Member postings for Bill Phinn

Agreed, but the reason I mentioned this is that I have three clamps from two different sources. The clamping action on the cheapest one, bought singly, does not actually work as it should, and no amount of fettling has been able to rectify it.

Who knows, it's quite possible that at present the Neilsen ones are actually better than the Axminster ones, and not the other way round.

I wouldn't automatically assume that the quality of the Axminster ones and Neilsen ones is the same.

If it were me, I wouldn't mind a subscription to digital versions of certain newspapers.

I've read nine Dickens novels. Dickensian is a term most of us associate with gloom and privation. There's certainly plenty of that in Dickens, but what often doesn't come over in the TV and film versions is the sheer amount of humour there is too.

I wouldn't want a complete works, because I'd feel compelled to read it through. Everyman hardback copies are the best to have in my view; not much more expensive than paperbacks, and, if sewn bindings, as they usually are, durable enough not to be throwaway items once read.

You can buy separate M10 clamps here

and step blocks here.

As others have said, they're not great value when bought separately, but in my experience these particular ones are at least well made.

On which note, a 58pc set of clamps I bought from Arc was obviously much better made than a different size 58pc set I bought from Chester Hobby Store.

If you found yourself in Amsterdam, then, can I assume you'd regard it as common sense not to walk anywhere?

Edited By Bill Phinn on 19/11/2021 18:14:01

I've not ordered anything from Chronos for a while - not since they sent me the wrong items for three single-item orders in succession.

Chronos resolved things in the end, but I had to do more work than I think was reasonable to get them to do so.

Thank you to everyone for the further replies.

I've phoned Zoro about successive shortfalls three times. I’m still waiting for deliveries of two sizes of Nord-Locks from them, so the saga may not be over yet, in spite of me asking that the pickers be made aware of the problem.

After I'd pointed out the slightly garbled description (adapted from Nord-Lock's own) accompanying some of the sizes (though not the ones bizarrely branded Workshop) saying each washer is "comprised of" (sic) a pair, there was no resistance to my claim that the washers operate, and Zoro's intention is clearly to supply them, in pairs, though I did wonder myself, along the lines suggested by Jason, whether they might respond by saying they supply them in halves, not as functioning pairs.

If the latter were the case, it would be a bit sadistic of them to have, as they do in some cases, minimum orders of one and five; you'd order ten and get five functioning washers; you'd order five and only get two functioning washers; you order one and get none! The first two situations happened to me.

I'm confident I'll get the full quotient from Zoro in the end; it's just a bit of a drag having to ring and then send yet another photo to "prove" the order is short, though of course a photograph can prove nothing of the kind. The photograph I’ve posted here, on the other hand, does, I hope, prove that the washers I’ve received are genuine Nord-Lock.

Anyway, I’m grateful for people’s patience and for the alternative sources that have been suggested. My moaning has at least been a useful displacement activity for work I can’t currently do in the workshop because I’m so pinned down looking after two very deserving parents who are still living in their own home whilst afflicted by indescribably debilitating dementia.

Thanks for the further postings.

Michael, Model Fixings don't appear to sell Nord-Lock washers in all the sizes I want, unfortunately.

Bo'sun, yes, that's how I understood they were sold, but obviously the tacky grease on the ones I bought lost their holding power some time ago as all those I've received were separated into two halves.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 12/11/2021 21:44:09

I'd like to add that the remarks Michael and myself have taken issue with are attributed to Caroline Stanford, as Michael states, not Anna Keay. It's quite possible that Anna Keay does not share Caroline Stanford's views.

Thank you to everyone for your replies.

Nick, regrettably, buying from Nord-Lock direct appears to cost slightly more for the actual washers than I paid at Zoro and considerably more expensive when you factor in postage.

Mick, Grampian have them at a competitive price (around the same as Zoro) but unlike Zoro appear to have a high minimum order of 100. They also don't appear to have a shop as such.

Vic, their intended use is garden machinery mainly, but also for fixtures I use in my Aldi bandsaw and for my 3 inch rotary table, whose mounting lugs are so short that they scarcely allow enough room even for the full width of an M8 nut. Slight backing off of the nuts after prolonged milling has been a minor but undesirable issue.

