Member postings for pgk pgk

Several definitions online but most consistently as a small piece of rolled or cast material for further machining.

Perhaps it just sounds more up-market for the entitled generations than 'scrap end' or 'nubbin' ?

pgk

I'd guess the K in PBK would be kayak?

I built two similar construction canoes in the early 60's but no memory of whose design. The first 14 footer single was from plans bought on a whim at the Boat Show in Olympia and assembled in the attic of the family bungalow - the timbers passed through a small window in the gable end. The challenge was getting the finished boat out through the loft hatch though Dad was supportive enough to consider removing tiles and taking it out the roof.

That boat was skinned with lorry canvas de-waxed with petrol and painted with Woolies gloss paint. I subsequently sold it with enough profit to buy supplies for a much more sensible designed 2 seater covered in reinforced PVC . That was also challenging to removed from my bedroom having been built on the diagonal of the room.

The plans for the first called for the stringers to be twisted for attachment to the end posts with the torque required being enough to splinter (and replace) some of the stringers, The second boat used a more sensible approach of planing the stringer ends for a torque free join.

pgk

I bow to folk that understand this stuff. It'd be odd to start happening after 2,3 years of led use and with it happening on each single run of 2 6ft tubes. It's worked during previous heatwaves & Welsh rain

When I did the light conversion I removed all necessary gubbins.. wired direct to the tube holders.

One 6a MBC for the 2 pairs of 6ft led tubes and another MBC for the external security lights.

This is an old pic of my shed shortly after completion. Roof pitch quite decent and clad in some galvanised steel sheet tiling that has cosmetic brown grit on its surface. The tiles interlock quite robustly. There is no sign of damp on the shed ceiling which is flat inside.i.e cannot see the internal pitch. Again this is insulated ply sheeting.
Consumer unit is a main 60ARCD with 4 MCB's the lighting circuit NIDCB06

Some 3-4 years ago I converted the 6ft fluorescents to take LED tubes.

Again an old picture from my album but you can see ceiling type and light arrangement. Back then a pair of fluorescents each side (now LED) and the whole shed doshed out in white emulsion. I'd have expected any damp to show up well.

I won't try and guess what the wiring insulation is - looks like ordinary domestic stuff to me and yes the earth bundle in the switch gang is sheathed properly.

My shed was purpose built circa 10yrs ago. Low dwarf wall and insulated concrete floor, stud work with insulation, vapour barrier and uovc cladding, light weight faux steel tiles and ply lined with double glazed uovc doors and windows. In other words dry.

Professionally wired with 60a incoming line and sub consumer unit. Breakers fir each row of wall sockets, one breaker shared between both runs if ceiling lights and fourth breaker for external security lights .

There's a 4 gang light switch one for each ceiling run and one for each external light..the originals could be switched to stay on and override the movement detectors and toners. This floods have long since been changed to simple led security floods without that override.

Some months ago the inside lighting breaker was tripping whenever either ceiling light set was switched on. At the time I had enough other stuff going on and left it be.

With the darker evenings I figured I'd better sort it and opened up the light switches expecting to find a short. Everything in their looks very neat and solid. Before starting to look for problems in both ceiling runs I tried the lights again and they now work . Multiple goes on the switches and no problem.

Ok so for the moment I just use it but any ideas for an explanation? Insects got in the consumer unit? Temperature change with time of year?

I spotted that today when looking at their site. At ground level by the house there's no chance and I can't see me climbing on top of the chimney to use my cell phone 😔

The only ground level test would be 150 yds from house for a sporting chance..a long way to post and cable..

Superficially, Starlink looks like a good solution for rural areas. The reality for many of us is hills and trees. I don't think there's any way I could get a reliable Starlink connection here. Equally, the location of cell towers rarely gives more than 1 bar outdoors unless I walk across 2 fields and climb the hill to the south. The nearest fibre cabinet is some 3 miles away, and it'll be a while (if ever) before any company justifies running fibre to the scattered few dwellings here.
For the time being we manage with 5Mb/s and various outbuildings linked by powerline adapters gets me intrenet in home, shed, barn and my cheapish Motorola phone on 1p does have Wi-Fi calling but the landline is still our favoured phone link for voice calls with an old-fashioned analogue phone as backup for power outages.

If the copper goes down and one is too ill or injured to drive to an area with a cell signal it'll simply be game over.

pgk

Way back when we used it as the anaesthetic it is. As a student seeing practice the boss described an incident when someone walked into the theatre with a cigarette.. blew the windows out as well as cat.

