Member postings for Chris Gill

I'm not a motorbike enthusiast but I was fascinated by this one from a British engineering couple:

**LINK**

Part way down the article is a link to another about the Truax rocket and its novel use of a tin of dog food. I'm not sure my workshop insurance would cover that sort of extreme tinkering

I made it after an hour shovelling snow. I'm glad I went and one or two of the suppliers are probably pleased as well! I was really impressed with the scale model of Goathland station, having had several relatives in the area years ago.

It was quieter than usual, probably due to the weather, but easier to get around. Sadly, one supplier appeared to have done all the setup and then failed to get there. Better luck on day 2.

I had an odd early morning request today.

My 7-year old granddaughter wants me to make a DNA helix from K'nex so that she can go to school as Rosalind Franklin. There are lots of examples online and even a dedicated kit (£60).

I did suggest that, since Franklin's expertise was in X-ray crystallography, my graddaughter should take an X-ray image and have a Fourier transform in her pocket for people who can't see what it's supposed to be.

Shaun - that sounds like good advice. I've added HT5 to my shopping list. If you're at the Harrogate show I'll call in

Chris

Thanks David

+1 for Libre Office by the way

Thanks all

I never thought of a reaction between citric acid and flux but I have some brick acid which I can try next time.

Noel - many thanks for the offer but I'm in Leeds.

Simon - I had heard of sodium bisulphate pickles but I just happened to have citric acid in stock. I couldn't find it at quite that price although I did find a supplier offering 25kg sacks. I think I'll start with something smaller

I encountered a bit of a puzzle when silver soldering recently and I wondered if anyone could advise.

I was trying to solder brass valve chests onto steel cylinders (EN1 or EN3, not Pb) for a model I was tinkering with. I cleaned everything, applied flux and heated inside the cylinder primarily.

I picked the finished item in dilute citric acid for a short time. All the cylinders had a black coating on the inside and I assumed it was just a little oxidation but wet-and-dry paper wouldn't touch it.

Then a little bit flaked off and I discovered it was a thick, glass-like glaze. After a few experiments I found I could turn the glaze off using carbide tools but HSS didn't seem happy.

Any idea what the glaze might have been?

In terms of the model, there were several other "lessons learned" so it runs off a small motor rather than air or steam!

What a shame, in the sense of lost industry. I was at Redcar as a site engineer while they were building the site. I installed the first plant monitoring computer for the furnace - 13 6-ft high cabs which were hoisted in by crane because there was no lift!

There were once over a thousand men on site but when I visited again several years later there were just 16.

I wonder if the second furnace is still there. It was on the same train as the Redcar furnace but was destined for Llanwern. The contract was cancelled before it got there so they rolled it into a ditch. I did find an old site engineer who admitted his brother was trying to sell it to Mexico.

Chris

Edited By Chris Gill on 23/11/2022 21:14:24

While on holiday in Canada over the past few weeks we took a cruise to Alaska and stopped off in Skagway for a few hours. I spotted an interesting snow plough (or snowplow) and an old engine. There's a YouTuve video about this monster and its restoration - **LINK**

While standing there another train rolled in. behind me, a young woman dressed in railway uniform and using a megaphone was telling people to stay where they were and not cross the road because a train was coming. Unforunately for her, most people ignored her and the train stopped where it was ...

Thanks Jason

I'll keep breathing

Just spotted the PM - thanks again

Edited By Chris Gill on 10/03/2022 20:08:51

Hi

I've been looking at the Puma IC engine series and tried to track down the original Nemett Bobcat series in ME. I managed to rescue an old Win7 system with a copy of Chrome that still runs Flash player so that I can get to the archive. I've got all episodes apart from issue 4442 (2 Nov 2012) which simply won't open. I even tried using the Ruffle add-in but it can't handle Action script 3.

I also spotted another series of interest - Stuart Hart's Simpson & Shipton engine. Again, I got all but one part.

So, would any kind soul(s) be able to send me PDFs of part 6 of both the above series from issue 4442?

Back in the70's the Teesside Fettlers often sang at the folk club in the Sun Inn, Stockton-on-Tees. They produced two LPs with a number of songs about steel making, mining, and other aspects of life in the area. One of my favourite refrains is from the song "Steelmen" ...

Hammer it, weld it, roll it to and fro,

Cleveland steel is of the best, I'll have you's all to know.

Forge it, cast it, mould it how you like,

Neat as a Geordie hinnie bird and tough as a Yorkshire tyke.

Ah well, the rolling mills and blast furnaces may be gone now but I still have this on the workshop play list.

Thanks guys

I had seen some precision regulators at around £400 each but if I can simply add a second one rather than replacing the one on the tank, that makes it easier. I rather like the ones suggested by Old Mart so I'll double check things and get one ordered.

thanks again

Hi

I have a cheap and noisy (not sure about cheerful) compressor that I bought from Aldi a couple of years ago. I had to swap the couplings to UK standard before I could do much with it and set the relief pressure to more than the low pressure switch. It now runs up to 8 bar (as intended) and seems to work OK even if it frightens the life out of the grandchildren.

The problem comes when I try to run models at low pressure. If I set the regulator to, say, 1 bar it will drift down until the model stops even though there's still plenty of pressure in the reservoir. I then have to keep adjusting the regulator up a little every time it droops. I would really like to run at a consistent 0.5 bar on one model and 1 bar on others.

Is this about par for a cheap compressor and is there anything I can make or buy that will achieve good control at the low end while still being able to do things like pump up the van tires?

Well done pgk.

I guess a logo that depicted the full rowing complement would have taken up the whole blade

Michael - that's an interesting possibility and puts the date at 1878. I wonder if the logo was just used for one year.

I used Dave's search method and found another quote from this link: **LINK**: " 1829 Oxford wins Britain’s first Boat Race, competiting with Cambridge. " (their typo, not mine)

I really don't believe these tools are 200 years old but winning the first such race would be worth commemorating.

It's also interesting that these tools seem to turn up all over the world - UK, USA, Canada, Russia and New Zealand. The murder of the policeman is also referred to in several countries.

Chris

I discovered another gouge today while applying a bit of TLC to all my chisels & plane blades (a bit of damp got in over winter) and this time the wording is definitely "Oxford Wins". I like Dave's idea that it's the real maker's mark. Mine both have H. Wilson stamped on them but I didn't find anything on Grace's guide, which might make sense if Wilson was just re-badging the tools.

As for the tree, I like Rod's idea of using copper nails - I'd forgotten they poison trees. As it happen's a have an old waxed card icecream tub (Pacito's) full of copper nails. Fascinating what we hang on to. One day my son and daughter are going to have to sort it all out. Ho ho ho

Rob - it's tempting to track down the local bishop just to see what his reaction would be

Thanks all for the feedback

Chris

Thanks Robin

A-level chemistry was as far as I went so I was only guessing

Hmm, and I do go to Specsavers I'm sure I can find a good excuse if I think hard enough.

But who, what or where was Okford and what do the rowers have to do with chisels?

Oxford wine?? Even after polishing it up a bit I couldn't be sure. But what does Oxford Wine refer to - a search only takes me to a wine merchant in Oxford. Mine doesn't say where it was made but the one PGK pointed to on eBay was made in Sheffield. I may be more puzzled than ever