Here is a list of all the postings Nick Wheeler has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.
Thread: Improved Experimental Pendulum |
01/06/2023 12:42:18 |
Perhaps the clock is alarmed by your tidiness? |
Thread: [Project] Over-Engineered Workshop drawers |
29/05/2023 11:24:50 |
They're your resources, so go ahead. When you've built it give us a report on how it went, and what you learnt. There's no way I'd have a rack of open trays in a workshop where material is being cut, ground, machined, welded painted or even assembled. Why not make the slides for your trays out of angle instead of tube? You'll get the same amount of welding practice, but the finished item will work better. The idea of hanging a long, 450kg lathe from a mobile engine crane to place it on the stand on my own worries me. Having used them, I wouldn't do it. Without some means of steadying each end while moving and operating the crane, it's very easy for the whole lot to tip over. My crane was stolen, and I haven't replaced it because it takes up too much space for the infrequent use it gets. I know at least three people I can borrow one from if needed, and they're not difficult to hire. I do agree with you about buying new instead of trying to find a secondhand machine though! |
Thread: Workshop Purchase (wish)list |
28/05/2023 20:45:03 |
Instead of splurging on Machinery's Handbook, buy The Metalworker's Data Book(#24 in the Workshop Practice Series) for under a tenner. It's better laid out, and contains most, if not all of the data you're likely to need.
Making up your own exercises to teach yourself new things is a treacherous path to go down, especially if you don't have a mentor available. There are plenty of existing and well-proven projects to do the job. |
Thread: [Project] Over-Engineered Workshop drawers |
28/05/2023 20:35:32 |
I think you're mad.
That's a lot of expensive material and time just to build some basic, open shelves. Save yourself the hassle and enrol on a short welding course. If you must build something, make a bench: four legs and two rectangles with ply coverings will give enough practice of welding stuff together that stays straight/square(not as easy as it sounds, and your shelf design will be tricky to manage that) and be properly useful. An important engineering skill is to not make things more complicated than is absolutely necessary. Important, and hard to learn! I wouldn't consider a gasless MIG either; use a proper one, or a cheap inverter stick machine. That one you've shown looks a bit underpowered/expensive too LINK |
Thread: Keyless car theft has never been so easy |
28/05/2023 17:20:43 |
Posted by Mike Hurley on 28/05/2023 15:14:50:
I always use my Stoplock Pro, which has regularly been voted best of the type in various surveys. Yes, somebody with a battery angle grinder could cut into it (or the steering wheel) after time, but I work on the basis that the majority of thefts are opportunistic, so why bother if they can move to the car next to mine and steal that easily instead. If a toe rag really wants your car specifically, they will nick it regardless of keys, locks, electronic wizardy or immobilisers etc etc. I've removed those(the customer had lost the key) using a Leatherman Wave. Although a cordless grinder would have been easier. Best of type is a very low bar when considering steering locks. |
Thread: Workshop Purchase (wish)list |
27/05/2023 09:01:08 |
Dave makes a number of good points there: I'd be making sturdy fixed benches(and a couple of mobile ones) with lower shelves and good bench vices a priority. Ensure the floor is smooth and level first. Lighting is essential. So is effective tool storage - the Halfords tool chests are excellent and good value. A cheaper crane and a lifting table would make a lot more sense than the expensive one, although if I were going to be frequently moving heavy stuff around the workshop I'd want a rail and chain block instead of an engine crane. |
Thread: Bending 12mm square mild steel bar |
27/05/2023 08:49:23 |
Posted by modeng2000 on 27/05/2023 07:05:22:
Nick, the hole is 1/4" square. Your filing abilities must be better than mine as having tried filing a square hole I was not satisfied that a lathe tool would be held securely enough. So this is why I fabricated the making of a square hole.
??? There's not much filing to make a 1/4" round hole into a square one. And that's much easier than any of the other suggestions. Quicker too. You might even be able to use the tool steel to sharpen the corners... Edited By Nick Wheeler on 27/05/2023 08:57:50 |
26/05/2023 21:24:46 |
How big is the hole you're trying to make I can't imagine a diamond tool holder that couldn't be made far easier by drilling a hole and filing the corners square. |
Thread: Workshop Purchase (wish)list |
26/05/2023 21:14:18 |
You've omitted some important information: what are you intending to do with all this stuff? There's big differences between making tiny steam engines, and doing basic machine work for real cars or motorbikes....
