Member postings for Chris Crew

Last year I renewed the car insurance with a broker on the Meercats for £201 having made what I thought was an honest declaration on the proposal form. Three weeks later I received an email informing me that the policy was being annulled because I had made a dishonest application. After about three hours' worth of phone calls it turned out that this was because I had informed the previous insurance company that the car had been scraped on a car park hit and run. I had not pursued a claim as I paid for the damage myself at an independent repair shop. This incident, which was no fault of mine or cost any insurance company a penny was being held against me and that if I wanted the policy to continue it would cost an additional £120. After further negotiation this was reduced to £45 which I paid because I needed insurance and could do without the hassle. This year I received the renewal price of £268. I queried this with the broker again who agreed to reduce this to last year's price which I have paid.

If the wife hadn't phoned me distressed and in tears saying that 'someone had gone into the side of the car' which had made me immediately assume she had been had been side-swiped in an accident I would not have informed the insurance company until I had seen the damage for myself. It was only when I called her back and she had calmed down that I got out out of her exactly what had happened and I realised my error and immediately called the insurance company back to withdraw the 'claim'. It cost me £500 for the repair as against a £400 insurance excess and an expected rise in premium which I am obviously still paying for.

Edited By Chris Crew on 14/06/2022 21:20:13

Depends how deep the scar is. If it's only around 0.005" I would find someone with a surface grinder and skim the surface. Many years ago I had Mercer's at Cleckheaton skim a Tom Senior table for me but they couldn't, or wouldn't, remove all the damage. Since then it has never really bothered me and certainly not affected the operation of the machine which is pretty well-worn in any event. However, I still feel obliged to deny I caused the damage personally if any visitor ever queries it.

I have no experience of, or knowledge about, VFD's. I have had a 3-phase Colchester Student with a suds pump running off a Transwave converter for the last thirty-odd years. The only issue I had, and it cost me a suds pump rewind, was that the original Colchester wiring put the suds pump connections to the 'unbroken' side of the NVR. This meant that when the main motor was stopped the suds pump was still connected to the output of the Transwave. Because it is only a fractional HP motor it was not 'powerful' enough to trip out the starting capacitance and, unbeknown to me, merely oscillated and got hot until it eventually burnt out. I cured this problem, once I realised the cause, by putting a small auxiliary contactor between the 'broken' side of the NVR and the suds pump. Thus when the NVR released upon stopping the main motor the suds pump was isolated from the Transwave. There was a reason for this 'belt and braces' solution because I could have just rewired the suds pump to the 'broken' side of the NVR, but I can't just remember what it was after all this time. Anyway, there have been no problems since.

Edited By Chris Crew on 07/06/2022 09:23:50

I have done several conversions to single phase of fractional HP motors by just putting a capacitor across one of the windings in delta configuration. As long as no great starting torque is required the motor will start slowly and then run up to speed in a couple of seconds. I have a Clark T&C grinder, a Pollard high-speed drill and a diamond faced wheel grinder configured like this and they all run perfectly well. The capacitors I used came out of old florescent light fittings. I suspect a suds pump requires no great starting torque so you should be OK by doing this. I got the capacitor values from the Workshop Practise series book 'Electric Motors'. There is a table in there that gives the size of run capacitors for motors of various power and also start capacitors if you wanted to add a bit more circuitry for greater starting torque.

ME published a simple electro-mechanical circuit that I designed, circa 1993, which was based on the support circuit given in Electric Motors but which allowed a 3-phase machine to start and stop using the original start/stop buttons. I have a 3-phase Boxford 8" shaper working on single-phase with all original switch gear still in place but re-wired/modified to include my support circuit. I similarly converted a power hack-saw and it worked fine too.

I am genuinely saddened by this news. I did not know Mr. Deith, except for a short conversation with him at one of his exhibitions, but I took his magazine regularly for years and have used the services of TEE Publishing on many occasions. The fact that he took the trouble to reprint and republish many informative and historical books, which otherwise would have been lost to many of us, proved to be very helpful to me and I suspect quite a few others. His exhibitions and the lectures that accompanied them were always of the highest standard and again provided valuable information that would have otherwise not been so readily available. Indeed a sad loss to our model engineering fraternity and my own personal thoughts and condolences are extended to his wife and family at this sad time.

