Member postings for Nick Clarke 3

Is there a club nearby that might have a workshop you could use if you joined??

If you have access to the back issues (club or local library??) Tubal Cain (Tom Walshaw) described the dream workshop he built for his retirement in ME 1971 Vol 137 3425, 3426 and 3427.

Green with envy is not the word, but the one thing I have tried to emulate is his separating the blacksmithing/welding/hot stuff from the machine tools.

Nick

The worst I ever came across were Texas Laser printers (also badges as QMS I think) that had time expiry devices so after so many weeks a drum or a waste toner bottle or a toner tank had to be replaced whether you had done 1 or a thousand prints. They soon went in the skip!

Growing up in Nottingham a long time ago (back when Queen Victoria was a lad) Shipstone's bitter was very highly hopped and those unaccustomed to the bitterness found it upset their stomachs hence the nick name ****stones.

It is quite hard to find a traditionally hopped bitter today, but living in the West Midlands now I can recommend Banks's Bitter, or even better their mild.

The best traditional brews nowadays seem to come from micro breweries, but if you ever get to Tipton in the Black Country (just round the corner from the Black Country Museum) try the Lumphammer beers in Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory. The Desperate Dan Cow Pie is an experience too!

Totally agree. I buy paper and printers for our school and some brands of 80g paper just will not feed in any printer others will feed in some printers and not others. Some mono and colour laser printers are worse than inkjets.

The big issue is that inkjets need to be used. I have scrapped Canon, HP and Epson printers that have had gunged up heads. Apart from printers where the head is in the cartridge (which are prohibitively expensive to run), all have replaceable heads, but at about £90 for an head for a £50 printer I don't bother.

Canons are not especially bad for slipping rollers - they can always be cleaned if necessary and they are not the only ones - HP were supplying roller cleaning kits for deskjet printers already in the 1990s.

If the waste ink bottle is full on an inkjet it is probably not worth stripping the printer down to replace it. Those in Lasers are easier to get at, but take care as the toner dust itself is carcinogenic.

If you want to print photos, particularly on photo paper, then the inkjet, providing you use decent paper and keep using it, is a good choice - otherwise put up with the lower image quality from a colour laser. If you only use mono then a mono laser is a no brainer.

As a teacher I prefer the version of the law that states :-

A piece of toast, when dropped, will always land butter side down - UNLESS you are trying to demonstrate this to someone else!

The spec on the front of the lathe pictured in the Amazon link above does not match the spec described by the seller and both of these are different from the spec described by at least one of the reviewers. Although both reviewers gave high scores, reading their comments they have been very generous to say the least.

One more vote for sticking with the established sellers.

With all due regard to your personal privacy, what general area of the country are you in? Perhaps someone could make a suggestion?

My personal experience is that metal merchants (as against model engineering suppliers) keep offcuts and usually, if you have bought something, will sell these to you at scrap prices as that is all they will get for them.

If in doubt ask here. There are a lot of very experienced people here (not me!!) who seem happy to help.

Remember that sometimes there is the odd piece of information left to 'experience' and not clearly drawn on a plan so ask if you are not clear.

No 13 in the 'Workshop Practice' books is 'Workshop Drawing' by Tubal Cain (Google for availability online) which is clear and comprehensive.

Nick

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 01/09/2018 18:59:35

Some recipe! These TV cookery programmes are really getting a bit weird - bring back Delia I say!

But not presumably if it is pointing at you!

Nick

In the early 1970's a member of the Nottingham SMEE built a Hackfly (Sorry if you read this but I can't remember your name) working full time in a gap between jobs I believe.

It certainly ran on the Valley Road track and I drove it once but I never saw it loaded to capacity to see just how much it could do.

Incidentally there were other articles by Turpin in ME on 'innovations' during the 1950s, and he had been a contributor since 1921.

Nick

Hi Neil - been there! Out of interest were you getting your WiFi drivers from Astronomy Linux repositories, Ubuntu or the manufacturers site? All three ways can raise different issues.

Despite having used various versions of Linux since 1994 I am still not convinced that hardware support is always as easy to find and put into place as it might easily be made to be. But please persevere as the underlying system is well worth the effort.

I was unaware there was a specific distribution for astronomers until you mentioned it - Having just looked it up it seems useful, and the flexibility of Linux in enabling all of the applications for a particular area of interest to be set up in one go is one of the benefits of the system.

Nick

Cuttlefish shell (you know - like budgies gave in their cages) was used for making small single sided castings - press the original pattern into the soft side and pour your solder into the depression that is left.

Alternately try some lost wax casting by covering or investing a wax pattern in plaster inside a short length of copper tube with a funnel like entrance at the top. Heat until the wax has melted away and then melt some solder in the funnel. Clap a metal lid on with a circle of wetted cloth in it (I used to use the lid of a pipe tobacco tin) and the steam will force the metal into the mould. Break out your finished casting. You will need more heat for this though.

This method was used by dental technicians years ago and I attended a demonstration at the Nottingham SMEE in the seventies before trying it out myself with what was then called students metal, however I suspect that you will need absolution from H&S to do it today!

Cheap modern tools can often be as accurate as more traditional ones but the finish!!!

A real life example:

Lost 1960s Moore and Wright 1-2" micrometer.

Bought replacement Moore and wright 1-2" micrometer. Pleased with purchase.

Moved workbench and found original micrometer. Difference in feel is bigger than the whole world!!!

The feel of the old one is so much nicer. But then, out of curiousity, I tried them both on a some of slip gauges and the new, rougher feeling ones seem to be more accurate, not an error that can be adjusted out either, but different across the range.

If this was an exam question it would be followed by - Discuss!!

Thanks for answers (and any in the future too).

My reason for asking was what about the long term issues as taking wheels off axels, press fit or Loctite is a non-trivial action in my opinion and thanks for some useful comments on this from you both.

Curious to know whether people consider if aluminium would be a suitable material for items like loco axle pump eccentrics, riding car band brake drums and items 'fixed for life' with pressed on wheels either side?

Lighter, less corrosion (perhaps) and possibly a better bearing material than steel???

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 23/08/2018 19:24:24

Standard PC joysticks attach to a 15pin D connector on the motherboard or soundcard and consist of a series of variable resistors that are adjusted as the joystick is moved, providing an analogue voltage proportional to position.

The 9 pin connector was found on Atari and similar machines and consisted of switches for up, down, right and left. Software within the computer/console polled these over time to provide positional information. Google Atari joystick pinout for images of the connections.

Without more data it is hard to do more than answer your last question with a no as the connector is not correct. Whether it would work on a games console I can't say, but instinct suggests I would be surprised if it did.

A similar enquiry - I have just noticed the book Workshop Hint & Tips on the shelf - a Model Engineer Handbook, published in 1957 and reprinted in 1970. This is by Geometer and I think is a set of reprints of articles in ME - but does anyone know who was Geometer? The introduction says the name covers the identity of 'a professional engineer who has had many years of experience'

A good read!

Not the end of the day yet, but it has been a busy weekend so I suspect not much more is going to get done.

Friday down to the Bristol exhibition for the day.

Saturday some time in the club workshop followed by public running on the track.

Today Rugby radio rally where an old but new in box boring bar and this interesting book (pub 1951) for £3 the pair!