And you're right, some of it overlaps, like the imperial and metric drill sets. Those are expensive items, so settle on one and don't buy the other. A sub£5 calculator hanging off the mill will sort any conversion problems. I'm trying to be entirely metric, so would avoid the number etc drills but if you're going to use mostly imperial measurements, that should be flipped. Do you really need a chopsaw when you have a bandsaw? As everyone else has said, buy the ER32 collets(and not having a full set is daft) with the available square and hex blocks. When you've settled on your favoured cutter size, treat then to their own specific collet. I'd probably attach the drill chuck to a 20mm shank to use with a collet. That all makes the the 5C redundant until you actually need them for specific jobs the ER won't do - no, I don't know what they could be. Try and keep the tools needed for using everything to a minimum - it's seriously frustrating using a random selection of spanners, allen keys and sockets to just clamp a workpiece and fit the necessary tool. Just because one person finds a particular tool essential doesn't mean you will - rotary tables are a good example, as there's a lot of resources tied up in one that might be better spent elsewhere for your work. £200 can still buy a useful amount of material. I have a pair of 123blocks that are touted as must haves, but only one of them ever gets used to align the toolpost square with the chuck.... You haven't listed basic metalworking tools like hacksaws, files, snips, punches etc. What for, and how often is the expensive crane going to be used? They're meant to lift an engine in and out, not move long and heavy stuff around the workshop. Once you've had one tip over, you'll lose any enthusiasm for the things. They take up a lot space even when folded too. For general workshop use, I'd probably buy a TIG welder instead of the MIG. That decision is reversed if you're going to be working on cars. That is how mine get used. Even if you can afford to buy all this one go, it's probably better to get the basic clamps, cutting tools and measuring kit first then get the more specialised tools from the remaining slush fund when(if!) they're actually required. A £70 adjustable spanner? Really?? I've never met a mechanic who didn't have adjustables, but they're in the good enough to get it done not family heirloom category. Mine are Bahcos, but the most expensive was the smallest(£7 at an autojumble), and the biggest was rescued from a skip before I was born. I wouldn't buy them new I think Dave's right about the Myford/Bridgeport combination too. Edited By Nick Wheeler on 26/05/2023 21:16:58 |
Thread: More beginner questions |
25/05/2023 12:09:02 |
Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 25/05/2023 11:47:01:
A good alternative on lathes that can run in reverse without the chuck unscrewing is to screw-cut away from the headstock rather than towards it, so that there's no risk of colliding with the chuck. This can be done at high-speed, might not need a hand-crank at all. At 30rpm minimum speed my WM280 is a perhaps just a tad fast for super-safe screw-cutting, so I often reverse cut considerably faster. One day I might experiment to see how fast threads can be cut, I guess hundreds of rpm are do-able.
30rpm is a tad fast??? I thought I was wimping out starting at about 100rpm and increasing as I get used to the job. Life's too short to futz around scraping a few microns off per pass, especially if it's a large and long thread like the M20 threads on both ends of the headstock bolt I made, or M14x1(I know, but it was a Russian aeroplane) jack adapters. |
Thread: Free Scanner |
18/05/2023 12:07:47 |
A lack of backwards compatibility is bound to happen at some point when starting afresh is a better solution.Or with how quickly electronics change, a necessity. Deliberately hobbling an existing and working device with forced software upgrades is something that we've come to accept as normal. But that's our fault, as we should have refused to buy anything else from the first companies that did it. Them changing licensing requirements after some time is equally unacceptable. Servicing is similar, I would point out the £1500(or more!!) cost for replacing the timing belt on Ford's ghastly 1.0l triple fitted to most of their common cars. Locking you into consumables has been a sales and marketing dream for some time, I think Gilette started it with the double-edged safety razor.
None of this changes the fact that common stuff should be standardised but often isn't - look how long it took for mobile phone companies to realise that proprietry chargers actually cost them money, when all they needed to do was swap to USB ports and they would no longer need to even include a cable yet wouldn't need to reduce the retail price. That's just one of a long list; document formats, car charging plugs, batteries and many others all have similar problems.
Much of this is driven by marketing and sales. Manufacturers desperately need to sell as many people as possible a new thing, and will do anything to convince us we need to buy them. Often that simply isn't true, as Peter points out with his car - a new one isn't going to be significantly better to justify for him the massive cost of buying one. I doubt he's the only one... |
Thread: Alibre - Have Taken The Plunge |
18/05/2023 10:59:10 |
Nigel, now that you're working your way around how the interface works, it's time to remember that you shouldn't be calculating anything. Leave that to the program, and tell it where you want the cut to go to: an edge, face, bore centre, plane, whatever. Things like bolt holes should be done using the relevant tool that already has the data, and can be edited or shared later. Although this contrary to traditional methods, it makes the design work - the important bit that the computer can't do for you - so much easier.