Posted by Emgee on 14/05/2022 22:21:09:

In the early 1980's I bought a Taiwanese made Alpine drill from Graham Engineering in Birningham, MT2 spindle with rack feed rise and fall and rotatating table. When bought it was fitted with a good quality drill chuck which I still use on a Bantam lathe. The drill spindle is still good with no play and still using the same belts !!!!!

Emgee

Your machine looks identical to mine except that the 'badges' are different. You even have the same vise. I am pleased I am not alone in experiencing excellent performance and longevity from this cheap 'junk' which so many seem to want condemn simply because, it seems to me, it is made in countries and by people who they simply cannot accept have advanced so far ahead of their own in technology, efficiency and industrial production.

Edited By Chris Crew on 15/05/2022 10:40:18

All most forty-years ago I bought a cheap, and even then used, Nu-Tool bench drill thinking it would get me through until I could afford a 'proper' Startrite/Meddings/Fobco. This was at a time when the model engineering press was full of dire reports about the quality of Taiwanese imports. Well, it's still going strong and is as accurate and convenient to use, with its rotating table and rack and pinion table mechanism, as it ever was. By the time I could afford a 'proper' British machine they had all gone out of business (I think Meddings now sell Spanish made products under their brand name). I have quite a few Taiwanese and Chinese devices, dividing heads, chucks and vises etc., they didn't cost the earth and they have all proven themselves to be reliable and accurate for my purposes. You pays your money and you takes your choice as they say

Edited By Chris Crew on 14/05/2022 19:51:23

I have a 13' x 21' pre-cast concrete garage with the door aperture replaced with a 'site-office' front as a workshop. The ship-lap front has a window and 4' wide double doors to enable machines to be moved in and out if necessary. This building has performed very well for almost 25 years except that the corrugated concrete fibre roof developed hairline cracks which started to leak. This was entirely my own fault as I had hung too much weight from the internal roof trusses ( three Transwave converters and shelving etc.). I cured this problem by laying 2 x 2 purlins along the external roof and bolting powder-coated corrugated steel sheets to them with bog-standard loft fibre in-between. I suffer from very little condensation or corrosion and the building is easily heated in winter, although I do keep an old Dimplex convection heater switched to its lowest possible setting on 24/7/365. This only kicks in at about 50deg's but may have to be reviewed in the light of rising energy costs. The building was originally supplied by Compton but I believe this firm has been taken over by Lidget.

If it may serve to provoke some ideas, could I suggest that you take a look at the Radford worm-wheel hobbing attachment for the Myford lathe. As its name suggests this device as built will not hob anything but worm-wheels but maybe coupled up with a rising and falling slide to carry the gear blank it may provide a suitable drive.

Edited By Chris Crew on 24/02/2022 21:17:08

I bought a cheap Chinese 5C chuck via eBay several years ago, I think it was about between seventy or eighty-quid back then. Can't fault it. Nicely ground finish, closes the collets in truth and perfectly acceptable for home workshop use. The collets I use are Crawford that I bought at an auction but I can't think that cheaper collets would be any less accurate.

"although I vowed not to visit Doncaster again, because the Racecourse is just so difficult to find"

Doncaster Racecourse difficult to find? Really? I am quite surprised by that statement because it must cover about 2 square miles and dominates the southern end of the town (or city I think it is now) with the main entrance at the intersection of two major roads, the A18 and A638.

"One of the nicest ideas for lorries was the concept of a smaller battery for local running and then overhead power on trunk routes - until you have hundreds of such trucks all trying to use the same line at once".

Then perhaps the obvious solution to that would be a railway? Or has that been tried before somewhere and then closed down because it was found to be cheaper to put a train load of goods into a fleet of trucks instead of modernising the Victorian way of shifting things around on the railways that existed right up until the mid-1960's. And yes, I do know that Dr. Beeching did try to introduce containerisation and freight-liner terminals but most these subsequently closed too.

