What did you do Today 2018

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Yes, I found that quite interesting. Or perhaps "eye opening".

Also interesting to learn that Specsavers "operates most of their stores under a 'Joint or Shared Venture Partnership' consisting of a partnership between an Optometry Director and a Retail Director." Not quite a franchise and not quite a single entity. There are now a lot fewer places to choose from nowadays, so you have to wonder if the prices will start to creep up again as an oligopoly starts to appear. Remember at one time you could get 1 hour turnaround – that turned out to be a hiding to nowhere….

Murray

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Posted by Muzzer on 14/07/2018 17:19:59:

Given that you can get one pair for as little as £25 and 2 pairs of socially acceptable specs for £70 at Specsavers these days (those prices include "thin" ie high refractive index lenses), things could be a lot worse – and wrinklies get another 25% off if they can prove they are over 60. We were paying several hundred dollars each when we lived in Canada and when I was young in the UK, every pair of glasses I broke seemed to cost an arm and several legs (not mine though!).

Murray

It winds me up that none of their many offers apply when you purchase safety glasses.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, today I needed to bend a piece of 6mm chequer plate at each end, which is about 230mm wide, to an angle of 165 degrees thereabout. Not having anything that would do this task to hand, I cobbled together this make-shift press. The tooling isn't a press tooling, but more likely to be alignment set for some kind of moulding machine I guess.

The two photos below shows the set-up with my Europress ram and hand pump.

When all was satisfactory lined up, pressing was carried out with total success and the other end was also done with the same success.

The amount to press down was calculated by the height the plate would need to rise above the outside edge of the thick plate, which is underneath the bottom piece of tooling, with an estimated amount of spring back, with a satisfactory result.

Regards Nick.

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Greetiigs everybody.

Today is the first time I've been able to log on for 11 weeks because I've just been quite seriously ill in hospital for that time. They now consider me well enough to come home to recuperate. My only means of transport is a Zimmer Frame and a wheelchair s II don't see me doing much in the workshop for a while. I'm currently looking through this site and catching up on all the postings I've missed.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Anthony, take it quietly, and do as you are told, I hope your rehab goes smoothly, and you get back to the workshop as you improove.

Ian S C

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Wishing you well, Anthony

MichaelG.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Anthony, take it easy, glad your back and ok, wishing you well.

Dave W

[Jan BParticipant @janb]

Hi,

Not to day, but yesterday I ran my 3.5g TICH on my own private track. Unfortunately there are no clubs having 3.5 and 5 inch tracks here in Sweden. My track is only 100 feet long, sounds longer then 30m doesn’t it? Due to the high risk of fire, no rain here for many weeks, and temp 27 to 30 degrees, I had a water hose close to track. There are many big wood fires going on in Sweden, many out of control, so we all hope there will come some rain soon, situation is quite bad at the moment.

I wanted to test a new injector I made some weeks back. The old injector is nearly 40 years old and made to LBSC design. It always works but dribbles a lot, so I made a new one looking the same on outside, but more modern on inside. It worked dry but I think the distance between steam cone and mixing cone is too small, so water didn’t run thru properly and it was sometimes hard to get it to start feeding. I made ten laps linking up to almost midgear to avoid throwing sparks from chimney. Tich ran well as always, and it was great fun. Will make some modifications to injector later on.

Jan

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Just spotted this on fleabay. What gets into these morons' minds?

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

but id matches the bench vice…………

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

I made a couple of dust covers for the bearings on top of the milling machine head, and replacement gear selector handles. The originals got mangled from years of excess force getting unstuck from between gears when one of the gear clusters jammed on the key of its shaft.

I've also spent much time tuning the quill fine feed mechanism to get rid of tight spots. It remains a mystery to me how the fine feed works without the spacer I've had to add in front of the big worm wheel to stop it binding to the worm.

I've spent 1/2 the cost of a new machine fixing this one up, replacing a number of gears and most of the bearings. It's always been a real dog but it's getting better I hope.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Welcome back Anthony, I hope you make a full recovery.

Neil

[Anonymous]

Given the number of subjects we're not supposed to discuss by neccessity this will be a truncated report.

This morning I drilled and counterbored all the holes for holding the perch bracket castings to the smokeboxs on my traction engines. Then I measured the thickness of the castings at each hole to assess the range. I've sketched out a stud for the thickest hole. After I've made all the studs the same I'll adapt each of the others during fitting so I have the same amount of thread showing for each one.

As well as the studs I need to make some more nuts, washers and bolts for fitting castings to the smokebox. At the moment the repetition lathe is set up for shortening rivets for the rear wheels. Rather than break down and have to set up again I decided to shorten all the rivets I will need for the remaining two rear wheels. Turned the power on, hit the start button, one second delay and flash! What the *&@! Obviously an electical event, down near where my 3-phase extension lead connects to the machine plug. No trips on the distribution board. So I tested the socket using the pillar drill – all fine. Try running the pillar drill via the extension cable – nothing. Obviously the cable is fudged. I took the socket apart at the end where the flash occurred. All looked fine, no loose or broken wires. Working back from the socket I found broken insulation and burnt wires about 15" from the socket. I suspect the cable must have been trapped and damaged at some point. It took about 10 minutes to cut back and rewire. Tested it on the pillar drill and all working again.

