Member postings for Chris Pearson 1

When I am machining something, I tend to look either at the cutting tool or the dials (I do not have a DRO), so the colour is immaterial.

The walls of my workshop are magnolia, or something approaching it. I feel sure that a light colour is appropriate for better lighting.

Any study of this type needs to be very well controlled to avoid a Hawthorne effect.

Samsaranda is spot on. Before I retired, I had a professional involvement in the subject.

When I started, hearing aids were simple amplifiers. NHS ones were made under contract and were either the BW series (body worn, i.e. the size of a fag packet with a wire to an earpiece) or BE (behind the ear). The standard offering was BE11, then BE31 was more powerful, etc. Some of them had tone controls so that there was some (i.e. not a lot) scope to tune them.

Nowadays, the NHS buys them from the various manufacturers so you get exactly what is available privately. They are all digital so they are programmed to your audiogram, i.e. the amplification is greatest at the worst thresholds.

I am fortunate: I have very good hearing for my age despite never really bothering about noise exposure. If I live long enough, I may well need aids, but I would be happy with NHS ones. I have the means to pay privately, but I was brought up in Yorkshire.

The only reason that I can see for purchasing hearing aids is that you want the various bells and whistles. You can bluetooth to your 'phone or telly. You can get in-the-ear ones (which I think show more than standard behind-the-ear ones) or even in-the-canal miniature ones if you are particularly vain. You can get a remote volume control (or I imagine, ones which are controlled by an 'app' on your 'phone).

In summary, as far as improving communication is concerned, NHS hearing aids are the same as private ones.

P.S. Would there be the same discussion concerning walking sticks or crutches?

How bright was the flash, and how loud was the bang?

If the RCDs have tripped, the fault must have been to earth: a L-N fault, however big, will not trip an RCD.

I suspect that a bit of swarf might have caused an earth fault, but it was sufficiently thin that, in effect, it was its own fuse. The flash vaporized the swarf, which is why you found nothing.

Ouch! The pitch and diameter may be similar, but the angle of the thread is completely different.

Bonjour Malcolm. J'habite près de Portsmouth, mais nous sommes en ligne, n'est-ce pas ?

What what means?

LV is between 121 and 600 V (to ground). HV is anything above that, but usually 11 kV (between phases, there being no neutral) at the local transformer. The harmonized (CENELEC) nominal is 230 V, with a range -6% to +10%.

In my time in RN, I was both compressed and decompressed. Going into a chamber from which 3/4 of the air has been removed is not an easy thought and as Michael says, one has to trust the operators of the facility. (One of the problems with a decompression chamber is that everybody farts a lot!)

Back to Titan, there is a small mercy that it appears that the occupants suffered sudden death rather than lingering on the sea bed whilst the oxygen ran out.

My rather nebulous "bucket list" is to visit the WWI cemeteries. That would not be to gawp, but to pay my respects. I don't think that those billionaires went down there to pay their respects: they could perfectly well have done that on the surface.

I struggle to sympathize with those involved because I think that Titanic should be left alone - it is a grave.

I would no more go to sea in one of those prototype vessels than one of Elon Musk's (or similar) space rockets.

In one of her brightest moments, Mrs P has asked why they did not have two submarines so that the second could go to the aid of the first should the need arise.

ETA: before anybody says anything, no I would not go to sea in a space rocket.

Edited By Chris Pearson 1 on 21/06/2023 19:04:00

Yes, but at one time there was a deposit on the bottles, which was reclaimed when one visited the off licence on the next occasion.

When I first visited Le Mans, local youths used to plod along the ditch between the track and the stands (put in after the 1955 disaster) in order to claim the 10 centimes deposit on each bottle which had been discarded by the international spectators.

I feel guilty when I take bottles to the recycling skips, but not as guilty as when they went into the dustbin.

Please don't upset my nerves.

I had to sell my last car to We Buy Any Car Dot Com not because the chain had gone, but because a pulley had worn. That meant that the timing of the two cams was slightly awry, which leads to a warning light, which is an MOT fail.

The car was not economically repairable. Well, not unless I did it myself, which would have taken at least 24 hours.

There was some discussion about this in the Alvis Register fairly recently. When you get 40 p.s.i. cold and 20 p.s.i. hot dropping to less than 10 p.s.i. at low speeds, you are apt to worry when the gauge is 0 - 100 p.s.i. Then I noticed that my R-R runs at 20 p.s.i., but the gauge is only 0 - 30, so I stopped worrying.

"Extremely" is a bit extreme.

My late father (born 1920) used to start in 2nd because he was brought up with limited synchromesh. By the time that he could afford a car, the gearbox probably had it on 3rd and 4th.

I have one car (TR2) with limited synchromesh and a couple of pre-war cars with none. They are not that difficult to drive!

Mothering Sunday is half way through Lent (in UK, but not the Americas) and is also known as Refreshment Sunday. It has a religious meaning.

My late father was never impressed with "Father's day", which he considered to be an instance of modern marketing. I agree.

It might even be an instance of E&D, which is even worse.

Define "early" and "automatic".

Starting with now, automatic boxes are a thing of wonder. Mine has 9 gears which can change in 100 ms. Manual selection is an option, but can you do better?

Then you have the 1960s/70s/80s boxes with 3 gears, which were not particularly efficient so slower and used more fuel than manual ones.

So I think that automatic gear boxes have a poor reputation which is not deserved.

Back to "early": I have had the pleasure of being driven on, and occasionally having driven, a 1930s Daimler. It is difficult to compare one with a manual box. In 1st gear they can crawl along at a snail's pace without stalling. They can go pretty slowly in top gear and possibly start in top gear, but accelerate very slowly. "Automatic" is probably not the right term, but neither is "manual".

I have just tried that and my M-B is the same.

Who on Earth would read all the way through the handbook i.o.t. find out these things?

A 254+ faceplate at 10 15/16 inches has only a few tens of thou clearance.

It was pretty easy to raise the headstock by 1/2"; likewise the tailstock. I am not quite sure what lifts the tool: is the cross-slide thicker, the top-slide, or the tool-post?

No it is not off. With my almost current generation of car, all I have to do is to be near a door. Then when I pull the handle (generally twice) that door unlocks, but the others do not.

At the very least, the keys must be listening so that they can respond when they are close enough to a door.

It is all quite wonderful and there are of course security benefits. Should a miscreant be pursuing me, I can easily get into my car. I don't have to fumble about with an ignition switch, I just press go. The car goes because the key is in the car. Then once I move away, the doors lock so even if the miscreant tries to keep up, he (or she) will not be able to get at me.

The best bit is that when I am returning to my car in a supermarket car park; and when somebody is walking past the boot, I can open it. Never fails!

When I get in, I put the key to my modern in an old tobacco tin. The battery has been taken out of the spare.

How do we cope nowadays without tobacco tins? Years ago I bought a job lot of taps and dies, all of which came in their own St. Bruno tins - BSF, Whit, BSP, etc.

ML7, Super 7, etc. were 7 inch lathes. They never did produce 8 and 9 inch lathes, but they did do 254 mm and even a 279.4 mm one. I suppose that they could have been a "Super 10" and "Super 11".