..

Cornichon are typically smaller versions of gherkins and pickled in a stronger vinegar solution. Personal preference on taste and cost is Lidl gherkins. They also have pickled sliced jalapeños if you want to add a quick spiciness to things.

As a naive young student my flatmate and I guessed that the average package would be for 2 people or a family of four. Since we were both athletes and ate for two but always hungry, we looked for a cheap 'gut buster' prior to going to a boozy do.

We ended up with 2 tins of meatballs and a bag of rice. That 1lb of rice kept growing in the saucepan - got split into a second and third pan before being done. Our second mistake was eating it all and then drinking beer...

There's no reason why they can't have multiple domain name extensions and redirect them all to one website. You'd have to look them up and see if owned by the same owners.

Perhaps Neil would consider a competition for best design for members ..

Back in my working life I occasionally hand carved odd tools or items using my high speed dental handpiece. Those run at 300,000 rpm upwards and water cooled. If you were to be doing a lot of shallow narrow cuts as you describe then cobbling something like that together is worthy of consideration. Cheap handpieces aren't pricey and would run off a compressor and water reservoir hung from the ceiling. And dental drills are cheap enough.

Pgk

Masking fluid then clean up any number edges before filling with paint
Then use acrylic paint for sharp edges.?

pgk

If memory serves there is a suite of disc doctor software for windows to help recover damaged files and discs if chkdsk can't fix it.
I had reason to buy a USB 3.5" floppy drive to access some old family files and it was quite a cheap item around £12 posted if I recall.
Or just buy a new floppy disc. I've probably got some lying around somewhere with out of date software or utilities that came with ancient PC's that have been scrapped since.

pgk

The shape and quantity of swarf would be the limiting factors. Fortunately, most sensible sized stuff does transit. Many will remember the days of cotton-wool sandwiches when someone inadvertently swallowed glass chips from free school milk bottle rims. I've force-fed small pledgets of milk soaked cotton wool to cats who have swallowed sharp looking metal objects to help parcel them up and push them through. Caution with long items.. string or thread on sewing needles or Christmas tinsels, which can all lead to 'linear foreign body syndrome' where the peristaltic action of the gut bunches itself up and goes necrotic on the folds.

pgk

Nice plants.
Exotic is a relative thing. I did grow some bananas in Surrey as well as pineapple but it gets impractical apart from the challenge and the winter heating bills got silly.. I had dustbins of soil with successful strelitzia that did well with modest winter help and then got even more daft when I picked up some white strelitzia seeds cheap - which germinated well but no way could I cope with a plant that grows 20-30 feet tall and had to let them die over winter when they got too big for indoors in Wales.

pgk

Is it daft to suggest making the section with the hole as 2 milled parts and silver soldering together? Obviously depends on the amount of meat each side.

pgk

I made mine the 'naughty' way since I didn't have a rotary table at the time. The blank mounted on a temporary axle and MD and using the pitch circle tool on the DRO I made a series of primary holes for the hub end of the spokes and the rim ends. The rim was then chain drilled before the naughty bit of using an endmill to cut between the drill holes and hand turning the blank to clean up the rim. I did go slowly and with a safety stop for each section.

There are a number of pics in my Sterling bas folder which should help show how to do the same much more safely on a rotary table.

pgk

Life gets in the way of hobbies, and there's no point beating oneself up about it. I was an international athlete until I qualified and working life didn't allow for training with a team. I took up archery and became very good at that until a forced break due to illness and when i went back, pulled my high poundage bow to full draw and tore all the tendons in my forearm. By the time they had healed I'd lost interest. Next I took up a musical instrument and played with an ensemble group for a few years but that was something I lacked talent for and only hung in with hard work and long practice. Eventually, I was letting the rest of the group down. My next hobby was expensive and thoroughly fun but some years later I was expanding my business and money got tight.. so the hobby had to lapse.
I accept these things as life - learned some skills and about myself along the way.
Hobby metal bashing is similar - I've learned a lot but for anything complicated I'll probably end up with more scrap than parts which can get disheartening, while simple jobs can be weirdly satisfying and completed before enthusiasm wanes. There are some odd-shaped door latches here, and I needed a couple more - a bit of filing and silver solder after thinning some scrap to the right sizes is a good example.
One of the biggest issues is called getting older - bits of me ache, tiredness creeps in and the essential chores of life take so much longer that hobby time ends up reduced.

Find some little jobs is a good start.

pgk