Member postings for Bryan Cedar 1

Seems to be an unlucky month for magazines; two pages of my RadCom are stuck together by a splodge of ink.

In the good old days every copy of Model Engineer was checked personally by the Editor, and the whole team was docked a day's pay if he found a mistake. Percival Marshall was a proper editor; he used to flog author's who got THERE apostrophe's wrong.

And on the subject of iron discipline, that Geoff Theasby deserves a bl**dy good hiding - his jokes are funnier than mine. Unforgivable!

Dave

But I will anyway!

I have just finished a bathroom ceiling and want to use a very narrow coving strip all round. The problem is the eaves are low so the ceiling slopes at 35 degrees (approximately!) along one wall. This means the joint is at about 125 degrees meaning normal coving strip meant for a 90-degree won't fit and can't even be bodged into place. I could just leave the join as is, but has anyone come across anything, such as a thin strip, that I could use.

Neil

Central heating has been playing up. I discovered that the diverter valve for the radiators was faulty: The motor that moves the valve had stripped teeth. The valve is held open by the motor simply stalling at the full open position - at which point it also operates a microswitch that turns on the boiler. Since the valve is returned shut by springs, when the motor teeth slipped, the boiler was switched off and the valve partially closed, so the radiators were not getting warm and the boiler kept switching off.

I bought and fitted a new valve motor head and tidied up the wiring at the same time - discovering a loose earth wire as well ; (why are so-called professional electricians so slap-dash?).

Then I turned my attention to another problem. The boiler has been tripping its overheat cut-out switch on a regular basis. I eventually realised this was because we have turned off most radiators in the house except a couple of rooms, so the circulating hot water was not being dissipated quickly enough, leading to the boiler heat exchanger getting too hot. I have tried combinations of adjusting the boiler feed temperature, the pump speed and the radiator balance to no avail. I then realised that the boiler was just burning far too hot and then I noticed a manual valve on the gas feed pipe into the boiler. I was able to turn this down and reduce the flame size in the burner.

All is now well: the boiler runs happily and does not keep overheating. The new diverter valve head works perfectly and the radiators are getting warm.

My plan is to spend the last of my beloved spondulicks just before the grim reaper arrives. I've looked for a loophole, but you can't take it with you...

Dave

I wonder what Pope Benedict took with him He was "Double Boxed and welded in. No disrespect.

I can count the number of accidents I've had in the workshop on the fingers of one hand.

Two!

Whale oil is very good

Dirty motor oil has lots of carbon and can be good

I bought a Makita grinder to cut steel then bought a pack of discs my problem is the discs grind down faster than the metal can any one recomend a good disc that will last while cutting a car spring length wise. It would maybe take one or two to do the job but better than useing 50 at the moment. Thank you for any help

I have been in the workshop this morning for one of my regular exercises in futility, but that is by-the-by. I was running my J&S 540, with wheel-head, hydraulic pump and extractor from an older Transwave converter, which has an ammeter rather than a voltmeter, and noticed that the needle was hovering between 6 and 8 amps depending on the cut and reversal of the table. I am not sure whether this is the input or output current or what the efficiency of the device is, and there was also the machine light, three double and one single florescent fittings switched on. The sight of the ammeter just caused me to ponder how much all this is costing, given rising energy costs? I have recently increased the direct debit for domestic gas and electricity to £250 per month, as they are stating that the average household bill is going to be £3K and rising but how much of my annual energy use is actually down to the workshop, I have absolutely no idea.

I am one of the more fortunate senior citizens who can afford the rising costs for now and those of my age are getting more help than younger people from the government, or so we have been told unless the new PM cancels it all as one of the candidates is saying she will according to newspaper reports.

I also have 4kW of solar panels, a device that maintains the hot water from the roof and live in a modern relatively well-insulated house but how many are not so well placed or financially upholstered and may have to curtail their workshop activities because of the energy crisis? Perhaps some of the more mathematically cerebral contributors could offer some guidance as to how to estimate workshop energy costs? Just a thought.

Hi Peter G. Shaw, I've known someone who had been in the same kind of situation as your mother with regards their parents not thinking their choice of marriage partner not being good enough and all that, but had a happy marriage and family. I think my own marriage fundamentally failed through her mothers chipping away at her daughter, mainly because I didn't agree to the way she though we should run our lives, but ho-hum, I have my daughter, my son and three granddaughters and neither my ex or her mother are in existence now and none of them or their half siblings miss either of them.

About Henry's Radio, I can't remember any of their shops in TCR but that doesn't mean they didn't have one there, I know Lasky's Radio was in TCR and they also had a shop in Edgware Rd., and many of the big named shops like Dixon's, I remember having more than one shop in different areas, but as you say it was 50 odd year ago, but I can also remember Proops Brothers having a place in TCR as I used to go in there as they had lots of surplus stuff of all sorts of things.

Regards Nick.