Ady's advice to model an existing design or assembly you understand is excellent, and will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run.
Finally, you wouldn't make a usable 2D drawing without some thought, planning and probably some simple sketches so why would 3D modelling be any different? |
Thread: Oh dear - not quite right - again! |
17/05/2023 11:07:07 |
Posted by Jager on 17/05/2023 10:54:57:
Nothing wrong with a surfiet of commas..... The Judge said Alice is a fool. The Judge, said Alice, is a fool. David...... Q.E. D.🧙♂️ That's not a surfeit( |
Thread: Alibre - A First Attempt |
17/05/2023 10:37:28 |
Posted by Ady1 on 17/05/2023 09:53:40:
You're basically buying a virtual reality workshop and the software today is good enough to be worth the money No trepidation when I fire CAD up anymore, I know what I want and I know how to make this workshop tool get me there
That's what makes it so useful for me. Without CAD, I'd be wasting hours and lots of material making proof of concept mockups to discover what I don't know. With CAD that's a few minutes and no waste, which means the first design iteration will probably work. Whether it gets further development will depend on how complex the design is, and the use it will get - there's little point in refining a single use tool.
There are other time-savers, like being able to have sheet metal CNC cut or 3D printed parts that can be produced/ordered while making the parts that can't be done like that. That's especially important when you want several identical or similar parts. Self aligning slots and tabs are essentially free which means better assemblies are much easier. Makes having spares a lot more feasible too.
I recently made a small, mostly rectangular part for one of the local steeple-keepers. He sent me the F360 model, I added a construction sketch to work how big the round sizes were, and the offsets to mill the flat ones holding the bar stock in a collet block. It all went so smoothly I made two so he could modify them as needed. It was for a church clock that would have originally been handfitted |
17/05/2023 09:34:36 |
Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 16/05/2023 23:14:05:
A bit early still to judge it fairly but so far Alibre Atom does seem a lot easier to learn TurboCAD's 3D mode.
"Productive" , for me, would mean my being able to use CAD to a useful level. I do have quite a few orthographic TurboCAD drawings and have printed a few for workshop use. So it would be a matter of pursuing Alibre to where I can do similar with that system. You've struggled with this for so long, it would be a shame if you gave up now that you're finally getting somewhere. |
Thread: Oh dear - not quite right - again! |
17/05/2023 09:28:02 |
Posted by JasonB on 17/05/2023 07:49:08:
Well I'm useless at English but even I can spot two errors in Tim's opening post so that would seem to make him and the mags quits Tim seems to have an endless supply of commas. |
Thread: Cables |
16/05/2023 18:52:42 |
Posted by Vic on 16/05/2023 17:35:58:
Posted by Joseph Noci 1 on 15/05/2023 14:53:35:
Do you hand out welding glasses to passer's by? I suspect welding something like a car in the street would be highly illegal without permission from the council and adequate insurance? This is one of the few streets around here where you don't need a parking permit. If they can make you pay to try and park somewhere near your own house, they're hardly likely to give you permission to work on a car. After all, there are garages for that. I've been welding stuff here for nearly 35 years, and still need to finish the job I started last week:
We won't mention painting the side of another car immediately after ringing for the last royal wedding
Back to cables: I've often considered cutting the leads off all my grinders etc, adding a kettle plug, and using just one power lead for everything. Like Festool supply, but without the need to provide a third kidney. That ought to reduce the rats nest that quickly builds up, both in use and when put away. |
15/05/2023 14:33:57 |
I rarely weld at a bench where I don't need to move the welder. I do weld on cars, where I'd like to have more options for where I can place the welder and not just where I can attach the earth lead.
When I next make battery cables, I'll buy extra and lengthen the lead. Although I've meant to do that for some time... |
15/05/2023 09:28:08 |
Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 15/05/2023 06:43:39:
I find generally that cables are too short or not flexible when cold . I think that's one of the signs of a better quality tool: you don't need to prop an extension cable close enough to the job that you knock it off every time you breathe out. Although I've often wondered why a euro torch for a mig welder is 3metres long, yet the earth lead barely sticks out of the machine. |
14/05/2023 21:03:31 |
Just as annoying is the need to dismantle the working bits to have any chance of the tool fitting its slot. The only blow moulded cases I keep are the ones that contain lots of small fittings, like a pipe flaring tool or the pressure testers. Otherwise the cases take up too much room - as part of my recent clear up, I managed to get two both circular saws, jigsaw and the router on the same shelf that the jigsaw case used most of. Edited By Nick Wheeler on 14/05/2023 21:04:05 |
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