Member postings for Nick Clarke 3

Many years ago I worked in a motor factors. We sold trim clips to hold trim on cars. Ours came in boxes from Tucker's direct and a clip to hold trim on the side of any car was about 3p (it was in the seventies!)

Walk round the corner to Sandicliffe, the nearest Ford dealer and at the spares counter the identical part was 5p plus vat - I was sent to get some by the back street garage where I worked on my day off.

Intrigued I asked the price at Truman Mitchell's on the Derby Road and at the Triumph end of the spares counter they were 8p and at the River end they were 11p

All of these were made by Tucker's so ever since my healthy cynicism has just grown!

The combined lathe and mill is highly regarded by some people but not everyone - however AFAIK it has recently gone out of production so may have an enhanced value to someone who has been looking for one.

The advice given to drivers of old VW Beetles (mine was a 65) was to allow the engine to idle for 10 minutes to allow the thermostat to open before driving off.

This allowed the engine to warm up but the oil cooler was in a full flow of air I presume.

Many years ago I was driving my old VW Beetle into work when I heard strange noises from the rear as I drove past the bus garage. Stopping and opening the engine cover I was greeted by fire as the petrol pipe had burst. running into the garage a mechanic smashed the glass cover on a fire extinguisher on the nearest bus and ran out and dowsed the flames for me.

I was recovered by the RAC and rang into work saying I would not be in.

I got a call back saying that I had to be in before the end of the school day or I will have my pay stopped.'

Now the engine compartment of an air cooled Beetle is fairly simple so dashing to my nearest supplier, not far away fortunately, for some air hoses and petrol pipe I replaced these and rewired the engine - but as I only had one reel of cable every thing was rewired in yellow with a maroon stripe. Basically the colour code for everything was yellow with a maroon stripe.

- But I got into school 15 minutes before the end of the school day and got paid for all of it!

For years I recommended anyone learning to drive to learn and pass their test in a manual car because that left all their options open but nowadays it is far less important as the next new car someone drives is likely to be electric or hybrid, both of which count as automatics.

I can still remember the big day when we were issued with dip pens and the inkwells in the desks were filled up. we were given a wooden penholder, a nib and a little reservoir to clip onto the back of the nib - If you had been in the class you would have been stood out at the front of the class while everyone right handed got to use their new toys, no doubt being shamed for being 'wrong' while the teacher struggled to find some left handed nibs - and then the reservoirs wouldn't clip on to the LH nibs so it was a continual dipping process!

My first fountain pen was also an Osmiroid - the sleek Platignum ones were banned as they were supposed to harm our writing.

Ballpoint pens were totally a no-no although my father ran his GP practice on the yellow extra fine BIC ones - mind you school could have been right as his writing was often unreadable!

While a student I moonlighted at a number of small backstreet garages, including one where the TV and electronics engineer partner (don't ask) also did trade repairs on autoboxes, often BW DG or Model 35 and 13J

His own van was converted to auto with a BW35 but it was fitted with a rear pump in addition to the normal front one which was used by the engine input to pressurise the system so if you rolled it down hill fast enough (30 - 40 mph!!) the rear pump would act in place of the front one and enable the brake bands to operate and the torque convertor would bump start the engine - sometimes! The rear pump was only used on some Triumph and Rover cars and then no for long, but all of the casings could accommodate one if you had one spare lying around.

Another memory is taking the metal plates out of a worn multiplate clutch in a BW box and being warned to take care as they were sharp. Even though not causing a problem the plates had worn down from approx 2mm thick to the point where they would cut a sheet of paper!

Perhaps not as efficient as has already been suggested, but they were incredibly engineered for a mass produced item!

PS:- The AP auto gearbox fitted to the BMC minis an 11/1300s were produced in a factory just round the corner from where I am typing this, on the Pershore Road, Stirchley in Birmingham.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 07/06/2023 15:26:47

Manual gearboxes were extremely difficult to use until the introduction of synchromesh - mass produced cars were still being made with synchro on only some of the ratios right up until the 1960s. Until then silent gear changing without crunching was a skill and even then a moments inattention could make things noisy - and too much attention could lead to an accident.

Additions to the standard 'crash' box were at first designed just to simplify the gearchanging process and this is where things ended for many manufacturers eg:- Hondamatic (Trimatic) two speed transmissions being a torque convertor and a manual change between ratios allowing clutchless driving.

The Wilson preselector used planetary gears and brake bands to drive but the gear was selected by the driver and the change only occurred when the change pedal was depressed. These needed a fluid coupling (fluid flywheel) to enable starting off. Other preselectors used clutches, electromagnetic in the French Cotal box and racing cars with preselectors sometimes had no primary clutch at all relying on the change from N to 1 to progressively engage the brake bad on the first gear gearset.

Small Citroens had a centrifugal clutch (Trafficlutch) to enable clutchless starting off but the gearbox was normal with a standard clutch. Two stroke Saabs had a similar device but here it was to allow the car to coast with the engine idling as lubrication when idling is marginal with a two stroke.

The whole process of changing gear was then mechanised (close throttle, depress clutch, select gear, release clutch, open throttle) with the driver having to only move a small lever - This was hydraulically driven on Citroens and by vacuum on Standard and Rover cars. Not quite so sophisticated was the VW Beetle system where depressing the gear knob closed the throttle and disengaged the clutch enabling the next gear to be selected by the driver in the normal way by moving the gearstick. Taking the hand off the gearlever engaged drive again.

