What did you do Today 2018

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

Posted by Mike on 21/05/2018 16:15:43:

Last time I saw a hornet was in a fishing hut near Invergarry, over15 years ago. I get a lot of queen wasps in a somewhat dilapidated wooden garage next to my workshop on the Moray Firth. Could it be that they are attracted by rotting wood for nest building? Anyway, they get swatted as soon as they appear, but haven't seen any so far this year. One year, when I forgot to check, I had a big paper nest nearly as big as a football hanging from the rafters.

The queen wasps hibernate over winter (the rest of the colony dies off in the autumn) so it may be that they like to hibernate in your garage.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Tony Jeffree on 21/05/2018 15:29:14:

Hornets are actually fairly uncommon in the UK – much more likely to be a queen wasp. There's a guide to the differences here:

Wasp or Hornet?

Main diff seems to be that the hornet has brown rather than black body markings.

Not here! – I estimate that I have had 3-4 hornets per queen wasp over the years.

Here's the most recent:

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

A hornet nest appeared in my store shed right by the door a couple of weeks ago but appeared to be uninhabited luckily.

I also found a bunch of bees in a little turf of grass between two small logs as I was restacking a pile. How long are they likely to stay? Now the top of the pile is gone they will get wet when it rains so should I add some cover?

[LimpetParticipant @limpet]

Well today I got involved with renovating, not on any type of machine we all generally work on but on myself. I had a right knee replacement this morning. Hospital staff excellent what a marvellous job they do caring for us Grumpy old men, can't praise them enough. Any another 3days in hospital then banned from the workshop for 6weeks by the boss.

Lionel

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

All the best for an uneventful recovery Lionel!

Neil

[John Billard 1Participant @johnbillard1]

I didn't mean to be exclusive regarding our steam ploughing; any enthusiast is welcome!

It was just pleasing to have no child, dog or other person jumping on the moving rope or trying to be too interested in spinning gears.

If anyone wants to have a real go we in the Steam Plough Club are organising a Hands On to be held on 1-2 September near Uppingham, on the Rutland/Leicestershire border. The cost is £150 for the weekend (plus £20 SPC membership if not a member) and will allow full access, under expert tuition, for participants to drive the engines and work the implements. We plan to run three sets with ploughs and a cultivator.

There are a limited number of places available at the time of writing.

Best wishes

John B

 

 

 

 

Edited By John Billard 1 on 21/05/2018 19:42:25

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Bazyle, bees are good so give them a bit of cover for when the rains come.

Last year we had a Hornets nest at the bottom of the garden and we just left them to it. They never bothered us, we would get the odd one land on a chair or the garden table where we sat but they were not aggressive. I even had one land on my arm, he had a walk around for half a minute and then flew off. Its when you mess with them or their nest when the trouble starts.

Ron

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Definitely hornets! Not the first time I have had them round, seem to get a couple most years. Big beasties.

Wasps we only tend to see later in the year, and they are much smaller. Found a load of queens – queens as in 'your majesty' not as in 'hello sailor' – had over wintered one mild winter in a furled table umbrella one year, When I unfurled it they mostly awoke and stumbled away, very dozy and sleepy. No doubt they soon woke up.

Bloke who cuts gents hair in the small town in Brittany we frequent keeps bees and sells honey in his barbers shop. He hates hornets as they can destroy the bee hive colonies, and collects the hornets to display in jars in his shop. He is starting to see Asian Hornets appear, which is not good news – it's not far from Brittany to Devon and Dorset.

Chris

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

I’m still working on the build video, but this weekend I thought I’d take my “home shop” build Lidar outside and try it in the garden. Here is a quick video of the results.

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Chris

Too late – an Asian hornet was found in Lancashire about a month ago, and a nest destroyed in Devon last year.

[keith wedgwoodParticipant @keithwedgwood19516]

an interesting little tip an old boy told me the other day

if you are troubled by wasps if you get a large brown paper bag inflate it and tie up the top and hang it upfrom a tree ect because wasps ar teratorial they take it as another wasps nest and ceep well clear of the area

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

They had an asian hornets nest in Gloucestershire  too a year or two back – quite recent, that was destroyed too.

