What Did You Do Today 2019

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

A busy day at our club exhibition in St Albans. We made some allowances in case of rain so I was on car park duty and being in a bit more isolated position didn't get a relief until after 1pm. So I got to see various people returning with bargains from the tool shop with much frustration. However managed to pick up a granite surface plate and a 24in straight edge so not too bad a day.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Bazyle yesterday morning…

[john brown 17Participant @johnbrown17]

Had to give in today and light the wood burners ,starting to get a damp feel now,grrrr more work ,but must admit its nice

john

[Ian McVickersParticipant @ianmcvickers56553]

Now that winter is approaching and I`ll be spending less time in the workshop and more time in X4 Foundations space sim I decided its time to make the HOTAS desk clamps that are far too expensive to buy.

Joystick one above more or less finished, just need to get some 8mm countersunk screws to replace the hex head ones. Need to do this on both clamps.

Both clamps fitted to my workshop table. The throttle one on the left needs the holes drilling and tapping to fit the throttle base when it arrives. Hopefully Virpil will get round to dispatching my order soon.

[LainchyParticipant @lainchy]

More this weekend for me, and last…. I started voluntary work at Claymills Victorian Sewage Pumping Station … bit of De-greasing last Saturday, Friday & Saturday just gone was warming the Lancashire Boiler, and stoking it most of day.

Great fun.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Went Clay pigeon shooting this morning, it wasn’t raining when I left home, it waited till we were ready to go out on the range. It rained persistently while we were out there, the wind was quite blustery which made sure we got thoroughly soaked, the irony was that the sun came out when we made our way back to the clubhouse. Although my wife doesn’t say anything I am sure that she is of the opinion that I have more than one screw loose, still what else would you do on wet Sunday morning ? It wasn’t as if my scores were worth the soaking that I got, still room for improvement next time when fingers crossed it might not be raining.

Dave W

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Yesterday mr Brother, Sister in law and I stepped aboard a Charter train in Milton Keynes, pulled along by a 1965 Class 86, all the way up to Carlisle where a Jubilee class steam locomotive called Leander took over and took us along the Cumbrian Coast back to Carnforth where the Class 86 took over to give us a fast run back to MK where we alighted and the train finished in Euston. Today a friend and I took some engines to Potton Apple day where one of my engines failed and we dodged the showers until 16:00 when we came home.

Martin P

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

A couple of days ago, I decided that I needed to drill an 11mm hole. I sorted through all of my loose drills and couldn't find an 11mm one. In the end I used a 7/16" drill, which is close-ish (turns out I didn't need the 11mm hole anyway!). Today, I went into the shed, to find the loose drills all over the bench still. So I sorted the Morse taper ones into size order and selected the best ones where there were duplicates. Then I got hold of a bit of 2" square x 1/8" wall extrusion that had been part of a test rig for a job at work and drilled/reamed some holes in it on the mill:-

That's the 2MT drills. Tomorrow I'll do another row in front for the 1MT ones.

Turns out that with nine more drills, I'll have from 9/64" to 29/32" in 1/64ths in Morse taper drills, most of which were inherited from dad. They'll get used more now that they're sorted.

The metric collection is nowhere near as complete…

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Some of my team at work have thought of an excuse legitimate business reason for us having a £2k 3D printer. And the director is on board with it too. Must get my CAD learning back on track now it's too wet to do shed extension preparation gardening.

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

I've been removing the redundant electrics from my Tom Senior Major ELT.

I thought that there was a problem with the main spindle bearings (expensive) but it turned out to be that it was half in to backgear (cheap). I don't like the look of the grease, it's very thick and dark but I have a tube of the correct Shell stuff on it way so will repack when it arrives.

The machine is covered in years of oil build up that has tuned to varnish with lots of embedded ali chippings, can someone recommend a solvent that won't strip the paint?

Brian

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Brian H on 03/10/2019 15:18:32:

I've been removing the redundant electrics from my Tom Senior Major ELT.

