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Member postings for Chris Crew

Here is a list of all the postings Chris Crew has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.

Thread: A blast from the past
09/09/2023 20:46:10

Reading some of the horror stories on here makes me grateful we at least have 'part P' these days, although I must admit to I having exceeded its limitations on the odd occasion and there must still be incompetent idiots out there putting themselves and others at risk. In mitigation, I do/did hold some electrical qualifications, probably all now expired, but not related to domestic installations and the property will have to be electrically inspected by a qualified person before it is sold. I know exactly what contributors have been talking about because my late mother's house was wired throughout with 2-pin plug sockets cabled with rubber insulated conductors housed in wooden conduits. There was only one in each of the ground floor rooms except in the scullery (it was never called the kitchen) when my late grandfather had a 13amp socket installed by the local electrician in 1963 after he bought the family's first washing machine, a Rolls Rapide if I recall correctly. Before that it was a coal fire under a 'copper' which had been replaced by a second-hand gas washing machine in 1956, can you believe? The radiogram (1947) and the television (1959) and any other appliances were all plugged into two-pin 'double-adaptors' as we called them in those days. The house was rewired under a local authority housing improvement scheme in 1983 and I had it rewired again when I inherited the property in 2010.

Edited By Chris Crew on 09/09/2023 20:47:52

Thread: Courier problems
07/09/2023 00:52:30

"So you didn't recognise your neighbour's front door?"

No, I did not, because it could have been the bottom half of a white uPVC door, slightly ajar, anywhere in the country. I would not even recognise the neighbour because the property, which was indicated to me by the driver when he handed me the package, has recently changed hands, I think. Anyway, it's all sorted now.

dhl delivery photo.jpeg

Edited By Chris Crew on 07/09/2023 00:53:46

Edited By Chris Crew on 07/09/2023 01:04:16

06/09/2023 20:08:48
Posted by duncan webster on 06/09/2023 18:48:36:

Having once been in a role that involved delivering notices through people's letterboxes, often after dark because I still had a day job, can I put in a plea to have a house number prominently displayed, many houses don't, so if the poor guy is working off a postcode, it then becomes guesswork, or counting up/down from the nearest house which has a number

Unfortunately, the newer properties in the village lane, one of which is mine, have never been numbered. There is a small older terrace at the other end of the lane that is numbered 1 to 4 but that's about all. When I bought the property it had a different name and the vendor wanted to take it with him to another property in the village because it had a family significance. I arbitrarily chose a new name for the house but this was then not recognised by Royal Mail and caused me some difficulty in obtaining insurance and credit until the new name had filtered through their data-base. Whether the district council will ever allocate numbers to these properties, if that is part of their role, I have no idea but I have been here twenty-seven years and there is no sign of that happening any time soon.

06/09/2023 18:31:08

Well, what d'yuh know? I am writing this having just picked myself up from the bottom of our stairs having been knocked down by the proverbial feather! (only UK contributors will recognise that). I am humbled, apologise profusely for being so cynical and had my faith in human nature restored. The parcel was collected by the DHL driver from the incorrect address and I was offered a personal apology for his error when he delivered it to me. He had left it at a bungalow on the opposite side of the lane no more than 30 yards from my address. If I had been the householder concerned I would have at least have tried to inform a neighbour of the error as the package was emblazoned with my name and address, not theirs, but there's "now't so queer as folk" as they say.

Anyway, full marks to DHL customer services and their driver. I am now a very happy bunny!

05/09/2023 21:15:42

"Contact your credit card provider or your bank card provider, explain the situation and say you want your money back."

Tony, I appreciate your trying to be helpful. However, the item was bought via PayPal 'pay-in-three' which is linked directly to my bank account not to a debit or credit card. I have contacted DHL by phone and email and the vendor via eBay but no response as yet. I don't know, at this point in time, but I am thinking along the lines that the vendor will say we dispatched the item and entrusted it to a supposedly reputable courier, DHL will tell them it was delivered (it probably was but not to me) and PayPal will say the transaction was handled correctly by the seller. I will have to be patient and wait to see what tomorrow brings. Even if DHL does send its driver back to where the parcel was purportedly delivered, which I doubt, there is no guarantee that the householder will be at home and even if they are they could just say 'what parcel?'. Perhaps I am being a little overly pessimistic and cynical and hope I am wrong.

05/09/2023 19:33:47

"OK, open a PayPal dispute."

Tony, I may have been mistaken. Upon re-checking the order it looks like I ordered the item from what I assume to be a distributor with an address in Derby. I had been looking at others from Chinese suppliers but I must have chosen this particular one for some reason. I don't usually give it much thought because all eBay sellers have been 100% with me so far. I haven't had a response yet but we live in hope!

