Member postings for Rik Shaw

Steve - I made one in 2014 and posted details here:

**LINK**

Rik

After having read through this thread it seems that my job lot of Easi-Flo 2 might be difficult/illegal to sell if I decided to move it on. Or is the scaremongrel cocking his leg on some of these posts?

Rik

I have a belt/disk combo sander. I use the front facing disk for putting an edge on the 1/4" square HSS bits I use in my tangential tool holder - quick and easy using a little angle jig and the re/sharpened bits cut nicely. Mostly though I use inserts. The top belt I tend to use mainly for "surface grinding".

Rik

PS I forgot to mention and it now seems obvious in hindsight - but please hoover out any sawdust before fettling metal as the sawdust ignites quite easily. How do I know? - Guess! 

Edited By Rik Shaw on 28/07/2021 11:33:45

Jon - My situation is different in that I have both doors and windows open and a fan blowing. Even so, a short half hour session after noon in this weather is as much as I can take. A free standing portable AC unit might sort your problem as it would mine but unfortunately my workshop is so rammed full that there is no room for anything like the size of unit I'd need.

Rik

I duffed my lower back doing a new gymnastic trick when I was in Bedford Boys Club gym team in the late 'fifties. After much pain I underwent a laminectomy and spinal fusion in 1986. However, since then the pain has returned and worsens.

All backs are different and what suits me will not necessarily help others so I do this:

Sleep on a cheap inflatable mattress - I find conventional mattress's purgatory!

Lazee-boy type recliner in lounge - very soothing.

'Lectric buggy in car - walking is painful.

Workshop arranged to minimise lifting including hoist for my heavy lathe chucks etc.

Any pain killers I have tried which work have unpleasant side effects. So now, my evenings are rendered more comfortable with several generous measures of Scotlands finest and bu**er the liver.

Rik

Hitler had only got one - he lost it though when everything came apart

Rik

"Considering your experience, I believe you have a silver solder."

Thanks Keith, was there a reason that you were reluctant to be more specific re: the manufacturer?

Clive Brown 1 - your info interesting and helpful, thank you. I did another test, and attempted to solder a small copper washer to a thin strip of copper. As you can see it worked a treat - no external flux was used.

Jewellers and bullion dealers not required - it stays in my toolbox!

Rik

I have acquired a bundle of what appears to be silver solder rods that I know came out of an elderly ( dead actually) toolmakers toolbox. Given the tarnishing I'd guess they had been in his toolbox for a long time.

I have my doubts though that these rods are bog standard silver solder but I'd like to know exactly what they were intended for.

They are all 3/32" diameter and 18" long. I have done a rough and ready melt test compared to a piece of known Easy-Flo N0.2. The Easy-Flo melts more readily than the mystery rod but the mystery rod melts with a nice silver glob just like silver solder should. The test was done using a standard chefs blowlamp filled with fag lighter gas.

Finally, each rod has been colour coded on the end with a dab of yellow paint and what to me seems very strange is that unlike Easi-Flo solder the ends of these rods shatter when struck with a hammer......very odd!

Any ideas?

Rik

I think it might have been a couple of weeks ago someone on here had written a prog/code to calculate PCD's using XY co-ordinates. I seemed to remember that the co-ordinates could be calculated from a point outside of the circle and that is what interests me in a jig boring sort of way. I have looked back at previous posts but cannot seem to find this one.

Apologies to the chap who was responsible but I cannot remember his name. If you can prod me in the right direction I would be grateful.

Rik

“By typing this, I risk R S I. Who do I sue?”

Your keyboard manufacturer of course for not warning you that excessively fast wrist movements can lead to friction burns and blindness.

As chaps on here are mentioning industrial whiffs I am reminded of when I did my stint at the engineering apprentice training school at Port Sunlight. The 24/7 rancid pong from the soap factory was enough to put me of my landladies’ egg and chips.