With all of these development the move to fully automatic transmissions was a small step, and in fact the technology to detect driver input, speed and load had been available for many years in infinitely variable, sliding cone and belt gearboxes so just needed to be combined with the noiseless gearchange system to make the automatic gearbox as we know it - although the dual clutch gearbox where one clutch changes a gear not under load while a second drives the vehicle is such a clever idea that one wonders why it was not thought of before!

Personally I enjoy driving a range of cars with my order of preference being full automatic, a decent manual box second equal with a crash (non synchro) gearbox, semi automatic and finally, way at the bottom of the pile a synchromesh gearbox with worn out non-functioning synchro as it is unpredictable at best.

The new engines were developed in conjunction with Kawasaki

Myfords were started by Cecil Moore and his wife and after his death run by his son and grandson. AKAIK there was never anyone called Myford involved.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 02/06/2023 14:39:23

Can you try these machines in earnest? because while I am happy with my SC3 both are orders of magnitude different to the S&B. You need to make certain it will do what you want in a smaller space.

The SC4 is a little smaller than your S&B as far as the swing goes while the SC3 is about half an inch smaller than the SC4. Both, but particularly the SC3, are shorter and neither has a screwcutting gearbox - BUT BUT BUT when you say you are downsizing how big is your new workshop? because bench space is vital and if you can 'borrow' a large lathe when 180mm swing is not enough would 210mm have made it possible?? and the bench space saved by the smaller machine could be extremely valuable - but only you can decide.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 29/05/2023 16:33:01

While the advice to stick with metric drills is sound if you are building from scratch, if you are trying to follow instructions and plans from ME or similar you may find that number and letter drills and imperial (ME) threading gear have a more important place in your set-up.

As has been said - what are you intending to make?

If you are referring to the square tailstock centre it does indeed act like a drill and its main use is in truing up a damaged existing centre in work, although I suspect it would also turn a hole into a centre in the absence of a (Slocombe) centre drill which is of more recent vintage than the metal turning lathe itself.

My workshop is in an internal garage that is shared with camping equipment, freezer, washer and dryer so I had similar space issues.

My Sieg SC3 lathe purchased from Arc Euro a few years ago has been ideal for the smaller space I have at my disposal and has always sat happily on a drawer cabinet so I have storage space underneath it and unlike more traditional lathes has not demanded a matched stand to maintain alignment which would probably be less space efficient.

Regarding your comment about a milling machine I have a Seig SX1L from the same sellers and while it is adequate within its capacity, said capacity is not that great - but it is the largest machine I have space for. I am fortunate in that I have access to larger milling machine through my club and on reflection not buying the SX1L would have given me more bench space that is now at a premium. It is convenient to have your own equipment though!

I think I should heartily recommend from direct personal experience the Seig Lathe as a starting place and see if a vertical slide will do any milling you require - and joining a club with a workshop with larger tooling available is never a bad idea.

Nick

PS I have just remembered that the local Man's Space here in Birmingham has a larger mill and lathe which could be an option but in the end I decided not to join - the model engineering club has a track (my main interest is locos) and also is considerably cheaper.

I bought a HP G4050 scanner and the scan quality on Windows 7 was very poor.

Buying VuScan it not only worked then, and still does on windows 11, but the scan quality was improved by several orders of magnitude.

Before you get rid of your scanner I suggest you purchase VuScan (or perhaps silverfast - I have not used it but I have seen equally good reports for it) as even if it does not solve your present problem - in my experience it may well increase the quality of image you get from a replacement scanner and so be worthwhile anyway.

Sometimes the serendipitous nature of things raises a smile with Luker's Quarry engine description apparently illustrated by one of Doug Hewson's B1 pictures!

It will never fit in the quarry!

Education is not about utility - learning a foreign language is unlikely to make one a fluent speaker in a couple of hours a week for 5 school years - but it will exercise and develop the mind, so the utility of learning how to do CNC or manual machining is not about what someone will do when they leave school.

I was teaching CAD/CAM on BBC Micros in the late 1980s but putting the software on several machines enabled several pupils (occasionally in pairs) to work on machining projects at the same time. As an introduction we gave them part completed designs to complete or alter, and while you could give someone a part finished physical item to finish I suspect one would need to allow sufficient time and material for a complete item to be produced on a manual lathe for pupils to gain a useful set of skills.

So from the entirely practical point of view of sufficient numbers of the pupils finishing an object, even if only as a CAD design it has to be CAD CAM in the classroom every time. After all designs are produced on 3D CAD and 3D printed so I don't see what is magic about a manual machine tool today.

I enjoy using my own manual machine tools, but in the classroom no.

Machine Mart who may be on a high street near you list one in size 0

The day of the week you get your state pension depends upon the last digit of your NI number - 0&1 Mon 2&3 Tues etc so perhaps the letters are sent out in batches on the same principle - Who knows????

The original article on building County Carlow’s boiler says use ‘one of those high silver content solders’ over the stayheads outside and then over the nuts and thread ends inside with the same stuff.

IMHO this suggests the boiler is unfinished and that the missing nut is needed and then the inside stays need caulking with Comsol or similar.

ME Jan 2 1970