So back to the task in hand, shortening rivets. I really got into the swing and shortened the full complement of 150 rivets in 45 minutes. All I need to do now is finish building the wheels so I can use the rivets.

Andrew

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

This evening I have milled the slots for the knurls in the arms of the knurling tool I am making. The hexagonal piece behind is part of the adjustment setup. Having drawn the basics full size on paper I am adjusting the design as I go. The knurl arms are the most complicated parts I have made on the Sieg SX2.7 mill. There are process' that I need more practice with but I am reasonably happy with what I have turned out so far I'm still deciding on what sort of axles I will put through the knurls but favouring a pin with a flat head on what will be the chuck side and a circlip at the other end.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Posted by Nige on 18/07/2018 21:27:41:

I'm still deciding on what sort of axles I will put through the knurls but favouring a pin with a flat head on what will be the chuck side and a circlip at the other end.

Nice work! That sounds like an excelent design. Even more so if you are planning to have more than one set of knurls for different finishes.

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

Today I have been sorting the 30 plus years collection of nuts, bolts, washers etc. that have collected in a variety of containers. Now mostly segregated by thread size (5 Metric sizes) plus a box for "Imperial" and another for anything made of brass. Next step is to further sort by head type and length. 😳

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

GL Anthony

One of the main reasons I want to get decent at CAD is for when I get laid up

Then I can at least play with some 3D parts

There are also some fab youtube videos on a myriad of subjects if you have the bandwidth

GL

[DrDaveParticipant @drdave]

I must have lived a charmed life; I never understood how people managed to break taps. I broke an 8BA tap this morning, my first one. No warning. At least there was enough poking out the other side of the hole to get a pair of pliers on and, with some difficulty, get the mortal remains out. “Pride cometh before…” and all that!

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Posted by DrDave on 24/07/2018 12:01:45:

I must have lived a charmed life; I never understood how people managed to break taps. I broke an 8BA tap this morning, my first one. No warning. At least there was enough poking out the other side of the hole to get a pair of pliers on and, with some difficulty, get the mortal remains out. “Pride cometh before…” and all that!

Sounds like you are in for a frustrating couple of months now whilst you self correct to the average non charmed life.

:0)

Seriously though if you do it right breakages are rare.

regards Martin

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

My first (and only, so far) broken tap happened around 50 years ago. I was tapping a 14" inch cast iron piston crown to fit a smoke plate. It was a 1/4" Whit tap on the end of a 3' ft long extension and the foreman went mad!

The following day one of the experienced fitters snapped a 2" inch Whit tap that went of like a gunshot and the foreman was speachless! Quite made my day though.

Brian

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Enjoying a week off work this week, over the weekend and yesterday I've been converting a drawing of a basic twin marine engine into metric and today started to machine the cylinder block – noticed the rpm's were erratic on the milling machine.

Machined the sides and top and bottom, went to machine one of the ends and the motor on the mill popped. Well actually the glass fuse.

Pulled out the motor and found one of the brushes disintegrated, carbon dust inside the motor housing. After pulling out the armature I can't see any obvious faults on the windings, (have yet to test them).

The commutator is black with carbon deposit but none of the segments are lifting. I have emailed Warco to ask if they can supply brushes and/or motor.

Might be an opportunity to go brush-less if repair costs are comparable.

Time for a beer out in the garden!

Ed.

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Had another look at the motor problem. Reshaped the bad brush on the bench grinder, cleaned the commutator, reassembled and all working again – sounds a lot smoother too, but will need to get new brushes as the 'refurbished' one is almost worn out.

Ed.

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

Today I have stretched my skills and ability on the lathe while making the first of two Clevis pins to fix the knurl into one of the arm. It is turned out of 10mm silver steel and has a thin flat head with a very small shoulder to locate the pin on one side and a groove for a circlip at the other end. Overall it is approx 14mm long.

I had to re-purpose an old HSS tool to make what is in effect a very thin parting off tool though I gave it some top rake as it wasn't going all the way through, only cutting the groove for a 6mm external circlip. The tip is about 1.25 mm wide

Very happy with the finished product as it represents the most complicated piece of turning I have done so far. I tried to turn to measurements but ended up 'creeping up' on final dimensions and trying the parts for fit which worked well for me.

Got the groove in the right place but need to adjust that tool height a smidge

I wanted this side as low profile as possible as it will be the chuck side of the tool.

I made the groove for the circlip just a little too deep!

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

And the second pin made and arms fitted in position. Still some more work to do to fit the adjustment arms; holes to drill and some more milling to do.

[Trevor Crossman 1Participant @trevorcrossman1]

It looks good Nige. I think that we can all find the tiny flaws in our own work even when others cannot see them, but surely the most important thing to consider when we make our own pieces of tooling instead of reaching for the wallet to buy one, is, ……………will it do what I want it to do, and preferably better than a commercial item. ? So as long as the finished item works, and the circlip stays in place, that's okay!

Trevor.

[Author]

Posts