Member postings for Danny M2Z

Ordered some 5x13x4mm bearings from **LINK** here in Australia a week ago. After driving into town today (about 25km) they had not arrived.

It was a stinking hot day (90°+) so I did not relish a return trip to collect them for a project that I was keen to finish before the weekend.

What a nice surprise when the lady at the counter offered to deliver them to my home at no extra charge. They were delivered right on time. I reckon that is great customer service.

* Danny M *

G'day.

Sherline lathes were originally designed and sold in Australia before Mr. Sher sold out to the USA. My own model dates back over 40 years and it has the original brass bed. The 'raising block' lifts the headstock to accommodate larger diameters.

One useful feature is that the headstock may be swivelled for turning tapers.

They are a lovely little lathe and quite accurate too, I have made countless needle valve assemblies on mine as they are perfect for small jobs and as you have noted, they are very portable. All the 'usual' accessories for it's bigger brothers are available too, such as vertical milling slides, various chucks and WW collet sets.

* Danny M *

I thought that until I decided to make some bedding pillars for an Anschutz 1411 Match54 .22 rifle.(1974 vintage).

Aaarg! M5-Fine socket-head action screws. Having a heck of a time finding long replacements here in Oz. Oh well, that's what the lathe is for (unless anybody knows where to purchase them locally).

* Danny M *

G'day Neil.

Maybe opposing magnets in the de-magnetiser hole cancel any residual magnetism in the screwdriver?

I actually use a cassette head de-magnetiser, left over from my early computing days (when all home brewed software came on cassette tapes). It looks a bit like an 'adult toy' but it sure is effective. Works on the principle of an alternating field (current) reducing in intensity as one slowly moves it away from the tape heads.

I mention this because I just 'resurrected' my first computer, a Z-80 based Aussie 'Microbee' that was hand soldered together in 1983...even the CRT green screen still works! Some of the old cassette tapes were dodgy but the de-magnetiser soon fixed the data recorder. Now back to re-learning Z-80 assembly language and teaching the old girl to talk to an Arduino via a serial shield (horrible name btw, why just not call it an I/O interface).........work in progress.

I am not ashamed to be called a 'Hacker' btw, because way back 'then' it earned a lot more respect than the term does nowadays.

I hope you do not mind me bending your thread a little Neil

Regards from Oz

* Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 01/11/2014 06:05:11

G'day.

Is MS Excel the best format for an index ?

What's wrong with a traditional database such as 'MS Access' ?

* Danny M *

Here is a lovely Moor & Wright depth gauge that I found at a local market.

The vernier fine feed is quite useful.

Current use:

To measure stroke on model engines.

No batteries required btw. That's one thing that I value highly in the bush.

* Danny M *

It actually has, for many years.

As an experiment, I have created a (valid) temporary email address that should excite the spambots. (Moderators please do NOT delete this for 7 days, as it is an experiment and all answers go to the spam bin via a 'hit counter'. It is going to fun to track the junk. Try [email protected] . If you get an answer DO NOT OPEN IT! It's probably not from me.

* Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/10/2014 12:09:48

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/10/2014 12:10:44

Edited By Danny M2Z on 09/10/2014 12:11:32

G'day.

My ISP allows multiple email addresses. I registered about 10 of them.

One is for private, family and friends use only and they are requested not to pass it on.

The others are used for answering adverts etc. Is is quite informative to discover which companies on-sell the email info to 3rd parties!

Any repeated spam to one of the spare email addresses simply requires that that address is deleted from the ISP list and another substituted.

Messy - yes; Paranoid - probably; But it does allow one to keep on top of the situation.

It's a bit like having a spare credit card account for online trading. Just sufficient funds are placed into the account for each trade.

* Danny M *

Tawny Frog Mouth is named 'Napoleon' as the local kids keep calling him/her? 'Froggy'.

Rescued from the roadside, fed on milk and worms he's a little ripper.

