Member postings for Phil Stevenson

I'm currently (slowly) acquiring the skill of hand chasing threads in wood, specifically boxwood which is one of the very few timbers that will take a hand chased thread. I'm using 22tpi and the threads are typically for a wooden box so the diameter can be an inch or two so not a tap and die sort of thing. Apart from striking a good thread the skill also is in matching the male and female.

It's made me wonder whether you can hand chase a thread in any metal? Is this a thing?

https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/product/double-ended-outside-calipers-6/

This is an oft asked question. Nothing to do with the water going "off" but over time nasties can leach out of the plastic into the water hence the time limitation advisory. Of course you can just ignore it completely. Not sure if there is a date on glass bottled water but who in God's name thinks it's a good idea to sell water in a glass bottle?

"You people" Really?

I've travelled / worked / holidayed a fair bit in the States and have never felt looked down upon; if anything much the opposite.

"..getting shot, ever" You obviously didn't grow up in Northern Ireland but surely you must have some remembrance of Hungerford and Dunblane.

I don't think anyone is in any position to gloat about such dreadful human tragedies.

As chance would have it, I'm currently re-reading Bill Bryson's Made in America - highly recommended as is just about anything by Bill Bryson (if you don't know him, check him out). In it he runs through the founding of the country and the evolution of it's modern culture, language and laws. Bryson rejoices in de-mythologising commonly held views of history in a very entertaining way and goes a long way to explaining why things today are the way they are; (he has done the same for the UK in other works by the way).

Bottom line to me is that there are far more good people in the world than bad ones, we just make a lot less noise. As ever, good news stories are less reported than bad ones.

Yes big cities can be intimidating, in the UK just as much as America fortunately with fewer firearms.

Well, lots of interesting points! First and foremost I'm assuming there is universal support for Ukraine's right to self determination and if the relatively minor matter of how to pronounce the name of their capital city gives even a modicum of succour, then that's fine by me.

If I object to anything it is to the BBC's selective wokeness. Thanks Adrian to the link to the Grauniad article - first time I've seen that message in writing but it would appear that pronouncing it "Keev" isn't quite right either. Russians say "Kee-eff", Ukrainians say "Kee-iv"; two consonants but a subtle difference in the last vowel which I would guess will escape most Westerners. I started exploring the derivation of Chicken Kiev (sic) and quickly gave up when I mixed up my Novo-Mikhailovskaya kotleta with my kotłeta de-voljaj po-kyjivśky . I had always thought it was name after a dish cooked for Napoleon when he was havung his dust-up with Russia; how wrong was I!

In the light of what poor civilians are suffering right now, this all seems rather petty. My thoughts are with them.

Anyone want to join a movement to ask the French to stop saying Edimbourg and start saying Edinbruh?

Edited By Phil Stevenson on 31/03/2022 15:35:30

I've tried and failed to find out when and why the BBC (and others probably) decide to stop calling the beleaguered city Kee-eff and moved to Kiv. No apparent change to Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna and a thousand others. Any enlightened ideas?

The biggest benefit of asking a "stupid" question on a forum and getting answers is that dozens of other people learn the solution as well. An answer googled in private gets no wider circulation. Isn't that a good learning process for us all?

I found practising making babies was far more enjoyable than actually ending up with a baby.

Auriou. Available in the UK.

I know nothing about bee keeping (although I have an interest in giving wildlife a bit of a helping hand) but that is the impression I'm getting from some of the posts. Nobody seems willing to answer your very reasonable question. Do nothing to encourage wildlife because it's inconvenient for (presumably amateur) honey bee farmers? Apologies to the OP; I know you wanted this thread euthanised.

A man with one clock always knows what time it is. A man with two clocks is never quite sure.

Losing one glove is painful

But nothing compared to the pain

Of losing one, throwing away the other,

Then finding the first one again.

Piet Hein

Hi from yet another West Midlander who likes his guitars. I've been banging out chords for many decades but never made one until lockdown when I started on cigar box guitars. Just about finished five to date and started on numbers 6 and 7, all different in design and make up. I've discovered the Midlands is a bit of a hot-bed for CBGs (you must have come across Chicken Bone John). I'll never win any prizes for my instruments but they all work (!) and they have been great fun to make. Thank heavens I have 2 garages full of accumulated tools and machinery to help with my new found challenges in woodwork, metalwork, electronics etc. Btw, Paul, the guitars on your site look stunning.

Not to take anything away from Steve's work - brilliant! - Cliffs Shed on the Toob has quite a lot of detail on ring making from coins. Interesting bloke. Cliff's Shed

To add a little perspective to Royal Mail's reliability, I sell an item on Ebay for under a fiver plus second class small parcel postage, currently £3. I have sold about 300 of this item over the last four years and have only had one reported non-delivery (I had to take the purchaser's word and remain somewhat suspicious as he wanted a refund not a replacement item). Still a 99.7% success rate isn't too shoddy for RM's cheapest plain vanilla service.

**LINK**

Sorry, here's a better attempt at the link. I hope ....

Brief but interesting article on the trials and travails of our surprisingly improved (productivity-wise) steel industry.

According to a House of Commons briefing paper, in 2016 the UK produced 8 million tonnes of steel; China produced 808 million tonnes. UK is such a small producer it is almost off the graph. This represented something like 0.01 of the UK's economic output. Not many other similar sized industries get quite the attention that steel production does.

I'm sure I read somewhere recently that in the last two years China produced more steel than the UK has in the whole of history.