Member postings for robjon44

Hi all, add Astra GTE to list of cars with added drum for handbrake, would stick occasionally if left on for long periods ie on forecourt, I carried a hefty plastic mallet to deliver a clout to the middle of the wheel, only happened twice in 40,000 miles, otherwise car behaved like scalded cat.

Bob H

Gentlemen, my inbox has never been fuller, my thanks to those who offered constructive advice, on the other hand if I'd realized that the forum had been hijacked by Metric Extremists I would probably have cancelled my subscription! However being older than dirt I am able to work in both systems, singly or simultaneously, in fact it is still necessary when making components to interface between the 2 systems, for those unaware of this fact there is a big country the other side of the Atlantic Ocean that shows little desire to metricate. I spent more years than I care to remember (14) setting & operating 2 CNC bar machines doing just that. On the run up to retirement only a few years ago I campaigned a Colchester Tornado CNC lathe for a firm that couldn't make its mind up which system to work in on any given day, not my expletive problem. Finally, as I benefit from a first class pass in O Level English Language I should point out that only a Metric Onanist would not realise that I really meant to type 15.876 kg.

Gentlemen, do forum members have any advice on costs of dispatching compact but heavy items, for example electric motors or machine vices both come in around two & a half stone & delivery pricing is more than the items are worth. Discuss.

Hi, I think that what you have there are drills for armour plate, think wear plates on blades of motor graders & similar earthmoving machines, made from Stellite modus operandi under very heavy drilling pressure the drill itself & the material rise to red heat, anneals & then allows the drill to pass through, a classic case of brute force & ignorance! not really the sort of thing you need in a your shed. Naturally I have some that I acquired years ago, around half inch diameter, I would not subject any of my own equipment to that kind of abuse BUT Stellite can be ground with green grit or diamond wheels into lathe or shaper tools that will withstand large amounts of abuse without flinching.

robjon44

Hi all, a few years ago a chap that I worked with tried the Bowden cable trick, 2 minutes in & a 4 inch piece detached itself & penetrated a nearby fence, end of experiment!

Meanwhile back at the ranch I stumbled on a ready supply of the black acid proof plastic used as seperators in large lead acid batteries, about an eight of an inch thick & bound to come in handy for something, which turned out to be, that after tiring of faffing about with cord in strimmers I set to & crafted a diamond shaped plate with the grooved pins that Mr Flymo used to attach the plastic blades on his machines, blades available in shed loads for pence at a car boot near you, long lasting, take seconds to change, result!

robjon44

Hi all, referring back to the moving of the cutting edge of a shaper, planer or even lathe tool behind the bottom edge of its shank in the manner of the legendary swan necked tools, tool spring causes the cutting edge to pivot away from the cutting plane preventing dig in, a handy technique to have at your disposal. I can't give the exact reference but in one Mr F C Camms books or an issue of Practical Mechanics magazine was a design for just such a device, crafted would you believe from a redundant bicycle crank, cut to a suitable length with whichever of its 2 holes suits your purpose, fitted for example in the toolpost of your shaper with hole along direction of ram travel the very simplest of holder for your tool of choice HSS? pulled against the back of the cycle crank by a nut & washer at the front, simples.

Construction time probably minutes rather than hours & if it doesn't give you the result you seek throw it over the hedge at the bottom of your garden, it worked for me years ago when I made one purely out of curiosity, I would dearly like to provide a fully dimensioned CAD drawing with attached CNC program but my missus says we have to go shopping now.

BobH

Hi all, or perchance when grinding the widely prevalent brazed tip tools back in the day all such machines had reversing switches, to follow the perceived wisdom of grinding down from the cutting edge, in the case of a right hand turning tool grind the top face first on the left hand side of the wheel, reverse rotation & touch up front, side & tip radius on the right hand side of the wheel, if tool required more than a lick then the same applies when tidying up any damage on a green grit wheel, I will leave you to figure out where your fingers would be positioned otherwise.

With regard to the trimming of ferrets, in my limited experience their claws may indeed need a clip from time to time however their formidable teeth may present more of a problem, that being said they are as cute & playful a natural born killer as you will meet.

Cheers robjon44

Hi all, if I may make a point (geddit) regarding some of the 'heftier' pitch threads mentioned say 3mm & above, the manufacturers recommend roughing out using 55 or 60 degree V point throw away tipped tools to save wear on the rather expensive larger pitch threading tip (and its holder?). Just a thought.

