This guy's (A. E. Karnes) videos are well worth watching if you have an interest in full-sized steam machinery.

Is the forum URL staying the same ?

Edited By Bob Unitt 1 on 03/10/2023 11:21:44

How about finishing the hole with a D-bit ?

True, for some reason I thought they shared the same book.

If you have caller-display on your phone it's worth googling the number displayed - a lot of them are known to be spam etc.

I've got a 10H on my to-do list (1950's kit, my son found it when clearing out very dusty attic). Will this have a similar problem, or did it just affect the 10V ?

Great ! Thanks very much - I think I know what my next project is going to be...

I've just received Model Engineer Vol. 231 No. 4725. On the reverse side of the 'Smoke Rings' page there's an advert for Classic magazines with a picture of a rather splendid green single-cylinder vertical steam mill-engine with an unusual cross-head. Can anyone identify this for me please ? Is it available as drawings or castings, and has there been a construction series for it in any of the magazines ?

When I was a computer operator (In the early 70's) on an enormous mainframe with ferrite-core memory (Univac 418 III), the 'alpha-particle' was the standard excuse for anything going inexplicably wrong.

Management believed it every time...

Edited By Bob Unitt 1 on 02/09/2023 11:26:42

I've had this "took too long to respond" message from several USA sites recently (I'm in the UK), all on sites that I subsequently accessed without difficulty. I suspect the problem may be with general internet traffic rather than the individual sites themselves.

If you get a spam call from one of those foreign-sounding phone-farms, try just asking them "Does your mother know what you do for a living ?" - elicits some wonderfully apoplectic responses

They got privatised, then bought up by banks and hedge-funds. They promptly used them as collateral for large loans which were paid out as director's salaries and bonuses, and as large dividends to shareholders. The main offender (an Australian bank) then sold it's shares for a profit just before the s**t hit the fan (or the river...).

Capitalism in action

I had the same problem, so I made a second draw-bar from various bits of scrap for my Myford VMB.

I agree absolutely. I always used to have trouble parting-off, even with a rear toolpost. Since I changed to the insert type a good few years ago I've had much better results.

In the winter I heat any mild steel likely to do that to red-heat in the (log) sitting-room fire and leave it to cool down in the ashes overnight before machining. That seems to get rid of any locked-in stresses. Not done it in the summer, but I'd probably heat it up to red with a propane torch and steal some ashes from the sacks my missus saves for the garden for the cool-down. I've never had it happen with brass though.

Delicious !

When I was in the Birmingham Society many years ago they had a much cheaper "Country" membership-class which supplied it's members with the newsletter and (IIRC) free entry to open-days, but no other membership benefits. This was mainly used by long-term members who had moved away but wanted to keep in touch.

Ah, takes me back to the 60's... A friend with a genuine BSA 500cc Gold Star stuffed a brillo-pad soaked in Castrol-R into the silencer, so he could have that glorious racer-smell without having to do an oil-change after every trip.

A variation on this I've used successfully is to draw a scaled-up version of the shape (not necessarily a simple curve) on graph-paper, then read off the X-Y co-ordinates direct from the graph-paper, allowing for the diameter of the cutting tool. Finish with a file.

Edited By Bob Unitt 1 on 18/07/2023 11:58:23

Edited By Bob Unitt 1 on 18/07/2023 11:59:29

I don't think my 100 year old mother-in-law is too hot on computers, but she can still read a christmas-card if the writing is big enough.