Member postings for Bill Phinn

Thanks for the link.

I take it, then, from Iain's reference in that thread to turning his regulator up to 7 that I should be able to turn my dial at least that far as well, and because I can't I have a faulty regulator.

Anyone that knows better, your insight would be welcome.

I've just bought a Sievert Pro 86 torch kit and it came supplied with an unexpected bonus item in the form of a "0.5-4 bar" regulator as pictured.

There is a dial that goes from 1-10, which I assume marks 0.4 bar increments. The only puzzle is that the adjustment knob cannot be turned beyond the 5 mark or thereabouts.

Is this because the manufacturer has limited the output to 2 bar on this regulator, do you think, and has done so because the standard nozzle/burner* that comes with the kit is designed to be run at 2 bar? Or is there a fault with the item?

I have two other 0-4 bar propane regulators and neither is restricted in this way.

*Much bigger Sievert nozzles/burners (that need 4 bar) can be fitted to this torch if required.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 18/09/2019 12:21:34

Ian, this looks to be a question of the funding source you have nominated. If you go into your Paypal account and make your default funding source a credit card instead of bank account, Paypal will then put charges on to your credit card rather than take payment directly from your bank account.

They look like tap reseating tools to me, Mal.

eta: beaten to it.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 11/09/2019 23:51:49

The problem comes, Steve, when you really do need the extra magnification but would like to maintain a comfortable focal distance. Sadly, the most powerful Optivisor, the DA-10, with a magnification of 3.5X, has a focal distance of only 4 inches. I wouldn't feel too safe with my face only four inches away from a standard lathe chuck with its protruding jaws spinning towards me at so many 100s of rpm. In fact with most of the small stuff I'd typically need to be four inches away from in order to see it properly I'd be closer to the chuck than the workpiece by a distance effectively equal to the chuck's radius - too close for comfort.

For working on things ranging from four inches away to about two feet away (in other words, most things you'll typically work on in a workshop) I'd trade my presbyopia for Neil's myopia any day; people like Neil don't need five different pairs of reading glasses or five different kinds of Optivisor to be able to focus at all these distances (I've got five of both, and the need for the more powerful ones increases every year), nor do they need to mimic the archetypal old dodderer who spends half his day peering uncomfortably over the top of his glasses whenever he needs to take a quick glance at something that is further away than the thing he happens to be working on.

I would gladly stump up for some dental loupes if there was anywhere close to me where I could try them on and be sure they suited me. The mail-order firms with a try and return policy are all very well, but how many pairs would I need to try before I got the right pair or they got sick of me?

Edited By Bill Phinn on 09/09/2019 16:49:58

If this is so, would Keith, or someone, be good enough to clarify for me why the recommended pressures given in this link for oxy-propane brazing are so much lower than this? Is it that air-fed propane torches (which perhaps Keith was focused on) need much higher pressure than oxy-propane torches?

For the record, I have this torch, and the pressure recommended by the retailer for brazing with the general brazing tips (the "multijet" nozzles) is 0.25 bar regardless of nozzle size. Only the so-called "superheating" nozzles (which only fit the larger torch I have, not the smaller brazing torches sold by the same retailer) are stated as needing pressures of 2 bar and beyond.

For general oxy-propane brazing work with this torch I use a Harris twin-gauge propane regulator (which indicates outflow pressure) and have been following the Welders Warehouse recommended pressures for the multijet nozzles up till now. Is it wrong to do so? Should the pressure be higher than the recommended 0.25 bar? Or are the pressures the WW recommend correct because Keith was talking about air-fed propane torches only when he said that brazing torches operate at 2-4 bar?

Continuing with my garage floor, today I applied the final wearing surface, consisting of six bags of Ardex K80.

At £40 per bag, the cost is not for the squeamish, especially after you've already spent £300 on 14 bags of Mapei Ultraplan. The Ardex took considerably longer than the Mapei to go off, in spite of the blurb saying it is "walkable after two hours".

I plan to expoxy paint it in a week or so, after which, hopefully, I'll have a very smooth, very hard garage floor that will "see me out".

Yes, I completely see your point Bandersnatch if the non-availability of the item becomes clear only after the buyer has been left in eager anticipation of its arrival for a week or more, but I suspect that in quite a few cases the outrage comes on after a much shorter delay than that. Those were the cases I had in mind.

Really, I was trying to find a reason why sellers feel the need to send substitute items without telling you; fear of a customer backlash if the customer is informed, even on the day of purchase, of non-availability seemed like a plausible suggestion.