Bob H.

Hi all, sightings a bit sparse now display season over however yesterday I saw no less than 3 Apache attack helicopters in line astern along a nearby helicopter corridor, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, so that's my quota for today I thought, lo & behold later in the early evening full dark heard a loud roar, just managed to get to an upstairs window without falling out & caught a fast receding Hercules very low sporting more flashing lights than Blackpool!

Bob H.

Hi all, sat here with face pasted to computer screen yesterday (12-9-18) when jolted back to reality by nearby multi engine roar, ran into front bedroom to see BBMF Lancaster doing wide circles over Grantham, flung windows wide to get full benefit of those Merlins , nearest approach only a couple of hundred yards away, must be why the Almighty gave us 2 ears & only 1 gob, 4 circuits then cleared off, perhaps it was lost or the satnav had gone wrong.

Bob H.

Hi all, with regard to totally unexpected sightings, a long time ago I had completed a job on a small motorbike for a friend & thought I'd take it for a spin, eventually arriving at a fairly high viewpoint I decided a sit down & relax was called for, however my reverie was disturbed by what I took to be a tin of nails being hammered flat on a sheet of corrugated iron followed by a low pass from a Junkers 52M trimotor! a quick check confirmed that no time portals had opened nearby but a perusal of the local paper revealed that a movie was being made at nearby Harlaxton Manor about General Patton, starring George C Scott, with a scene where he inspected his troops outside his headquarters in Germany whilst the Junkers provided local colour, you couldn't make it up.

Bob H.

Bazyle, yes they do indeed still have the evening free for all, never seen one but I got the impression that these days it is beset with pretty stringent rules enforced by men with big sticks, in my experience this is brought about by the behavior of people who think that rules apply to everybody but themselves, this is how flying sites, fishing rights etc are lost, often, sadly forever.

Cheers, Bob.

Hi all, not today but yesterday went to BMFA Model Flying Championships at RAF Barkston Heath, a fixture in my calendar ever year since the 1960s, like to keep up with the latest developments in electric power, wallow in the nostalgia of control line flying especially CL Combat, still going strong. Never ceases to amaze with the huge quantities of models of every type, particular mention going to the gigantic models of a BOAC airliner & XH588 the last flying Vulcan both of which when sighted from the far end of the airfield were easily mistaken for the real aircraft.

Barkston Heath has been a satellite airfield for Cranwell since the dawn of time & of course still is, however back in our schooldays us young aircraft spotters used to cycle up there to the High Dyke, there were traffic lights on the road by the gate that I entered by yesterday but in those ancient times Gloster Meteors & DH Vampires would taxi across the road from the hangers that were there, no Health & Safety twaddle in them days matey! & to think that I still meet people who don't believe that its possible to die of nostalgia. All these events then & now occurring within 3 miles of the chair I'm sitting on.

Cheers, Bob.

Hi all, +1 for Chapmans Workshop Technology, pretty comprehensive in every way, only yesterday I was wrestling with a problem that someone had asked for help with, 10 minutes with the textbook provided the precise answer, slam dunk!

Bob H.

Martin, the reason you thought they had radial engines was of course that was the direction their development took, late marks of the Tempest were experimentally fitted with the 57 litre twin row 18 cylinder Bristol Centaurus which almost immediately morphed into the Fury & thence the Sea Fury, truly monsters & still featuring in warbird air races in the US to this day, I did see one displayed at an air show that had been dragged back from India or Pakistan, which is where they all ended up as the Jet Age dawned, that had airframe & engine hours that you could count on your thumbs, that was Navy Blue & adorned with the insignia of every force that had ever flown them, a sight for sore eyes indeed. At the back end of WW2, 1944, D-Day & all that, my dad was stationed at RAF Manston & he told me that it was not unheard of to get a visit from a 109 or 190 with british markings flying lower than a snakes belly & hoping to create a big impression, to counter this problem they had a radial engined Tempest in polished bare metal fitted with Nitrous Oxide injection! It was, he said the most terrifying thing he ever saw when it descended from on high running on Nitro with the 4 cannons blazing away, apparently it didn't take long for them to give up on that master plan. I bet you thought that a Suzuki Katana having an extra 100 bhp dumped in its lap at the push of a button was going some.

