Member postings for lee webster

I have three Austin Sevens, none of them have air filters or were ever fitted with filters. You might notice a difference in performance because the engine will be getting more air. Why not phone a local garage or automotive supplier and ask if will do the car any harm to drive to them? Good luck.

My friend Russ had a saying. "Shed nair a clout, EVER"

Took another photo this morning.

All the snow has gone. It started to rain last night, and it's on and off now. We just had a bit of hail/sleet/rain as I type. Temp is in the mid 40s.

I think I will keep my clout on.

My sisters all live in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and phone me when the weather gets bad up there to ask how I am fairing down here. They can have freezing temps with snow, I will have mid 50s and barely need a coat. To us down here snow isn't that common.

Bazyle, The poor old gazebo has suffered in the recent high winds. If you look between the gaps between the trees to the right of it you can just make out some of the roofing felt in the field. The timber roof panel that covered the felt was in several pieces just over the fence. One of the many spring/summer jobs on the list.

The last thing the gazebo was used for was several years ago when musician friends came to stay. They liked composing music in there for some reason, then they would stand by the fence "smoking". They did wonder one day if they had smoked too much when a deer wandered by in the field!

Edited By lee webster on 17/01/2023 13:01:14

Edited By lee webster on 17/01/2023 13:02:04

Watching youtube vids on building a battery charger for small Yuasa lead-acid 12v battery. It's at times like this I miss having Maplins just a few miles away. I would rather buy components from a shop.

The view from my window this morning.

I'm not brave enough to risk going out in almost two inches of snow.

Hi Cedric,

I seem to have posted this twice. Now deleted.

Lee

Edited By lee webster on 16/01/2023 09:41:23

Hi Cedric,

The first thing I would do is insulate the walls. This can either be a rigid foam board glued to the wall with a few screws to hold it in place, or build a timber framework to create an internal wall with insulation, more choice with the method, and finish it of with a board. You have a choice of boards depending on how tough you need the walls to be. Plasterboard, chipboard or stirling board would do the job. You will probably have to include a vapour membrane in the constructio. Then you can think about heat.

Lee

I've restored cars in worse condition. It just takes time, energy and money. A very interesting project!

Update to my earlier post.

I had to carry out a repair in the garden today. As I walked past the rhubarb patch I could see that at least 3, maybe 4 of the plants were growing well.

Perhaps I will make a crumble this year.

Yes. I grow several rhubarb plants on part of my garden here in Cornwall. I have split the plants a few times and relocated them at least four times. They seem to like the spot they are in now. Even though I grow the rhubarb, I haven't cooked or eaten any of it in years! I prefer to give it to friends.

This year, I hope, the rhubarb will also share the veg plot with runner beans, beetroot and courgettes. I just need to clear the weeds first.

Edited By lee webster on 13/01/2023 23:38:55

I bit the bullit and downloaded Solid Edge 2023 today to see if the features I felt were missing had been added. They hadn't, and without them I couldn't use it. I thought I needed SE because of the mirror feature which Design Spark doesn't have, but then I realised I could mirror any STL file in the slicer anyway. So the latest version of SE has been un-installed.

I started knowing very little. I think on the whole I now know that I know even less! I wanted to build a model engine, for that, I had to learn to use a cad programme. Some use cad, others don't. I wanted to learn because then the cad programme could produce the files I needed to 3D print the moulds and patterns I would need for sand casting. So I had to learn sand casting too. For that I needed to build a small electric foundry. So, cad, 3D printing, sand casting, basic foundry construction. I had enough knowledge to make a good start, producing my first castings. They weren't bad.

I have now stopped for a good rest. I started this journey well over a year ago and now know that I need to know a lot more to continue. My foundry is packed away, but both my 3D printers are now producing parts I have designed with cad to enable me to make four 1/10th scale models of my 1930 Austin Seven Special. One for me and one for each of my sisters. Most of the 3D printing is now done. I am slowly working on the fine details. It helps to have a local model making group meeting once a week in the small village I live in.

So if I hadn't started along the path of engineering, I wouldn't be making model cars.

Lee.

I realy did give Solid Edge my best shot, but I have now uninstalled the software. I know what I'm doing in Design Spark 5, and it does nearly everything I want. SE offered more, painfully!

Thanks for the advice.

I had a reply to my reqest on the Solid Edge forum about the existance of an automatic clipping plane. I have had this reply.

"There is nothing automatic that will create a clipped view from the current Sketch plane to some specified depth. You will need to create use the Clipping Plane command or create PMI Sections ahead of time and then apply as needed.

FYI, the Clipping Plane distance will automatically be referenced from your current sketch plane as "0", so it's easily done while in the sketch..."

I haven't tried this yet, but creating a clipping plane from within a sketch seems to be a fair workround. Not as good as automatic clipping, but close.

Lee

Still looking Martin. It might be there, I just haven't found it yet. Then again, the ability to look at such a surface might not exist....

Lee

IanT,

I may have crossed some wires here, but I was refering to Design Spark sketches, once you've used it, it's gone unless you wind back any work to the point of sketching. Not a very clear explanation, but my internet work is done on a different computer to my cad work, so I haven't got any cad programmes running at the moment. Design Spark doesn't keep a copy of any sketches.

Lee

Design Spark works in much the same way as synchronus. Once you have used a sketch to create a solid, the sketch is gone and can't be edited unless you undo the solid stage back to the creation of the sketch. I hope that makes sense. The solid can be altered on the fly, extruding or adding draft to a surface etc. A new sketch can be started on any planar surface or on a plane to add extra features. If you creat a hole in a solid the hole can be moved or its diameter changed easily. All of the ways of working I am used to in DS exist in SE, but SE has features that the free version of DS doesn't have. I.E, mirroring a part and the creation of a drawing. And SE also has the ability to produce animations, that might or might not be handy, but it is a long way down the road.

To teach myself SE I am creating a part in ordered mode, then starting a new file and creating the same part in synchronus mode. The steering wheel is taking some getting used to, but I have to admit things would be easier help wise if my cad computer was connected to the internet.

I have been experimenting with SE for a short while, trying to get the colours of active and inactive parts to be different with no luck. I can have the inactive parts semi transparent, but that's not a look I like. Somehow I have now changed the colour of my menu bar and can't get it back to default, any ideas? It's not urgent or important, I would just like to know how to do it.

I am about 2 hours into the video. Very useful.

Lee

IanT,

Thanks for the link to the video, I have watched nearly an hour and have learnt a lot. He makes synchronus look easy!

Lee

Hi again Clive,

I followed your suggestion and have posted a request on the SE online community, it seems that I am registered for that site anyway!

Lee

Hi Clive,

I may be a bit perverse in my way of thinking, but I shouldn't have to ask the users of SE how to draw on a surface that is obscured, it should be obvious. I liken it to drawing on a piece of paper when there are one or more sheets of paper stacked on top. As I stated above, all three of the cad programmes I have used have a simple, obvious process of actually seeing the surface you are drawing on. I can't find any way of doing it in SE, and so far, nobody has told me they have found a way. If FreeCAD can do it, so can SE.

I haven't looked for a book on SE, thanks for the suggestion. I am also with you on piracy, I still have the installation dvd for SolidWorks for which there are websites offering a hack to get the full version from the disc, free. I would rather buy a cut down version of SolidWorks with a lifetime license than use SE, but SE is free. I will continue to use SE and hope I can put up with its quirks!

I wonder why there is such a thing as a clipping plane if its not for what I am using it for? It is a messy way of doing what I am doing, but what other use has it got I wonder?

Lee