Pictured are two M3 countersunk Torx head stainless bolts. The smaller, pleasingly star-shaped one is the type I'm used to; the other one is from a bag of twenty, all with identical-looking Torx recesses, that I was sent by the supplier who supplied the regular-looking ones.

A T10 bit (usually the correct bit for an M3) is a very sloppy fit in them, and frustratingly a T15 almost goes in, but not quite. In appearance they're like a strange and useless hybrid between a hex and a Torx head.

Has anyone else had a batch of these mongrel Torx heads? Can anyone suggest how the manufacturing can have gone so awry?

Nice pictures, Neil.

Are they both brown hawkers?

I suspect the TV and film industry are among the most reckless borrowers of people's property.

I once received a request from the BBC to use my former house as a location for filming. Even though the remuneration would have been good, I refused when I saw the disclaimers about potential damage to my property.

I was already on my guard anyway; as a boy I lent my great grandfather's Acme Thunderer railway whistle to someone we knew who was making a film and, like Michael, we never saw it again.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 17/08/2019 20:58:51

Levelled my rather worn and uneven concrete garage floor with Mapei Ultraplan renovation screed.

Since it's described as "not a wearing surface", I'd be interested to hear what people recommend in these circumstances for producing a good wearing surface for moving machinery (mostly on wheels) around on and for general use. I've looked at other threads on workshop flooring but I still can't decide.

Is it possible it's just rubricated (and now somewhat faded) flourishing over the letters, i.e. solely decorative?

Barrie, if I were fortunate enough to be in your position with a long family history of using and owning (presumably British or European or American) machine tools, I don't think I would find it too hard to understand that very few other enthusiasts are so fortunate as to have "better propositions available" to them (unless by "available" you include having to hunt for them secondhand with all the risks and inconvenience that entails) than a Chinese mini-lathe.

In the light of the relative unavailability of older and often (but not always) better made alternatives, isn't the widespread enthusiasm for the Chinese mini-lathe completely understandable?

What polishing compound are you using on that wheel, David?

I'm also a passive resister at Screwfix when I can be (i.e. when I'm not having to order something in for collection). I simply decline to give them an email, a phone number or an address, and I pay in cash. (I have to say that part of my objection is not wanting to divulge my personal details within earshot of the other shoppers waiting behind me in the queue). I always of course ask for a receipt, and make a point of checking with them that the receipt will be valid in spite of my wish to remain anonymous.

They do get sniffy, but when I point out that this was the system in shops everywhere for many years and the retailer never insisted on knowing more about you as a condition of handing over the goods, they tend to acknowledge the reasonableness of my position.

What about CCTV cameras, now? Has anyone taken video footage inside a shop as I have, and been challenged by staff about it, all the time their shop is blithely training CCTV cameras on you?

And while we're at it, what happened to all the shops anyway? Most seem to have been nosed out by "stores"? How long before we go "storing" when we need groceries?

Brian, I am used to having to remove adhesives from the spines of books prior to re-binding. A common glue encountered in modern books is hot-melt glue. I remove this with a hairdryer.

I have noticed a fairly recent shift in the glues commonly used to stick labels on jars. In the past these glues were usually water-soluble, and, if not, they could nearly always be removed with lighter fuel. Now these glues often do not shift with water or lighter fuel or even solvents such as thinners, but they do remove very easily with white spirit.

I'm confident you will find a solution, even if you have to make a mess of one or two boxes in the process.

That's a great dialogue, Bandersnatch.

It vindicates my decision not to have a smart phone or any kind of "phone life" to speak of, and not to have accounts on any social media platforms, anonymous or otherwise.

I don't know how many forum members are familiar with the multi-purpose Chinese app Wechat, which probably way over a billion Chinese people at home and overseas use almost exclusively for most of their communication and financial needs.

I've regularly witnessed Wechat users in the UK have messages censored by China's cybersecurity bureau with text or images removed in mid-air, so to speak, and automated warnings displayed, and I know of people in China who have jay-walked, for instance, in the sight of surveillance cameras and received an instant message on their phone from the authorities notifying them of their violation and that a fine for the violation has been simultaneously taken from their Wechat-linked bank account.

Having dined on several occasions with a Chinese lady who works for Huawei, I can tell you on good authority that Bandersnatch's dialogue would not be even remotely ironic to a lot of Chinese citizens.