I thought that there was a problem with the main spindle bearings (expensive) but it turned out to be that it was half in to backgear (cheap). I don't like the look of the grease, it's very thick and dark but I have a tube of the correct Shell stuff on it way so will repack when it arrives.

The machine is covered in years of oil build up that has tuned to varnish with lots of embedded ali chippings, can someone recommend a solvent that won't strip the paint?

Brian

Try paraffin.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Kerosene (paraffin to Luddites like me! ) should soften the gunge before the paint.

Howard

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

Thanks Neil & Howard, paraffin is now on tomorrows shopping list.

Brian

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I start with white spirit (turps substitute if not uk) but find certain types of staining from suds particularly takes a lot of elbow grease too. On this, after testing, I find carb cleaner more powerful but would be expensive to use for all cleaning. I also sometimes find kitchen cream cleaner works on some items.

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

On/off switch gave up the ghost on my Warco WM14 mill, when pressed to turn on will not stay engaged, if I keep my finger pressed on it will run but taking finger off shuts motor down all other stops etc work okay so presume it is just switch, ordered new one

Mick 🇫🇴🇬🇧

[GoCreateParticipant @gocreate]

Mick

So you have a mill with a 'Dead Man' switch, cool!

Nigel

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Mick Henshall on 03/10/2019 18:16:17:

On/off switch gave up the ghost on my Warco WM14 mill, when pressed to turn on will not stay engaged, if I keep my finger pressed on it will run but taking finger off shuts motor down all other stops etc work okay so presume it is just switch, ordered new one

Mick 🇫🇴🇬🇧

I had a similar problem happen to a drill press. The switch contained a relay I could take the cover off to clean its contacts which fixed the problem.

Neil

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Got back to work on my latest project; beam engine, machined up the crankshaft / webs. Remembered to polish up at this stage as it makes it easier in assembly stage. All the shafts are press fit into webs with a touch of Loctite 603. Maybe I should drill & pin the bottom end shaft…

George.

[geoff walker 1Participant @geoffwalker1]

Maybe I should drill & pin the bottom end shaft…

Well if you were asking me George, pin them. Belt and braces job!!!!

I have some 1/16" panel pins which mike up at 0.061" perfect with a 1/16" drill and drop of loctite.

Nice work George

Geoff

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Geoff… thanks, have got panel pins similar size to yours so will drill & pin

George.

[GoCreateParticipant @gocreate]

I've occasionally posted on here my progress building my Lion boiler, I had taken lots of video and have decided to have a bash at building a video series of my build.

Today I uploaded my second video, for any one interested here's a link: Lion Boiler Build pt2

Part 1 is an introduction which is here :Lion Boiler Build pt 1

Here it is finished, now I'm busy with the frames, horn plates and wheels.

I hope my videos help anyone thinking of building a model of this historic loco.

 

BTW, Very nice work George on that crank.

 

Nigel

 

Edited By tractionengine42 on 08/10/2019 17:01:47

[GoCreateParticipant @gocreate]

One of the links in my post above doesn't seem to work. here's another which hopefully will.

Lion Boiler Build pt1

Nigel

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Thanks Nigel; boiler lookin' gooood, very nice boiler work.

Geo.

[Anonymous]

In order to use my insert face milling tool on the horizontal mill I need to make a new drawbar with an M16 thread on the end instead of 5/8" BSW. This evening I hacksawed the appropriate length of 16mm diameter EN16T and cut the M16 thread. While I've screwcut many dozens of threads on my imperial lathe this is only the second metric thread I've cut, and the first one must have been 15 years ago:

Since this was a metric thread on an imperial lathe I couldn't use the Ainjest high speed threading unit, so I did it as per the manual leaving the half nuts engaged at all times. I started at 58rpm and dropped to 40rpm as the thread got deeper and I needed to be quicker on the tool retract. The insert tooling left a reasonable finish. It was a bit slow going but at the current rate I'll have kicked the bucket before I need to cut another metric thread.

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 11/10/2019 21:49:52

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Missed the EDMES club meeting tonight as it was the Cricket Club annual dinner. I got a cup for being most valuable non-player (mending all the mowers)

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