When I stated that my dread was being forced into an electric car it was purely from a practical point of view. I like to think that I have a respect for the environment, I am not a climate change denier, my wife and I are almost obsessive re-cyclers, I have the solar panels installed and even though we each have a diesel car (hers is a mild hybrid) every journey of any distance is taken on public transport, either by train or continued by local bus at the destination. In other words we try to do 'our bit'. As we are located in a village in the middle of rural Lincolnshire, with a very poor bus service, and the station on one line is 7 miles distant with free parking and on another line 15 miles away with parking available on my step-daughter's drive, and a free bus pass ride into town, the cars are only used to access either a station or for the weekly shopping. Mine hardly moves from one week to the next.

Notwithstanding the above, I look at it this way. If I need to buy a tank of fuel (not very often in my case) it takes me all of 5 minutes at a self-service station and I am good for another 500 miles (I think). How long would it take if I were to be using the car regularly or on daily business to recharge, that is assuming I could find a suitable charging point? An hour, or is it more or less than that to get a full 'tank' before I would be mobile again? I have no idea but hopefully someone will be adding to my education. I know of only two public charging points in one town 10 miles away and two more on a supermarket car park 7 miles in the other direction, although I do know those who do not live in shared or upper floor accommodation may have a domestic point fitted. The other week I observed a person with an electric car pull up at one of the charging points at the supermarket whilst waiting for my wife to finish the shopping (sounds sexist, I know, before anyone takes a shot, but she likes to shop alone). The man dutifully went to the boot of his car, took out the charging lead and connected the vehicle to the charging point. He then took out his mobile phone and, because I assume TESCO doesn't give away electricity for free, made the necessary call or used an app to pay for the fuel and switch on the current. This must have taken between 5 and 10 minutes. He then went to the shop but returned in less than 15 minutes disconnected the car, coiled the cable and stored in the boot. How much 'fuel' he acquired in this time I have no idea. But I thought then, do I really want all this hassle? No, not for me.

On a wider point, and again I am looking to be educated if I am wrong, I look at it like this; when I think of all the millions of vehicles in motion at any one time in this country alone, there must be countless megawatts of power being released from the liquid fuel they use. I have no idea how many megawatts but I am guessing it is a lot. If all those vehicles were to be converted to electric instantaneously, let alone by 2030 and some years beyond, does or will this country have the generating capacity in wind, solar or nuclear to replace all those megawatts of energy current being provided by liquid fuel. I can only guess that will not and that conversion to alternative sources of power within so short a time frame is just a government fantasy, I think they call it 'greenwash'. I am only glad (?) that I will not be living long enough to see the demise of the diesel of petrol car and that I will never be forced into an electric vehicle despite the costs HMG keep loading on to those motorists such as myself.

Edited By Chris Crew on 09/02/2022 09:32:18

I understand what is being said about classic and older cars and why they hold an attraction for some people but, once you have had a modern car for all the additional expense, I would not like to return to the old days. I had a 'Moggy Thou' once in my younger days and I can't remember it being all that reliable or even comfortable, the heater was pathetic and the seats hurt my back. I have had about every model of car, from 1959 onward, that usually appear on display at a traction engine rally and have done just about every type of repair on them from re-ringing, crankshaft regrinds and gearbox rebuilds, you name it and I still have all the tools as proof.

Just like in life, it is very easy to go up in the world but very hard to come back down. It's the same with a newer car with a reasonable spec. Would I really want to do without remote locking, electric windows, air conditioning, automatic transmission, power steering, digital radio, voice operated sat-nav and the plethora of improvements and conveniences that have appeared over the years? I my case I think not. I am far too old now to be freezing cold or uncomfortable when driving or to be crawling about at the weekend covered in oil setting tappets and points or changing a head gasket as in my younger days. For me those days are over and the only dread I have now is being forced into an electric car!