05/09/2023 18:20:38

"Chris, just get onto the seller it’s their problem to sort out but yes very annoying!"

I have emailed the seller via eBay informing them about the failed delivery and asking if there is anything they can do from their end, but it's a Chinese company so I don't really hold out much hope there.

BTW, Evri/Hermes and every other courier have never failed to find my address which is, perhaps, not as easily found as a town house, being located in a narrow village lane, but sat-nav can always find it. This is the first problem I have had in all the years I have been buying from eBay.

05/09/2023 17:47:26

I ordered one of the cheap welding trolleys from eBay that were discussed on here a short while ago. It was dispatched by the vendor within a reasonable time and has been marked as delivered, it has been somewhere but not to me. The courier, DHL, first informed me that my address did not exist so I responded with a detailed description and directions for the driver which they assured me had been noted and printed out (the customer service is probably not even in the UK, so how this would help I have no idea). Today, I received an email informing me that the delivery had now been made, they even sent a photograph of a front door but not my front door. They even stated I signed for it, yeah right! They are now telling me that the driver will be sent back tomorrow to where the parcel was delivered but there is no guarantee anyone will be at home or someone may even deny any delivery was made there. Who knows? Anyway, I am spitting feathers about it and we will have to see what happens tomorrow, if anything.

Thread: Nutool spares
02/09/2023 01:08:28

I am fairly certain that this distributor of Far Eastern products went out of business at Doncaster years ago but it was only a Nu-Tool 'badge' on generic machines which other similar firms sold. I would look at Machine Mart, Axminster et. al. to see if they list, or ever listed, an identical machine in their catalogues but I have a feeling it may be cheaper to simply replace the motor rather than bother with a new armature even if you can find one.

Thread: The beginning of the end for Copper telecomms
31/08/2023 06:53:45

"Do you guys have cell service that allows calling over the internet? That is what I use. I can make cell phone calls from within the machine shop at my parents - 0 cell signal - all through the internet."

We do have that facility but unfortunately my phone will not support it. I really must get a better phone!

30/08/2023 23:27:05

"I can't work out whether I know your name just from here, or work as well.
Does Eldon House ring any bells?"

Yes, I remember working in Eldon House, Sheffield. First time was around 1975 on the big Strowger extension and then later on the various System X units. Can't really remember the names of many BT staff now but I always enjoyed working there, I think the last time would be around 1998 - ish. Time flies by!

30/08/2023 19:47:32
Posted by Dave Halford on 30/08/2023 19:23:21:

The old trunk twisted pair cable network, most of which terminated in B'ham Telephone house on it's way to and from both ends of the country was ripped out 10 years ago. The coax may still be there as there's not much metal in it.

I had some pleasure ripping out the fruits (90 tons of cable) of 23 years spent putting all that Transmission into service. Strange to see that 20 years after leaving the record cards so carefully filled in were still there. The building is now stuffed with fibre kit that needs no-one there permanently to look after it.

Dave, I know exactly what you mean. I spent 45 years of my working life in the telecoms industry but i never worked directly for BT. From Strowger to System X, and all types of exchanges in between, to installing and commissioning the MSAN's and fibre-optics when they bought the Chinese kit that caused the demise of my previous employer. The village exchanges were aIways immaculate in the early days but were left to deteriorate in later years. I finished with some cowboy outfit working on the green cabinets, the sort of firm that took all-comers, gave them two weeks instruction on how not incur any liability and loaded every business cost they could on to operatives they called their engineers. It was a joke! I used to say that some of the external network was a national disgrace given the over-loaded state of some of the cabinets and the records were never very accurate most of the time. I recall opening one cab and the whole lot just fell out on to the pavement under the sheer weight of the jumpering. Unless you could get a tone on the line you had no chance. Happy days, I loved every minute of it!

30/08/2023 19:22:40

SoD,

"I'm expecting BT to replace the copper line (from pole to house, easy access) with fibre and give me a new router and handset. Or maybe just a router and I have to buy an IP handset."

As far as I know you do not have to buy a VOIP phone. The fibre-optic company that has cabled our village provides a router that you can just connect your old analogue phone to. I don't know if this will be the same for all providers but it was the case for my neighbour who moved to a the new fibre-optic connection. He tells me that he just connected his domestic internal copper network to the new router and all his existing copper outlets are still working. I haven't seen the new router myself yet but I imagine there is a port which serves as a DAC or something of the sort.

