Member postings for not done it yet

Insulate, insulate and insulate! Then maintain the temperature above dew point. Dehumidifiers help, but at zero Celsius, any water vapour in the air is likely to condense somewhere.

Compressor dehumidifiers don't work too well at low temperatures. The absorption type use more leccy, but that would help the temperature problem.

I'm just enclosing a lathe for the winter. It is in a sectional concrete panel garage with cement/fibre corrugated roofing sheets. It will have 100mm recticel behind, beside, in front and over on a concrete floor (may yet stand it on some insulation). I did get 5 sheets for about 50-60 quid, so looking for a bit more (rather than having a patchwork quilt at one end). Fingers crossed that there might be some at a sale on Saturday, but may need to think of visiting

the monthly sale at Kidderminster, unless I can find another similar auction site.

I bought two non-running meaco dehumidifiers via epay at about£40 quid apiece. Both repaired at zero cost (I was expecting to get one out of the two as worst scenario). One keeps my small insulated workshop (3.4×1.9×2m approx) warmish and dry, by running it an hour each night (uses 370W), so costs about 25p per week. The lathe enclosure may yet be connected to the workshop, so likely no, or little, extra running cost.

Three sheets of 100mm recticel travel easily on my saxo roof.

Hope that helps.

but not all people who appear LH are,

Very true. I shoot from the left shoulder as my left eye is master. Done it ever since being knee high to a grasshopper. Aiming the cork guns at the local fair was when I started it, as I could not comfortably close my left eye while keeping the other open, whereas the other way was easy. I still used to operate the bolt on my rifle (Browning T bolt) with my right hand. I bought it because it was a sliding (rather than lifting and sliding) bolt action.

Also, a mate at school was right handed for everything except batting at cricket. His dad was left handed and taught him that way. He bowled right handed, of course.

Ever since there were armies (and possibly before that) 'everyone' had to be right handed - couldn't tolerate lefties, with arms on the 'wrong' side.

Even down to about a hundred years sgo, those that were left handed were cajoled into using things right handed. Most machines, by then were only easily operated that way. I doubt if left handed scissors were made that long ago, for instance! (anyone know for sure?).

I put handedness down to mothers feeding babies (after breast feeding). Sat on knee, fed with right hand and baby will try to hold the spoon with the right hand. Possibly goes back to stronger heart beat on the left side (ventricle v atrium) and the way babies were carried.

As for screws, I have no idea except that most screws were tightened once and never removed, which meant it was just the easiest way for a right handed person to use them.

Edited to add that perhaps it goes deeper than hands (and feet).  One eye is nearly always the master eye.  That  may even have arisen from mothers feeding babies thatvway round.  Might just be chicken and egg - which came first?

Edited By not done it yet on 30/10/2017 08:12:06

Does it use a drawbar?

The last NVR switch I bought was from an epay seller. I didn't buy the cheapest available, but it was less than that one. Works OK.

Good to read that, Russell. Does that necessarily hold for all pictures, uploaded by everyone/anyone, whether into an album or into a post?

Maybe that groove is to allow different width bands to be used? Teeth of narrow band running in the groove?

A technical question about pics.

I understand that pics on twitface, etc, have embedded information of time, date and location which can be deciphered by those that know how (low life included). So is this info available from uploaded pics such as albums, or pics in posts?

Is brass best?

The answer to the original post is 'no' but it will work - probably just as well as some other alternatives. As soon as gibs allow any lateral movement, there will be a considerable force applied by the machine across the slideway. That may accelerate the wear on the gib/slideway. Think here white metal bearings for crank pins. Lead/tin white metal is suitable for petrol engines, but diesels require something a little harder - more tin, some antimony and, latterly, indium as well.

Perhaps the gib might wear rather than the slideways initially, I don't know, but likely a steel gib would give better/longer service life overall. Microscopes don't have any lateral loading, so not really comparable, I would think. As far as I know bearings were brass, unless bronze was substituted for a good reason. Slow moving, large area, well greased and easily/cheaply replaced. I know that bronze was used, in preference to brass, in disc coulters on ploughs, probably due to the side loading, but perhaps because of the harsher environment.

But get the right type of brass, as there are several and some are better than others for different applications.

It still won't work. Tangents yes, but it is the chord which changes the effective length of 'l'. When d2 tends to zero then 'l' will tend to zero also, because the tangent(s) where the belt 'would have' departed and joined the pulley circumference will be at the same point.

There will be a bit of calculus involved in formulating the correct solution to the problem, I'm afraid. At this time of the night I'm certainly not going there!

The flaw in the maths was assuming 'l' included the radius of the pulleys, which is not strictly true, but near enough for all practical scenarios where a tensioning device is present.

JR,

Being 's advocate here....

I have to repeat that while Neil's formula is perfectly adequate for most practical instances, the formula does not work for all instances.

It is absolutely perfectly accurate for the same sized pulleys, but introduces a minute error as the smaller pulley diameter reduces towards zero and the distance between centres, therefore, tends towards the radius of the larger pulley. (rediculous, I know, but theory is theory and formulae must cope with all scenarios)

The result should be Pi multiplied by the larger diameter - yes? Unfortunately it is not! Error is negligible in any sensible scenario, but does not provide a perfect exact result as requested by the OP. Therefore the formula is only a (very good) approximation, but not quite perfect.

Try it in the conversion progs. The belt would not quite fit!

The difference between theory and practice, I suppose.

My Omega has a problem. I hope it only needs a clean. Might be muck on the tuning fork. And my Seiko needs a new o-ring - if one can call the seal an o-ring.

24 carat gold is rediculously soft. Lower carats with the right alloying metals might last a while, but definitely not 24 carat! You don't need to drop a 3.5kg pure gold cone very far to very much flatten the tip considerably. Seen it done!

And, in addition to Neil's formula, which is correct for normal combinations, it won't be quite right for those cases where an idler should perhaps be fitted and isn't (great disparity in pulley size and small l).

As i see it, if the depth is crucial, is the ally plate a good constant thickness or has it been faced off? No real problem if youogo slightly too deep - just face again? Another ploy, if the surface finish in the bottom of the cut is needed to be a polished surface, would be to fabricate with a through slot and affix a flat back plate?

I've been taking .250 thou cuts in mild steel

Somehonw I think sean means 250, not one quarter of one thou! (chuckle)

Use a slide hammer version of Jason's tip

Clearly not read my post before Jason's, where I suggested the slide hammer? (@16:36:35).

Learning, playing or practising seems to sum up hobbies. All three are, or can be, useful for those taking part. Engineering hobbies can fall under any, or all, of the three categories.

Simply collecting car registration numbers (or those of other vehicles) seems to me to be just ticking off boxes like telephone numbers.

There are bird watchers and 'twitchers' - the latter, some of whom simply rush around trying to tick off the birds from their list and then have no further interest in the species would not be my favourites in that particular field of interest.

on a vat free day,

This always makes me chuckle. They are reducing all these items by 20%; VAT is still payable - they can't legally get around it! So perhaps these items are actually overpriced most of the time?

just drill a hole in the wall. you can always put a plug in it when it is not needed.

Again the exception? My lathe is not positioned against a wall. The item immediately behind the lathe it is not a suitable candidate for having holes drilled through it (nor easily moved).