Edited By Chris Crew on 08/02/2022 12:40:17

John D. I couldn't agree more with your sentiments but unfortunately I do not have the skills or equipment to have diagnosed the fault in the first place. As I said earlier I could not even find two of the fuse boxes on this vehicle, not that it would have done me any good in the event if I had found them, so I had to bite the bullet and send the car to the service agent. As an aside, I found out yesterday that modern cars don't even have a dipstick. I might be the 'dipstick' for not knowing this, but the oil warning indication came up on the wife's car so I told her to buy some oil from Halfords while she was out shopping, and of course it had to be 'digital' oil at £18 a litre. When I investigated via YouTube I found the car had a digital dipstick and you read the oil level on the dash display. It showed the oil level at maximum and when she started the engine again the warning had disappeared, so eighteen-quid wasted. You live and learn but sadly I appear to be learning very slowly and expensively these days.

Edited By Chris Crew on 08/02/2022 11:37:28

Screw cutting is not a race. The tool removes exactly the same amount of material whether the work is revolving a 1 r.p.m. or 1000 r.p.m. so you should have plenty of time to release the half-nuts and withdraw the tool and even if you don't withdraw the tool at the same time it will only cut round groove at the end of the thread. In fact if you were to be using a lathe with an Ainjest rapid threader it does this anyway as there is no automatic withdrawal at the end of the cut when the device trips, so it is accepted practice.

You will be surprised just how easy screw-cutting is when you have done it a couple of times and you can get quite adept at releasing the half-nuts and withdrawing the tool in no time at all. BTW, when you come to cut an internal thread I recommend inverting the tool and cutting the thread on the rear face of the bore. This means you still withdraw the tool, rather than advancing it, at the end of the cut and thus alleviates any risk of forgetting to reverse the withdrawing action and causing a disaster.

I heard from the service agent today. They have had the car since last Wednesday. Apparently they have found the fault which has turned out to be a dead short across an LED in a rear light cluster which can't be replaced like an old-fashioned filament lamp and the cluster has to be completely replaced. Also, they said the car's software needs updating. The price for the cluster and the software is £286 plus fitting, plus the time it took to find the fault, plus VAT so I guess it will finally be around £500/600. How different from just replacing a bulb for a few pence on the old cars?

"Why were so many of the production machines painted that odd gold colour !? Not a colour I would associate with a factory.Why were so many of the production machines painted that odd gold colour !? Not a colour I would associate with a factory."

Our attention has been drawn to this film before and the same question was posed, if I recall correctly. The conjecture was that the machines had been painted especially for the making of this film, but it was never confirmed. Perhaps someone who is still around who once worked at the factory could inform us if this was actually the case.

Ifoggy, I have all but finished with bits of paper these days, but I am afraid you can't pay cheques into TSB as their online banking facility doesn't support it, or at least it didn't up to a couple of years ago when I enquired in a branch. There is no facility on the TSB online banking site that I can see to allow you to do this although I know some online banks do have this facility.

Andrew, we lost the village Post Office about three years ago with a small PO counter opening in the village shop to replace it. Sadly, it now looks like this is also due for closure unless someone can be found to take it on rather than convert the premises into residential accommodation. To digress slightly, the village tea room is up for sale too, probably to be converted into living accommodation and I don't give the village pub much longer either given the owner's (a very rich absentee business family) propensity to put clueless young people, IMO, in it as managers who have progressively run the business into the ground by treating customers as a nuisance. I know this village is not unique in losing its local amenities and public transport links. It is the way of the world these days.

Edited By Chris Crew on 02/02/2022 19:32:51

Peter, I don't think you are a Luddite by any manner or means and there are lot more of us 'old 'uns' about than we may think. For instance, I have a Sunday lunchtime drinking partner who was a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Navy, is a Chartered Engineer and finished his working life as a Marine Surveyor for Lloyds of London, specialising in pressure vessels and boilers. There is no way anyone could say that this man is other than well qualified, highly competent and very able but he is exactly the same as us when it comes to new technology, in fact he was very disappointed to learn this week that his trusty old Nokia 3210 will not work later this year when the 3G signal is turned off. There seems to be some people who can adapt to change with alacrity and others who can't after they have passed a certain milestone in their lives. I must be in the latter category.

Edited By Chris Crew on 31/01/2022 11:10:22