I couldn't refuse and then did another 8 years as a contractor doing the interesting stuff, none of the modern management gibberish, just proper engineering.

Work is supposed to be horrible – if it isn't horrid then it isn't work

Mike

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Mark Twain

Mike

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

The scarves are lifting slings, 1000kg capacity. Good ideas re stopping the lathe tipping over in the slings. One reason I posted the photos was to get advice on what I should have done.

I thought I had followed the advice from the lathe manual. But it was two days since I'd looked at it. Here is what I was supposed to do. This may help address the rollover problem.

As for the garage, I am not a handyman. I tried to frame it so it could be lined but only got 3/4 of the way around before I got sick of it. That was about 7 years ago! And the roof leaks badly in a few places. I just want a nice cool/warm place to work, that doesn't look like a steel shed. And I want someone else to build it. I think the new building will look much better both inside and outside. My mother left us enough money when she went to build one so with the wife's agreement that's what is happening. It will be a brick building with many more windows, only one set of garage doors rather than two, to keep more weather out The workshop will also serve as my 'office' as I work from home and am working at the kitchen table after giving up the previous office to oldest son for his bedroom!

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Going back to Baz's comment yesterday about doing a job and having a load of, shall we say, less than fully trained engineers comment on how a job was done and then finding a better way of doing things. In the late 1980's I had a young engineer on a' year long release -work experience' course for his Bsc or something assigned to my department. One day I asked him to work out the slope across the dairy floor – we were milk bottling 'factory' – so the new conveyor we had coming would have the right sized legs at each station as the conveyor crossed the floor.

I explained the quickest way was to to use a water hose – run a clear hose across the floor, filled with water, with upstands at each end, and then measure the height of the water level above floor level at each end and the distance between them, and from that the slope was easily arrived at. I'm not using that 16th century technology he said, before spending nearly 3 hours trying to work out a 'quick and easy' 20th century way of doing it and failing miserably, and then resorting to doing it as I had suggested in no time at all, before coming back muttering that perhaps in the 16th century they knew a bit about measuring relative heights after all!

What this illustrates is that the young may think they know it all, but they dismiss age and experience at their peril

 

Chris

PS How do you get rid of these blooming smilie things when you just want brackets?  Other than by changing brackets for dashes?

Edited By ChrisH on 31/03/2018 23:49:45

Edited By ChrisH on 31/03/2018 23:50:04

Edited By ChrisH on 31/03/2018 23:51:46

Edited By ChrisH on 31/03/2018 23:54:04

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

There may well be a lot more mass in the bed than the headstock, which would mean it is more stable than it looks.

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

The IT business is big on getting rid of over 40s these days. Most of my North American teammates have been pushed and I expect it will happen to me soon enough. I guess I was still cheaper than them, being Australian. But I'm still a bit more expensive than a recent uni graduate so my time will come, especially since I don't have a local team. The Australian company is basically sales and marketing – so inspiring!

The problem is I never wanted to leave programming. I tried 'management' for a while because that's what we're meant to do as we get older but spreadsheets and meetings and contracts aren't my thing. It was horrible.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by ChrisH on 31/03/2018 23:48:15:

PS How do you get rid of these blooming smilie things when you just want brackets? Other than by changing brackets for dashes?

.

Square brackets [ ] seem to be safe

MichaelG.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

(?) (? ) [?]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Put a space before you close the brackets around any punctuation and then you can use them without a problem.

Without space (12&quot

With space (12" )

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by JasonB on 01/04/2018 07:56:45:

Put a space before you close the brackets around any punctuation and then you can use them without a problem.

.

… except that I would agonise over the possibility that readers will see an 'orphan' closing-parenthesis when the word-wrapping can't cope.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 01/04/2018 08:16:23

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

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