Member postings for Neil Wyatt

The secret URL is:

**LINK**

But it isn't doing it any more. I don't think it was my security software.

i don't suppose I will ever discover what caused it... unless I google it.

Well LOTS of hits! It seems it may be a warning thrown up by Drupal from time to time. At least I know what CMS we use now!

Neil

<edit: I can't spell goggle>

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 24/03/2014 20:21:47

One possibility, if you have two accounts, is that your browser cache is getting confused, especially if it was set to 'remember me' for the old account.

Try clearing the cache.

Neil

Derek this is turning into an amazing piece of steampunkery! Can you give a clue what the display will look like, or is it a surprise?

Neil

At 10:00pm last night , walking the dog, Mars was a very bright orange spot low in the southeast. It was going to be a good night for astrophotography. I got up at 4:30 this morning thanks to a cat getting in the bedroom, and for once didn't mind. I got 12 shots of Saturn, then dead south & low, of which most were reasonable. I will jpeg stack them later, below is one straight off the camera, the only processing is to crop it. Stacked images clearly show the shadow of the planet on the rings to the top right.

Neil

I've eaten both (UK) Army and Royal Air Force grub, and by my recollection it was excellent.

Neil

I see this in the blank space above the latest postings page:

"SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone."

Has anyone got a clue what would generate such a message?

Neil

Hi Rik,

Are you sure it isn't farmhouse cheddar?

Neil

Hmm, all I can say at the moment is 'convex' is bad.enough to cause faced surfaces to rock on a flat surfaces, which means extra effort spent correcting for this from time to time.

I went out to try Graham's check, but instead I checked the headstock alignment. DTI on toolpost, very rigid. A bar of 19mm BMS in the chuck was 1 1/2" thou eccentric at 6" from the SC chuck (not bad, methinks). I turned the bar until it split the error. over about 8" the bar was about 1 thou towards the front, so that isn't the cause.

Neil

Decided to make the18-tooth 20DP pinion for my shunter that I've been putting off. Poking around my cutters I found a 17-tooth one I made for a tractor gearbox and rejected. i wondered why I had rejected it - careful inspection showed it was the sector flange was wrong, nothing wrong with the gear itself. It as just shy of 1/2", just waiting to be reamed. So I reamed it 1/2" and turned a 3/4" stub with a 1/2" register and bored out to 8mm. Fitted gear high-strength retainer then parted off the collar and turned the gear a bit thinner. 2BA hole for a grub screw, then an hour of fettling to allow the motor to drop down and engage the gear. Had to be done without dismantling so I used a mix of grinding stones and a carbide burr. Still had to file a bit off the motor mounting lugs.

Should give me a 50% increase in drawbar pull (adhesion permitting) for a 30% decrease in top speed Speed is now theoretically 2.4mph instead of 3.6, but a scale speed is only 1mph anyway. Actually, I think that the new ratio will let the motor rev more freely, so perhaps still hit 3 mph.

Neil

I store most of my cutters vertically in MDF with holes in it, and another sheet glued underneath.

You can also make trays by milling grooves in wood or chipboard with round-nosed cutters. I've made a box for my ME taps this way, and the old LAL half BA set is made that way.

The plastic insert for my full BA tap & die set has died, so I'll be doing something along these lines soon.

Neil

Sad to see Peter has left us. I enjoyed his writing (Pete's Page), and always had a wry smile at his hand-retouched photos. He must have sent the design team spare!

Neil

B&Q 6.98 for four litres, or you can pay £5.95 a litre fo this

Back in the 80s my mate used to use paraffin to run his MZ because it was so much cheaper than petrol.

"Boom - boom - boom - boom - Esso Blue"

Neil

Very interesting Les. I'll let you quietly destroy yours and keep mine in one piece

Neil

> One problem I have seen with the Wixey one I have is if it snaps down to hard on a metal surface it looses its calibration

Mine takes a while to settle down if this happens. I imagine it's the accelerometer chip going beyond its design limits.

Neil

My problem was showing up with a rule, not layout blue... I think some of it was a combination of a lack of front relief on the tool*, and loose saddle gibs. I spent ages setting everything up and once I take a few cuts, every single adjustment has gone slack. It's true what they say, not broken, don't fix

Neil

"Designed for use with lead-free solders. Works extremely well with Bridgit lead-free solder in potable water systems as equally well with other solders. Meets all requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Stays active to 800oF and will not burn at soldering temperature, reducing black carbon formations that can result in voids and leaks."

There is a water-soluble version available, but the Harris website and downloads don't say what to use to remove the standard version. It seems to be a chloride based flux which pickle ought to remove, but it sounds like you may have got the 'black carbon formations' despite their hype. If it's carbon then you are probably looking at mechanical removal.

Neil

> You must have been tall or had a ladies bike, the injuries I suffered due to these infernal devices were not visible to the public but nonetheless extremely painful.

Dave, if you suffered such injuries from your pedals slipping...

Neil

An interesting observation. Having discovered that the cross slide ways on my lathe probably are correctly aligned, I faces some 2 3/4" steel yesterday. At first it was distinctly convex -as in very clearly if I put a rule across the face. bear in mind I had recently stripped down and this was the first machining since it was reassembled.

I noticed a little slop had come into the cross slide (I'd been taking 0.5mm cuts with a decent feedrate, enough to find any play!) Tightening the outermost gib screw completely got rid of the convexity, as far as I can tell without bluing the turned face (I haven't finished machining the blank yet).

This is mystifying, as this takes out slack when the cross slide is advanced and shouldn't affect it when it's wound out, but convexity suggests play when it is wound out. Any suggestions?

Neil

Bedford CF? Lovely bit of kit! Drove one down from Liverpool, at Stoke it sounded like a machine gun in the cab. lifted the engine cover while still running and the plug was lying on top igniting the mixture being forced out of the hole...

Put plug back in finger tight and drove the last 25 miles home

Seller had checked the plugs before selling it.

Loads of problems with losing power on the way back from Scotland (after 1000 trouble free miles on holiday) Loose wire on the points!

Aside from two patches I had to weld up for the MOT (both cosmetic but within a foot of a suspension point) that's all I recall going wrong in two years of adventure. Enough power to climb from Lynmouth to Lynton without a hiccough in third. Just drank petrol...

Forgot the pic! Went to a good home but you can see the condition.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 20/03/2014 20:54:57

As a teenage I regularly had the red scar five inches above my ankle to prove the SA hubs didn't always work... it was often down to cable stretch.

Neil