Years later, we lived downwind from Stewartby and the sulphurous emissions from the brick yard chimneys were ‘orrid.

I watched the documentary on Hinkley Point in the last couple of weeks. I never realised how vast it is going to be.

Rik

This looks very similar to a gadget that our platoon WO2 invented in the sixties.

A major problem back then was that the Centurion tank engine needed to be tilted before it could be lifted out by one of our gibbed half track recovery vehicles. Until then the job involved a lot of time, crow bars, brute force, sweat, bad language and more than a degree of luck.

Jim's tilting solution saved all that but more importantly, the engine change was done much quicker. He deserved the award the army gave him.

Rik

I posted this about seven years ago:

**LINK**

Rik

I had a redundant old hardened stainless steel DRO scale which I wanted to repurpose as a register strip on my small CNC mill. It needed a bit chopping of both ends and a slot machining at both ends for 6mm hold down screws.

To hard for a drill I used a 6mm solid carbide 3 flute milling cutter to drill a couple of holes at the first end. Using dripped soluble oil the cutter did a good job drilling through but objected violently when I tried to machine what was left between the holes to form a slot.

Screw holes abandoned and on to the shortening. I used an angle grinder mounted in one of those pivoted holders ( Aldi or Lidl ?) with a thin (1mm?) abrasive disc. First end cut of relatively easy but half way through the second end the disk stopped producing sparks and stopped cutting. Following some aggressive pushing and bouncing the wheel suddenly bit and started cutting again and then the second end was chopped of.

It was now I discovered that the thin inlaid printed strip was glued on and the heat had melted the glue so the end of the strip came away slightly from the scale. I fixed this by warming up the backside of the scale with a flame and lightly clamping in the vice. Job done apart from making small hold down clamps, one for each end.

I have posted this in case anyone is contemplating similar scale cruelty – it might save someone from a degree of experimentation.

Rik

One of these was in an auction not a million miles from me yesterday. Co-incidence? I meant to log on and see what it made but I forgot.

Rik

Thanks for the comment Neil, I eventually decided on the Dremel 3D45. Lots of £££'s I know but there's no pockets in shrouds is there?

Rik

My first 3D printer sits on the desk and the question now is what to print first? I didn't need a plastic frog or any other pointless "thingy" but I did need a thread protector for my lathe spindle. Not having mastered any modelling software as yet I cheated and eventually found an .STL file online that I thought might be near enough.

This had been designed to fit a Logan lathe with a 2.25" x 8tpi thread, the same thread as my WARCO BH600G. The overall length was a bit short and the plain bore a little small but I thought that it might work.

And work it does. It screws on with a flick and jams tight as seen in the third pic - covering the threads and keeping them safe. Printed using eco-ABS filament.

Rik

Edited By Rik Shaw on 14/04/2021 16:05:07

Hello William - Back in the early seventies I was let loose on a brand new Hauser 3-SMO optical jig grinder. I used the machine over a number of years for grinding precision tooling to go with the companies products (dairy machinery). I was - and remain - a huge fan of the Hauser brand and am envious of your new acquisitions, well done!

As for paint, the 3-SMO was finished in a semi gloss battleship grey - very smart and understated.

Rik

Tim - I would find it most helpful if you could provide me with a link to your list.

Rik

Having tried for far to long to get this 6BA nut started on its stud I gave up and asked my wife with her smaller fingers to have a go. She persevered for fifteen minutes or so but finally admitted defeat.

I tried a number of different methods including jamming the nut up a small piece of plastic pipe and using it as a flexible box spanner but the wall of the pipe was to thick and fouled on the raised rectangular sticky out thing on the casting.

The last thing I tried was to stick a piece of double sided tape to the end of a 40 thou feeler blade and stick the nut on the end. Now I was able to offer up the nut to the start of the stud thread. With the point of a scriber I gave the nut a twiddle or two and bingo, it went on.

I like it when things finally go right!

Rik