Member postings for FMES

I've always used Hylomar Blue (or SQ32M) for steam joints and never had a problem, rarely use a gasket.

Just apply sparingly to both surfaces of the joint, allow to become tacky and assemble.

As the joint is incredibly thin there is no problem with disassembly.

Lofty

Hi Bill, It does sound as though the flux had lost its effectiveness by the time you had reached the middle of a rather long joint.

I would have been tempted to use a normal propane torch witha reasonable flame spread, but first what pickle are you using? Silver soldering needs to be much cleaner that you would at first think, Normal soft soldering preparation is not enough, the pieces need not only to be squeeky clean but chemically clean as well.

My prep would be to warm the job, immerse in the acid pickle, wash off under water with a scotchbrite pad, and repeat, then without excessive handling, flux up and secure then start heating gently along the length of the job.

The flux will dry and then 'melt' and you can see it 'cleaning' the job - if you see any black appearing at this point - stop, the job isnt clean enough or you have already cooked the flux by applying too much direct heat.

When the flux starts to 'run' the job is almost ready for the solder - it is normally a dull red in colour at most, but normally the solder will run before that.

It is important not to apply direct heat to the solder, if the job is hot enough the solder will run better than in soft soldering just by touching it to the job.

Lofty

This one?

**LINK**

Not good, WD40 was discontinued within the UK Mod as being a known carcinogen, the PX24 that replaces it smells of ancient cats pee.

Not a good idea to take the scent of that indoors either.

I don't remember Hermetite doing a'Blue', I think that was Hylomar SQ32.

Available to us in medium and light versions, was far less messy than hemetite products and used intensively on aircraft components.

Lofty

Bob,

You say that 'The points are normally closed and open at TDC.'

This is way too long @300 degrees plus, dwell time (period of points being closed) should be about 40 degrees I'm going on the old mini distributor points setting information.

THis would indeed make the coil run hot and drop the battery voltage.

Lofty

Edited By Lofty76 on 29/06/2013 08:50:45

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Edited By Lofty76 on 19/06/2013 07:36:37

Definitely not good things to have at home. We used these for heat treating Al Alloys for aircraft use.

With an operating temperature topping 800 degC should any water, oil, or other contamination come into contact with it some serious reactions will take place.

We had some photos on the wall of an incident of a bath exploding due to contamination and it removed a large part of the factory roof and I believe killed and injured a number of people.

Just trawling the net I found **LINK** just for info.

Lofty

He did say 'on eBay'

I think it was one of the Stuart boilers http://www.stuartmodels.com/inprod.cfm/section/boilers

Bit more than £100

David, try http://www.sapphireproducts.co.uk/round.htm I believe they do up to 2"

Hi Sheldon, there is one for sale on the US Ebay (280925965517), why not give the seller a mail and ask if he's willing to do a copy of the instructions for you, providing he has some of course.

Ian, I have some approx 1/8" thick felt sheet kicking around in the workshop somewhere, you are welcome to a lump of that if it would be useful.

I was given what I think is an almost finished Stent, but to be honest I havent got a clue how to use it

I've been usig one of these for some time now, and personally I think its one of the most useful tools for alignment and spot finding.

Mine is rated at LESS THAN 5mw @ 0.1 mm spot size, and quite frankly has far less intensity than a decent laser pointer. (you have to turn the lights off in the shop to take a photo of it)

Absolutely ideal for edge finding and setting up the DRO. not cheap but most definately useful.

For ref.: http://www.lasercenteredgefinder.co.uk/

Funny you should say that Neil, Having spent a good few years training the military youngsters it became apparent quite early on that the majority of them left school with the bare minimum of qualifications, and many of those suffered from an SPLD, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and ADHD to name a few.

Many of these difficulties were not initially picked up at school leaving the learner at a disadvantage from their classmates.

It was also noticed that the majority of these youngsters were kinaesthetic learners i.e no amount of theoretical training would get the point across, but get them to actually do the job a whole new world opened up to them.

While the majority turned into some seriously good engineers, some were just not cut out for it. There has to be a passion for the types of jobs we were asking them to do, and sometimes it just didn't happen. Not every son follows the passions of his father, and quite frankly, in order to preserve some degree of versatility, they should not necessarily be encouraged to do so, but developed in areas that they may show a 'passion' for.

I must admit that after a long career in aeronautical and marine engineering I was a little disappointed that my own son did not want to follow a similar career, but he decided to go the electronics and networking route and he freely admits that he has no interest in metal whittling but he's damned useful to have about when the miller motor decides to throw a fit, or the air con packs up.

Each to his own, and as parents we need to encourage the development in whatever route our offspring decide to take, and not to give out negative feedback just because we feel we have to.

Come on Chris, the suspense is horrendous

Hey, you know how Asians keep their youth, he's probably 19

Tony, it was only an opinion.

God knows how you would react if someone told you there was horse meat in the spag bol.

MattK, Fair point, but as a seller you must on occasion think to yourself after the rapid flurry of bids in the last few minutes that the item could have sold for more if the timer hadn't shut it down.

I messed up on one recently when I was outbid in the last couple of minutes, I put in a new bid but forgot to press the confirm button, by the time I realised, it was too late.

The logic? keep the initial bids low, putting a high bid on at the start can easily see your top bid being broken in a couple of days, and then be double that by the end time.

I must admit I enjoy the bidding, I'd hate to be halfway into, say, an antiques auction when the auctioneer won't accept a bid due to a time limit.

I think there may be a few moans.