Member postings for andrew lyner

Wassamadda you lathe owners? You don’t need taps and dies - just a bit of time and some gears.

Trouble is that camera equipment has been used for years and there's no reason (as far as photographers are concerned) for changing that thread standard. I would think that most photographers are not DIY people and they just buy stuff. So the standard continues. I use both sizes of thread because the small thread is not strong enough for very heavy lenses (= modest sized refractor telescopes).

The available adapters are at least as expensive as that now famous cheapo laser level.

Ian. I just found out form myself (today) that, if you put your message on the line below the verticals, it appears outside the quoted text.

And I think your laser 'level' was very good value and the same bit of tatt as the one I have!

TTFN

"The above quote I find patronising and unnecessary."

I could say exactly the same about your complaint about using (well known) abbreviations. You are successfully using one part of the Internet so, instead of being grumpy about an alternative style of (informal) communication, why not just take it on board?

Using letters for well known phrases goes back to the very early days of morse so it's not a new idea.

I really didn't want to upset you.

You don't have to "fix on" two points. You adjust th sextant until the two objects coincide. It doesn't;t matter if they are jigging about.

What sort of accuracy can you rely on with your hand bearing compass and have you ever tried a HSA reading?

The RYA method uses 3 compass bearings not a sextant angle

If you have ever tried to take a fix with a hand bearing compass then you would realise the accuracy (on a rocking boat) is +/- several degrees (yes really). A Sextant angle can be measured to much less than a degree with practice. That's because you move the wheel until the two images are superimpiosed. So HSA is a very powerful tool.

I can't remember the geometry involved in using that angle to help with a fix but it's a pretty damned good method. iirc. What you see in a hand bearing compass will just NOT STAND STILL!

RYA don't expect an inshore yatchsmperson to own a sextant as everyone thinks they are for blue water trips.

Edited By andrew lyner on 15/07/2019 19:47:06

There are sooo many clever old fashioned tricks to navigating near the coast. I must say that I tended to be a bit sloppy about doing it 'properly' when there are three GPS receivers on board. Natch, to get a useful course over ground will always involve adding some nowse about tidal streams; a 'simple' chart plotter can take you very much the long way round on long passages.

I did my first coastal Nav course about fifty years ago and we had to do everything the conventional ways. GPS has its problems though. Whereas you were lucky to rendezvous with another boat in the old days, you stand a significant risk of bumping into it if you both have the same destination co-ordinates punched in.

I'd be interested to know the age at which these things cease to have validity for an individual. I have a feeling that I am by no means the youngest member here and I wonder if it's I who am out of step. I certainly qualify as a grumpy old man.

Does acronymophobia kick in when the free TV licence does? Does it kick in at State Pension time - or perhaps when policeman start looking younger?

Language is a tool and we all like to use new tools if they do the job.

That's a shame. Language is a fluid thing and, by ignoring the recent additions, you can miss out on a lot of useful stuff. If TTFN and ITMA mean something to you, then you were part of the new wave of acronyms in the past. Stay in touch; you won't regret it.

In the old days, one would need to phone a friend for such information - or walk over to ones Britannica collection. Nowadays, without getting up from the computer, you can go to Google and type " **** means".

I had not come across that particular acronym before (a sheltered life) but the bowdlerised version turned up at the top of the search returns page.

IMO, Google rocks for all ages/

Both suggestions seem possible but.

They look a bit slim as graving tools and the ones I have seen (and used / played with) were quite a bit shorter with a bend right at the end to angle the cut near parallel to the work. The long curve also fits with the idea of producing a cutting force almost parallel with the work face, It is a very scary business. I couldn't stand the tension; I'm clearly not of the right stuff.

I have seen YouTube videos of turning clock arbors and it involved a technique more like wood turning; Hand held with a rest. Those tools could possibly be used for that too.

That method is excellent wherever it can actually be used (i.e. where there's a useable low point for the U. Gravity is delightfully consistent and it doesn't matter what mix of tube diameters you use.

I was given a similar laser 'level' years ago and it is cheap and nasty BUT still useful and better than trying to do the same thing with a laser screen pointer. When the alternative is bits of saggy string and wooden pegs, it makes itself useful. And I can always check and re-check.

Members really should be more realistic when expecting 'high professional standards' in every aspect of DIY (unless they have money to burn). Cupboards full of posh equipment that was used once and never since, are really not good value for money, Hire shops can cost you a lot but it's often the best way to get use of fancy gear. You just have to get over feeling offended by the cost.

I thought i'd give this thread some closure.

I got the brass disc pretty damn hot - just starting to glow red - and gave it some heavy blows with an improvised raising hammer (cylindrical edge). After two cycles, the 50mm disc was 51mm average diameter but I noted a small split on the edge. So I gave up.

No hard feelings against the brass and I turned it and faced it, ready for some other job.