Nigel, thanks for explaining what I perhaps should have. Your comments about needing to assemble them correctly, twinned with my experience of Zoro's evidently bewildered pickers, makes me wonder how many people out there are using Nord-Lock washers incorrectly (i.e. using only half of one) and possibly complaining they're not very good.

Mick, in all seriousness, if you can facilitate a challenge from me to Anna Keay's comments in a related space, preferably the space where they are originally published (the Guardian and Smithsonian), I'd be pleased to avail myself of the opportunity.

In the meantime, presumably there is nothing to stop you, or any other concerned party, from drawing Anna Keay's attention to the current thread and allowing her to evaluate my challenge for herself. If she wishes, she is completely free to respond to it here. She will have the additional bonus of knowing that, unlike me in the case of her comments, she is challenging my comments in what no-one could accuse her of being an unrelated space.

Hopefully, you'll agree that the obstacles in the way of her doing this are considerably less insurmountable than the obstacles to me getting print room in the Guardian or Smithsonian.

A reaction that's as unfortunate as it's inexplicable.

To answer your question about why they didn't plaster direct on to the wood, I'm assuming that they chose to use laths in order to get a good bond. The laths stood away from the timber panelling so that plaster could push right through the laths and slightly into the space behind to get a good key.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 12/11/2021 16:26:56

I've had problems recently ordering Nord-Lock washers in several sizes from Zoro; every time I order them the pickers send me half the number I order because they're clearly not aware that Nord-Lock washers consist of two halves.

Does anyone know of a competitively priced source for Nord-Lock washers where the vendor understands what they are and will send me what I order, not half the quantity?

The other, inexplicable, error Zoro make is in describing their Nord-Lock washers as "Nordlock-type". A customer service rep told me "Yeah, that's probably because they're not genuine Nord-Lock"..except all the washers I've received from them in three different sizes clearly are.

Dr Anna Keay, who made the naive statement, is a writer, historian, and TV personality married to the former Chief Executive of English Heritage.

She should know better, but of course we're not surprised that she doesn't.

I suspect that part of the explanation for why she doesn't is that, like a lot of academics whose work brings them into contact with things, not just ideas, she probably has no first-hand experience whatsoever of doing any kind of skilled manual work, particularly for profit, and so cannot see the explanation for these painted panels being there that is right under her nose: the householder wanted a plaster wall, so the workmen just made one over the top of the original painted wood.

Did she ever ask herself why they would have done anything different? No, because she couldn't see things at all from the point of view of a tradesman.

Yes, my one Wanner is the same.

If you didn't know (I didn't) it would be easy to put a metric pitch gauge on it and say it was an unusual M10 x 0.9mm

On a related note, it doesn't alleviate my Weltschmerz when I see the doubly insensitive use of "thief" in the frequently encountered journalistic term "moped thief":

Often the people referred to have earlier stolen the mopeds (and therefore are thieves) but the crimes that make them the particular focus of the news report are more often robberies (not thefts) committed using a moped.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 01/11/2021 12:40:32

To be distinguished from the still current "Mancs".

No doubt the makers of Vax vaccuum cleaners will be pleased or displeased depending on how the coinage affects their sales.

Posted by ega on 01/11/2021 11:08:42:

"Rather little in my view as the plural of vac for vacuum cleaner is vacs (if I have correctly understood the entry in the Oxford Spelling Dictionary)."

The plural of "pock" is "pocks", but it didn't stop the parallel existence of the homophone "pox".

Yes, I was trying to supplement your earlier comment that ER collets "have a range of 1mm" by pointing out that some have a range of zero, and not just the smaller sizes but all the collets in the set.

I bought a set of "0.005mm run-out" ER32 collets from shop-apt that "should only be used to grip the nominal diameter. If used for smaller diameters, runout will increase and collet life will be shortened."

There is only one number stamped on each collet and that is the diameter you should be putting in it, not something smaller.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 30/10/2021 18:51:36