Bob H

Hi all, with regard to the Napier Sabre engine there is a cutaway one powered by an electric motor in the air museum at Duxford, on pressing the button to activate it one might easily become dizzy watching so many parts moving in different directions! Looking on the bright side however its sleeve valve so no valves, rockers, camshafts & no valve bounce. What a brute they were, during WW2 my dear old dad who was like dog doo when it came to being everywhere, was sent to Farnborough to take the engine fitters course on that engine, why doesn't that surprise me & when they were in service got to taxi Typhoons fitted with them about on the airfield, in those days you didn't need a private pilots license to fly a model aeroplane.

At the time the Air Ministry Specification was written Hawkers submitted 3 designs, the Typhoon, Tempest & Tornado, the first 2 of course being built & the Tornado name resurfacing on the modern aircraft, this very week there are pictures from the BBMF of the WW2 Tiffie & Eurofighter carrying the same name posed next to each other, an outing to said location on the books then, soon.

I believe I'm right in saying that the 1940s Tornado might have inadvertently ended up packing 6 Hispano Suiza 20 mm cannons, £105 at the factory gate Squire, situated 2 miles from where I'm sitting in those days & yes the old man worked there as a fitter/turner before he went into the RAF.

Cheers BobH.

Hi, with regard to Ed Duffners carbon brush problem, a good source of new brushes to keep an eye out for is the 2 sets of spares supplied with many Chinese power tools, 14 years ago I bought a generic 4 inch angle grinder, it came with said spare brushes, not needed them yet ! However someone did ask me to look at an expensive variable speed jigsaw that had died, long story short the spare brushes were the right cross section but flat ended, radiused them against one of those little sanding drums used on Dremel type tools, reassembled, the jigsaw leaped back into action at no cost, result.

Bob H

Hi all, I would like to add my four pennorth about Luddites, these were men facing the imminent destruction of their livelihood in a short timescale in times far harder than our own, I can fully understand their anger & in similar circumstances could be tempted to turn right nasty! I would offer the wholesale destruction of the car industry & the vendetta that brought about a similar fate to the coal industry both in the 1980s as modern examples.

However, to return to shed dwellers as Luddites, no, as the editor rightly points out, it is a hobby & what goes on in your man cave is your choice & yours alone, please do not mistake this for carte blanche to believe as I think some do that you are the last bastion of keeping "the old craft skills alive" because its just not going to happen. Examples, shimming up lathe tools to centre height, guess what, after the first time you know everything there is to know on the subject, do not stick packing to tool, by all means fasten it on with a rubber band & even keep tools for multi tool set ups such as face & part off for washers & spacers together in a plastic bag in the top of your toolbox as I was advised to do over 50 years at the start of my apprenticeship. Next, quick change toolposts, bah! modern nancy boy nonsense, but hold on Mr.Dave Lammas fine triangular toolposts are such a good idea that I made 2 in right & left hand versions to be spaced one tee slot apart for repetition work on small parts on a small lathe that I had, not a lot of work to make either. If you wish to travel further back in time, early Drummond lathes around 1918 had a central pillar on the topslide fitted with a square toolblock fastened by a split clamp & height adjustable with a vertical screw, 100 year old technology you say, my preferred roughing out tool is a 55 degree v-point indexable , shaped down to fit the toolpost of the shaper & also a holder as described above on the bigger lathe, the change over between shaper & lathe takes a maximum of 5 seconds. So you pays your money & takes your choice of these old technologies. Finally I have laid hands on various ancient machinery particularly woodworking, lathes, circular saws, some in a heritage wood mill powered by water where you have to direct the water onto the turbine to strike it up, a matter of seconds! Do not forget that it was Leonardo da Vinci who invented the 4 jaw chuck not Harold Hall & also pointed out that a conrod introduced into the driveline of rotating machinery created monodirectional rotation a major boost to productivity. The boy was an Italian, anything could happen! Regards, Bob H

Hi all, +1 for supporting local "proper wood yard", when I had my first house around 1970 there was a traditional yard about 300 yards away & as money was very tight I bought every bit of wood from there, including carrying the wood home manually or on my grandads barrow, money wasn't the only thing that was tight, still in business these days 48 years later but at least I have a car to cart the materials home in!

cheers Bob.

Hi guys, heard loud clattering noise this morning, looked out of window to behold an Apache attack helicopter about 300 yards away not very high at all! It did a slow circuit then disappeared heading north over the Trent Valley. In my humble opinion it seemed to be loaded for bear.

Bob.