Member postings for Nick Wheeler

Axminster tools, Arc Euro Trade, Ebay, they're common parts available all over the place.

Replacing cells in batteries is already a thing for cordless tools which use four cells and cost £60. Anybody who thinks that won't happen when there are 800 in a pack that costs several thousand £ is an idiot.

As mentioned above, charging at home(or work!) won't be possible for a lot of users, so banks of chargers at convenient locations will be a necessity. That sounds very like a petrol station to me!

The people who already run petrol stations would love to get rid of the expensive and short lived fuelling equipment; replacing the tanks, pumps etc with chargers is just the thing they're looking for.

Stephen, Dremels are tools that really ought to be sold from market stalls by a salesman whose pitch is carefully developed to show how perfect they are for tattooing mouse ears. And he'll throw in not one, not two, but nine extra motor brushes!

An electric die grinder is going to cost over £100 and will come with 6mm collets for tools. It will also be about 5 times more powerful than a Dremel.

I have to agree with the above posters who suggest that air tools(except for sprayguns) are only useful if you have a massive, permanently installed compressor. I would also add that it helps if you're already deaf and immune to the bloody things icing up

I'm limited for space, so the 10x22 WM250 is as big as I can fit. Fortunately it's also just about big enough for most of my jobs. I bought my first lathe for all the adapters, bushes and tools for my hobbies of restoring/modifying cars.

Things I look for mostly in order: enough power to do jobs in sensible time, variable speed, large spindle bore, rigidity, ease of use(eg, locks actuated by captive levers/knobs rather than tools), power feeds which ties back to #1, sensible chuck changes(the three bolt fitting is easy and fast, but would be improved with a few mm more access), screwcutting gearbox with lots of range, QCTP with lots of easily made holders.

The gearbox is the thing I miss most, as setting up change gear combinations sucks a lot of time. A good electronic leadscrew would be even better; any thread pitch or power feed rate you want just by entering a number on a keypad. Quieter than a gear train too.

Edited By Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 14/06/2021 16:14:12

because as found, 'original', unmolested, looking like a heap of scrap is patina and considered desirable. At it's worst, they won't even wash off the dirt accumulated from sitting in a draughty shed for 40 years.....

Howard's post above shows why it's useful to have more than one way to do a job! If you break a clamp in the first setup, then move onto another that you rejected for whatever reason, lubricated with plenty of Anglo-Saxon.

Take these jack adaptors

which are about 40mm diameter, 1/4"pins and the radius/taper(which aren't particularly critical) worked out from the distances in CAD. They're one piece just like the original I was given, but that's wasteful in time and material. I should have made the pins separate and loctited them in, which would have been quicker, easier, cheaper and made a stronger part.

I replaced the weedy clamp that holds the topslide to the cross slide on my WM250. It's made of 15mm thick steel plate and is attached with four bolts. It's a lot more stable - the flex in the original was really visible - and capable of taking much bigger cuts.

I did machine off the boss for the toolpost when I fitted the QCTP

Just like BMW's slogan a few years ago: The value of perfect engineering. Which I first spotted plastered all over the dealer's wall when I was delivering another 2.0l diesel with a failed timing chain and less than 5k miles....

Another piece of advice for castable PU: they're aren't kidding about the six month shelf life, so don't buy a bigger amount than you need because it looks more economical!

It wasn't mine! The customer phoned from Medway Services, reporting a burning smell. They had checked the oil level whilst waiting to board the ferry at Calais. I wiped off the worst of the oil, whittled a new cap from a fence post I found in the grass, stuck it down with duct tape, put a big tick in the temporary repair box and sent them on their way. We weren't going to recover them over 200 miles at midnight for that problem.

Potentially having to do mechanical work is enough reason! A multi-tool has enough features that it's clearly a tool with a blade rather than a weapon.

I won't have a blade that doesn't lock because it is dangerous to me, and I have the scars to prove it. I wouldn't have whittled a temporary oil filler-cap from a fence post with a non-locking blade.

Run the nut up and down the thread with a power tool. That ought to loosen it a bit.

Competent person is clearly defined on the HSE's website - LINK - it's actually one of the better phrases, because experience is often enough.

I think the Wave is the best value and most useful tool I've ever bought. It was so essential when I worked as a recovery driver that I couldn't be without it, even after breaking a couple of blades. When I stopped doing that job, I sent it back, and got a new one by return of post. Considering that all three blades were broken due to abuse - like prying off a damaged Krooklok - I thought that was exceptional service.

And a pair of them screwed to a chunk of motorcycle tyre make a good bell silencer:

you can just see the cross cut in the bottom that fits over the ball of the clapper. The whole thing is then rotated to silence the bell when needed. Works well on small bells!

Easier to bend, lighter, and doesn't need finishing would be my reasons

Stepping up to a proper refillable cylinder makes a huge improvement even to the small MIGs. You use a standard regulator, and might need a readily available adaptor to connect it to your smaller inlet pipe. Considering the cost of disposable cylinders, you'll quickly save money as well as weld better.

If you're struggling with solid wire you'll hate flux core!

The basic MIGs are capable of doing most DIY workshop jobs; car restoration/modifications, and basic fabrication like fences, benches etc. BUT they are horrible things to learn with. This is one of the skills that having just a few minutes of instruction from someone competent will save hours of frustrating 'learning' and lots of expensive materials.

You think using less paint for better coverage together with much less overspray is zero benefit??

Using them with high solid 2k means just 2 coats of paint, which dramatically reduces your chances of screwing something up.

Knowing the approximate answer is necessary whenever the calculation is important.

Lots of people just copy the number off the calculator even when it's clearly wrong; 30 years ago my colleagues would hand in their banking claiming that five tills each with less than £1500 added up to £9k! More recently, my boss came out with a revised torque wrench setting for the adapter I'd made, and took a lot of convincing that it was wrong - her number had increased, when it needed to be smaller. There are lots of bolts where it probably wouldn't have mattered, but wing attachments are not the place to take chances....

doesn't a trailing zero do the same? 0.1550 would suggest more precision that 0.155.

Which removes the need to reconcile weird fractions and seemingly random decimal numbers used on the same part.