Edited By Chris Crew on 30/08/2023 19:24:59

30/08/2023 19:14:34

I can't wait to dispense with BT and its rip-off prices and terms of business and I have been a customer since I bought my first house in the 1970's. A fibre-optic company cabled the village last year and asked me if I wanted to move my custom over to them. Unfortunately, to mitigate the horrendous price rise BT had just imposed on me I had just managed to negotiate a new two-year contract that I am currently locked into but as soon as it expires I will be going over to the fibre-optic service like a shot. BT had forced me to pay for services I did not want and never used although as soon as they thought I was leaving these features suddenly became non-compulsory and the monthly price dropped but it has since risen again. Does anyone use land-line voice mail these days? My introductory message warned callers not to leave a voice mail as the line was not monitored and to call the mobile number instead but the facility gone now, anyway. An annual price rise of RPI + 2% for no additional service or speed, and yes I know they are all at it if you read the bottom line of the TV adverts, but at least I will get a faster speed and keep my land-line number (can't think why I am retaining it because it's only ever called by our Asian cousins with their latest scam) at least two-thirds the price BT wants to charge me.

Thread: Harrison L5
30/08/2023 08:02:44

I use a generic H32 oil from the local oil and grease merchant in a Colchester Student.

Thread: Myford ML10 single wheel knurling tool.
26/08/2023 16:37:34
Posted by Dusty on 26/08/2023 16:08:24:

I would caution against using a single wheel knurling tool on an ML10. With knurling you are basically deforming metal, the strain on the headstock bearings is enormous with a single wheel knurler. I would use a clamp type knurling tool as there is much less strain on your headstock.

Absolutely agree with this advice. You will also have better control over the knurl as the pattern emerges because it's sometimes a bit 'hit and miss' as to whether you get a nicely formed knurl. I assume that is because the circumference of the knurling wheels will never be an exact factor (if that is the correct term to use) of the circumference of the work and you sometimes have to dig a little deeper to get an an acceptable pattern. Anyway, that has been my experience FWIW.

Thread: Gear Wheels
25/08/2023 22:52:10

A 90 tooth gear is one complete turn on the more common rotary tables? I have mis-counted or something before now; I am now much more careful to try to avoid that mistake, whatever it was.

Yes, you're right, without checking from the drawing and I am not going into the workshop at this time of night, it was a big gear with a lot of teeth and I messed it up. It was to be the large mandrel nose gear of the Parkes home-made hob backing-off device which I am making in conjunction with the Radford thread milling attachment to eventually use with the Jacobs hobbing machine.

25/08/2023 16:59:08

You could machine off all the teeth and a bit more, then replace that outer ring and teeth with a a machined ring either with teeth or machining the teeth after fitting the ring (likely the better option🙂 ).

I actually did think about doing that but I don't think I have got a noggin left that would be big enough, can't recall exactly without checking, but I think it's somewhere around 4.6" dia. plus I have been very lazy lately and not been in the workshop as often as I should. Just another unfinished symphony to join a half dozen others.

25/08/2023 08:36:23

Before I acquired a horizontal milling machine and BS0 dividing head I cut gears on a Myford lathe using the correct Myford dividing head, swivelling vertical slide and raising block with the cutter mounted on the correct Myford milling arbor. Apart from being a very expensive combination of Myford accessories it worked perfectly well but was time-consuming to set up and not particularly rigid due to all the over-hangs etc. It is a far better proposition, and much more convenient, to cut gears on a miller although I did manage to mess up the last 90T gear I cut which will now have to have the teeth turned off and the blank used for a smaller gear when the need arises. I think I must have inadvertently nudged the sector arms on the diving head forward by one hole but you don't know this until you cut the last tooth. Doh!

Thread: Gramophone Needles, British Made Too!
20/08/2023 23:05:44
Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 20/08/2023 08:58:36:

You discarded your CDs? A lot of music is still published that way!

That is true and I accept that not everything is up on Spotify but I no longer wanted around 300 CD's taking up space in the lounge and the new laptop I bought doesn't even have a CD drive. I do still have a CD player in the Hi-Fi stack but usually just stick a USB lead into the computer from the DAC because there is no Bluetooth. I have a DAB bedside radio with Bluetooth so its very convenient to listen to Spotify from the smartphone app in the evening. Digressing a little, but personally, I cannot think why vinyl has re-emerged as an album format either because to me it's dreadful although not nearly as bad as a cassette which I have never owned. To me these formats are a bit like watching videos that were originally recorded on VHS or Beta, or even 8mm & 16mm film, on YouTube because that's the best we had 20 or more years ago but things have moved on and the technology has changed, for the better IMO but others will view things differently.

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