Now today, the NSW control-line state champs came to my town. Being on the border it's 'neutral territory'. 3 hours from Melbourne and 5 from Sydney. The local club has one of the only hard circles in the country (dedicated concrete circle for racing control-line models).

After catching up with the blokes most of the day was spent timing and lap-counting but I managed to grab a few photos. The pulse-jet on full bore was awesome.

* Danny M *

Mt Bogong is in Victoria. I live on the NSW-Vic border. It was a cold clear morning. The snow topped mountain is actually 70km away.

The clear air and lowish humidity here has the benefit that workshop rust is not a problem. Just a light spray with Inox is all that's required to keep the lathe bed shiny.

The bird on the weather-vane is a magpie. I feed them so they leave me alone, but woe-betide anybody passing on a bicycle - they are swooping at the moment.

A family of swallows has moved in, they are fascinating to watch.

* Danny M *

What did I do today? What a sweet topic.....

So today I organised a few photos taken from around the house and the antipodean garden. Absolutely nothing to do with model engineering except that in times of stress it is nice to relax and ponder on the wonders of nature that give one but a fleeting glimpse of a beautiful world.

If somebody, somewhere enjoys them then I shall sleep soundly.

Regards * Danny M *

Well done Neil.

It's a little far from the land of the kangaroo so could you please publish a report if you survive the screaming hordes?

* Danny M *

I once was driving an Australian Army Land-Rover into a service station in Charleville (QLD) when a musical pinging followed by a gradual darkening of the forecourt announced the arrival of the following vehicle. The driver then became quite aware of the useage of the cord attached to the radio antenna which was affixed to his vehicle.

He got every fluoro tube. The LED versions would have been interesting to watch.

* Danny M *

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 26/09/2014 17:41:26

G'day. Benefits of living in the bush.

Looked out of the workshop window saw these two lovely natives.

* Danny M *

The Ark was designed by an amateur, the Titanic was designed by engineers.

G'day Ray.

SWMBO is looking after you well. That looks like an interesting read.

I have noticed lately that so much decent equipment is being scrapped because the basic skills to repair the item are being lost. I just offered a local security firm to rebuild some circuit boards (alarm systems) that had pretty minor faults. Their reply indicated that a replacement (from China) would be much more cost effective as they could charge more. One board had a blown fuse. The 'technician' was only trained to replace the board (at $150 p/h btw). Further investigation revealed that he was only paid $30 p/h btw.

We live in a "throw away society", it's sad!

* Danny M *

What on earth did you manage to do to cause that? Enquiring minds want to know. DTI's ain't cheap.

* Danny M *

Here are a few from down south end of planet. Lovely noise as they flew by.

.

* Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 28/08/2014 12:42:40

G'day.

When I first joined the Australian Army, after a full-on year of intensive technical training (including basic fitting/turning) I was upgraded to the honourable rank of 'Craftsman'....the lowest of the low in RAEME (Royal Australian Electrical & Mechanical Engineers) (U.K. equivalent REME). My trade was actually as a boffin (electronics).

After many years of on-the-job experience (repairing stuff in the field) I actually got pretty good at fixing the geeky toys (with many months spent learning about new developments).

One day I passed a technical/promotion course which gave me a new label 'Artificer'.

Wow! Did that make me an engineer? Probably not...............only officers were allowed to be called 'Engineers' (Technically they had the bit of paper).

The wise ones (officers) let us get on with the job. One 'engineer' (1st Lt) wasted a day of our time by asking to see if every resistor/transistor/diode on a circuit board was 'up-to-specs'. We told him that it was too hard for us lowly craftsmen, but as he was the expert we gave him the oscilloscope and meter, went to morning tea and told him to us a 'Cooee" when he found the fault.

Luckily our boss was a wise engineer.

Never saw that 1st Lt again

(for those who remember the 77 set, it was the usual A-19 Squelch Module).

So nowadays I make stuff on my lathe and mill. Some relates to models, I am only an Artificer.

* Danny M *

G'day.

You could always bid on this one **LINK** that was brought to my attention on another of my favourite sites.

Regards * Danny M *