Member postings for Bill Phinn

How is the one in your picture held in the toolpost, Ramon? In a square profile holder with a slit?

Here you are, Margaret:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133666139409?hash=item1f1f1f6d11:g:drYAAOSwaKthp94z

It looks like you had a good day or two there. It's a shame you didn't get to the mechanical engineering college just before they sent their machinery for scrap.

Can I take it that someone with your interests is a bit of an oddity in Romania? People on this forum obviously all think it's pretty normal to have lathes and other large machinery in their homes, but how many Romanian people are there like you who have this sort of machinery in or attached to their homes just for the hell of it?

It seems this industrial safety training company at least hasn't heard of them [as I haven't, nor would I trust them for that purpose if I had]:

"Train your employees to protect them from bad information available on the internet. Workers may believe that latex or nitrile gloves are safer than leather or cotton work gloves because they will tear free if caught. Make sure they know this is not true; these kinds of gloves can also lead to dangerous entanglements, accidents, and sometimes amputations."

Bob B's testimony here of an accident at the Waterford Nuclear plant also makes for sobering reading about the potential consequences of wearing nitrile gloves inappropriately.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 14/07/2023 21:32:45

Roger, if you're not, in the near future, going to be getting a Stihl KM extended reach scrub/hedge cutter attachment and the engine unit to go with it [which will allow you to cut your brambles while remaining comfortably upright] have you tried a slasher instead of a billhook? When I worked for the Nature Conservancy Council forty years ago, it was all we had to cut back brambles.

The one mitigating circumstance, Dave, is that I couldn't swear to what type of Sempercare Nitrile they were. The most common type is the "Nitrile Skin 2", which has a breaking force of "6-7 Newtons". There are, however, others in the range that have a breaking force of "9 Newtons".

Personally, I don't regard this sort of difference in strength as a reason to trust that the lower strength gloves will always break at the critical moment before any damage is done.

The gloves, Dave, were almost certainly Sempercare Nitrile.

Sorry, Robert, but the thin, non-reinforced nitrile glove my friend was wearing pulled the wire brush up his arm at alarming speed in a way his own skin never would have. It was only after the wire wheel had travelled about four inches up his forearm, digging itself deeper into his skin as the tightening rubber pulled it down, that the glove disintegrated. He simply didn’t have time to react.

That's not advice I would endorse. I've seen a hand drawn in by a combi drill when the user was wearing close fitting nitrile gloves. A wire brush walked [or rather ran] up the user's arm and caused a nasty injury, though fortunately without life-changing results.

Bench drills, hand drills, lathes, milling machines, mitre saws, table saws, jigsaws, bandsaws ... I never wear any gloves. Furthermore, any material that is being cut in any of these machines is held in a vice or otherwise mechanically clamped, never in my hand.

I'm sure you'll agree, though, that not everything that can clear brambles poses an equal risk of harm to adjacent trees. In my 42 years of experience doing this sort of work on other people's land, I believe the reciprocating blades I and others recommend would be the best solution in the circumstances Roger describes. In order to cause any significant damage to orchard trees while using reciprocating blades to cut brambles that are growing under them, you would have to be the sort of person who is not fit to be in charge of any garden tool in the first place.

Though then you would be unlikely to be able to reach right up to the trunks of the trees and get all the brambles you need to.

Yes, I discussed this in a thread two years ago.

Very easy when it's your workmate's ribcage.

While we're at it, have a read about the fate of Anthony Robinson.

EtA: And there can be worse self-inflicted wounds than wounds to your ribcage.

EtA no.2: On the other hand, wounds to your ribcage can be bad enough.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 13/07/2023 19:14:04

Whether they use plastic line or metal attachments, potential damage to the trunks of Roger's orchard trees would rule those out for me.

While we're on that topic, Roger, this is worth a read.

+1 for the scrub/hedge cutter attachment.

I've tried everything there is over the years for thick brambles in tight spots and these are your best chance. The advantage they have over a rotary blade on the end of your brushcutter is that you can constantly turn the attachment and chop up the cut material to get it out of your way for the next swathe of cutting. You can't do that with a rotary blade; with these, if the brambles are at all thick or tall, you get bogged down as Tris says.

People might say you're a peeper, in that case, who spies on naturists going about their lawful business.

Nicely put, Dave.

J. E. Gordon, in the "Structures" book Clive mentions earlier, also puts it well:

"...the whole subject [of structures] is littered with traps for the unwary, and many things are not as simple as they might seem. Too often the engineers are only called in, professionally, to deal with the structural achievements of 'practical' men at the same time as the lawyers and the undertakers." [p.25].

I’ve done it with thicker material, Samuel, the way you describe. It worked fine. Just make sure the centre of your hole is directly under the centre of your spindle to start with; a DTI will help achieve this best. If cranking by hand is too tedious you can use a cordless drill to turn the rotary table handwheel.

Not any more, Robin; RDG/Myford clearly read this forum.

Here's the cached page for now, though.

Thanks for the further answers.

Dalboy, the two Warco diagram pages give the names of some of the tools in my set. However, the actual selection of tools shown and named in those diagrams doesn't correspond exactly with either the tools I have or the tools Warco have shown in the accompanying photographs!

Incidentally, there is clearly disagreement in the industry over which is a left hand turning tool and which a right. Arceurotrade's naming convention is the one I follow, but Garvin Tools [linked to above] and others I have seen reverse this.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 05/07/2023 22:32:15