Saw an interesting video on bees defending themselves against asian hornets out in Japan or somewhere that way. Seemingly, asian hornets send out scouts to search for bees nests. The scouts are then supposed to report back to hornet HQ when they find a nest and then the hornets go in mob handed and eat all the bees. But the bees are onto this and when they see a scout they entice it into their nest. They then surround the hornet and start fanning their wings and build up heat, quite rapidly. The hornets can only take heat up to 116 deg.C whereas the bees can go up to 119deg.C. Not a lot of difference, but enough. The hornet dies in the heat and the bees live to fight another day.

Ain't nature wonderful?

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 21/05/2018 23:36:24

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by David Cambridge on 21/05/2018 22:31:53:

I’m still working on the build video, but this weekend I thought I’d take my “home shop” build Lidar outside and try it in the garden. Here is a quick video of the results.

.

That's very impressive, David

Keep up the good work !!

Do you have a particular application for it? or is it just to prove that you can?

MichaelG.

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

Hi Michael – thanks for the kind words! I didn’t have any real application in mind, the only driving force was that I’d been looking for a project that could combine machining, electronics, and software. I heard somebody talking about Lidar at work, and it seemed the idle project!

[LimpetParticipant @limpet]

Many thanks for the good wishes Neil

Lionel

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by David Cambridge on 22/05/2018 06:59:37:

Hi Michael – thanks for the kind words! I didn’t have any real application in mind, the only driving force was that I’d been looking for a project that could combine machining, electronics, and software. I heard somebody talking about Lidar at work, and it seemed the idle project!

Does that count as a 'measuring device'? – I'm sure it does – now how about a write up for MEW

Neil

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Just a link to our CAA Newsletter (Astronomy Club) which as well as having interesting stuff on the sky has an article about our latest Steam Driving day ( . . . . well also a deisel)

**LINK**

regards Martin

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by ChrisH on 21/05/2018 23:35:58:

…..the bees can go up to 119deg.C.

Ain't nature wonderful?

Certainly would be if you hadn't mixed up your Celsius and your Fahrenheit. Just imagine!

Murray

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Interesting Lidar stuff, David. I've no experience of it myself but how does Autodesk Recap compare with the tool you used? Looks as if it can do similar things and possibly more besides? Claims to work with Lidar data as well as photographs.

Looking forward to seeing the build videos!

Murray

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

Muzzer. I did take a look at the Autodesk solution and in fact there are quite a few tools out there for rendering point clouds. But, the truth of the matter is that I was eager to get results quite quickly and any of the “off the shelf” tools would require me to digest and understand the necessary file formats. That seemed like a rather dull task! Luckily, as I know the Unity game engine I figured it would be quicker to put something together myself and build my own rendering tool. In the end, that aspect of the project only took a few hours.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Murray – you are of course correct, I did mean deg.F not deg.C – been brainwashed by these new fangled units into quoting in C while still thinking in F. Things were much simpler when we dealt in real money. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

But it's still damn impressive don't you think?

Chris

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Haha yes, if they can pounce on the scouts and suffocate / bake them before they report back, they stand a chance. Interesting how they learned how to do it – evolution / selection perhaps?

Murray

[LathejackParticipant @lathejack]

I've been doing a little more restoration of the full size Burrell Showmans Engine. After drilling through the centre of the flywheels six inch long key, then using the Oxy/Acetylene torch to burn it away, the four feet diameter flywheel was finally separated from the crankshaft.

………………The crank was then mounted on our large old lathe, the worn and scored main bearing surfaces were then skimmed and polished up. While in the lathe all the old paint and rust was removed, it's amazing what dirt and filth some people will paint over.

………………..The 78mm big end journal was in a bad state, badly scored and worn barrel shaped with a diameter measuring 1.3mm larger in the middle than the sides. It had also worn into the large radius in each corner. It could not be set up in this lathe to machine the crankpin, so I was all set to crate it up and have it sent away for regrinding. But in the end I decided to have a go at it with the crank mounted as shown..

………………..After several hours work using hand tools and strips of abrasive tape the big end was restored to a smooth, parallel and round journal, quite tricky when rotating with a 12 inch stroke.

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Lathejack,

May I ask the name of the engine.

Martin P

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Well done , Lathejack.

I wouldn't fancy getting hit on the chin by that crank!

[Author]

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