I have bitten the bullet and ordered a short length of brass bar (expensive stuff) with sufficient diameter from Metal4U. Of course, the minimum postage is £6 so, to make myself feel better, I have ordered more stuff at the same postage cost. Ain't that the way? My 'bits' drawer is growing!!!

Thanks for the interest and the advice / thoughts.

Thanks for looking!

The problem is that offcuts of 'large' stock are not much use to me and each time I just go to Metals4U it ends up costing me more than I expected and it is largely wasted money. It's just a matter of priorities. I will look for a local blacksmith with a damn good fly press.

Also, I love to try things and forming metal is very satisfying when it works. I made a lot of Silver and Gold jewellery, way back, and that was really satisfying (more often than not).

The general bank of knowledge on this forum is very impressive.

Thanks for the ideas guys. My particular problem is easier to solve than sword making - should be easier than my experiences of raising copper cups, too because the change is diameter is only a few percent.

The hydraulic jack suggestion is interesting. I might look round for a friendly machine shop press if you reckon a jack would do the job.

One factor is that I want to avoid having to 'make good' as much as possible and some nicely controlled force would probably avoid the disc shape changing too much.

It wouldn't;t be a total disaster if the work was a write off as I could always just buy some more. Though 50mm diameter seems to ne the biggest that easily obtainable and not too expensive.

I have some round brass bar 50mm diameter and I need a disc about 53mm diameter (for a good fit) and about 10mm thick. Brass costs a bit and I was hoping to forge a 50mm disc from what I already have (around 13mm thick - to ensure there's enough volume)

I have raised copper cups in the past, using blanks of a few mm thickness and I know about annealing techniques. I would think my gas torch would be adequate and I will keep the work clean before bashing it.

I have a raising hammer but it is probably a bit light weight for the job so I was planning to clean up and shape the ball on a heavy ball pein. Working outwards from the centre in a spiral -two or three times- would seem the thing to do. It's not a big stretch if I anneal it each time.

I will radius and face the result and then solder it to a smaller diameter bar.

Can anyone suggest anything that I may have not mentioned? It seemed well worth a punt and at least it would be another 'experience'. Is brass problematical for forging?

Andrew Lyner

No; not particularly aimed at you and I agree that total rubbish is total rubbish. But a beginner, given the choice of a small item at £20 and the 'same' one for £2 (and needing a host of such things just to get started) cannot contemplate the initial high total cost of tooling up.

Perhaps a more measured response (this is a general comment and not aimed at you) with some actual suggestions of the less bad budget sources would be helpful.

Water and ducks backs applies to me too but forums (many different disciplines) can get very elitist if not careful and, when that happens, they lose potentially skilled newbies. I don't think anyone would be unaware that high quality kit gives better results but very few newbies start off with model steam engines and diesel injector valves as projects. Over the years, people will steadily use better stuff as required.

I realise that someone who started their life as an apprentice would have probably been trained on high grade equipment so using poor quality stuff is unthinkable for them. Many of us have to buy everything we ever use and start off at the 'garden gate latch' level of quality. Still a valid way in. I remember my life in Broadcast Engineering Research and we had only the best test equipment. If you bought an item of Hi Fi equipment for home, it had to cost an arm and a leg - just to maintain the standards that your employer worked to. Not always appropriate and it kept many of my colleagues poor, as a result.

Advice on where to pitch ones purchase on the "price performance curve" would always be more valuable than just being told to buy the best, which is actually unattainable for a beginner.

My basic point is that I believe this is essentially an amateur forum and that point can easily be missed by people with a professional background. There is a difference between the excellent and the adequate. Excellence is expensive to achieve in virtually every field of endeavour and achieving the adequate is not necessarily a failure. In fact, over-Engineering is not necessarily good Engineering.

That said, I find nearly all the advice and opinions on this forum very valuable. The work that people do is really impressive.

Right. That makes sense. There's nothing to ensure that the curve that's generated by the pivoting jig will be optimal. I see that now. The four facet method can, at least, get the angles better.

I have to say that, despite the unimpressive ricketiness of my new jig, the drills seems to work better than my variable manually ground attempts. If and when I start to need more accuracy, I shall need to re-visit things.

I notice that people make very adverse comments about overall quality of what most of us use as a matter of course. Lathes, Milling machines and drills would be out of the reach of most of us if we felt that we absolutely had to use British Made. We all appreciate that we could be playing Strad Violins, driving Ferraris and holidaying in top hotels but we are in the real world. Actually, it would be totally unrealistic for a beginner to be using top grade things because it could end up as a waste of all that money if they fell by the wayside.

The criticisms about bad quality equipment could easily be implied criticisms of less well-off and less qualified users. I am bullish enough not to worry but I do wonder about how some other beginners could feel 'guilt' about only buying the cheapest stuff.

I'm not sure that my idea has been appreciated. I will need to try carefully grinding a test piece and see where I am wrong (or vaguely possibly right) in my opinion. Thinking in 3D is hard.

I do understand how the appropriate grinding could eliminate the need for centre popping.