Member postings for Mike Hurley

Sorry, but the point of this is what exactly?

Can someone enlighten me....

At least the building society has somewhere you can actually visit (even with reduced opening hours) as opposed to the Bank. Exactly the point I was trying to make.

Thought this may be of use / interest to others. We (wife & I) have both banked with one of the Major high street banks (Hong Kong / China based) for as long as we can remember, but recently had enough when they closed the remaining branch near us, having closed all the others in the area anyway (I live in an urban area in the W Mids - so hardly a rural location). This is due to reducing footfall according to them. Yes, I know most people use online banking most of the time as do we, and rarely go to a branch for routine stuff now - but, just occasionaly when things go tits-up, It was nice to be able to pop into a branch and speak to a human, rather than try and usually fail sorting it out through their customer un-helpful line, which as an alternative to a branch is just a non-starter.

As a consequence, decided to change. we both moved to a large buiding society bank (which operates nationwide) which has local branches and helpful staff. Switched using the 'banking switch guarantee' scheme and it was a totally faultless simple process for both of us, not a single hitch. Couldn't rate the efficiency and ease higher. By the way we also got £200 each as a thank you bonus!

I have no connection with either of the financial institutions that I haven't mentioned by name, just thought my experience may be of use to others.

Regards Mike

Or one that immediately automatically changes channels as soon as the word 'Celebrity' comes up?

Something simple but novel. In the time available, he'll not be able to make anything too complicated. Perhaps a simple wooden puzzle, he'll then be able to 'amaze' the rest of the family and have a few laughs over the festive season.

If nothing comes to mind, I have a few suggestions that may suit & would be practical for a 9 year old in the time suggested. Just say if you need one. Regards Mike

I'm a bit confused about the fly cutter comment, There was a lengthy discussion here recently ('Flycutting' 18 Nov 22) from which the concensus appeared to be at odds with the statement (no critisism intended, jus an observation Steve). I've made a couple of these, including the 'tangential' one featured in MEW many moons ago, and find the results variable to put it mildly. Even with the mill trammed as good as humanly possible and cutting speeds relevant to my light machine (Warco WM14) I could never get a very accuratey flat surface. Pretty much given up as a consequence, and now use normal cutters - tends to take more time backwards and forwards with the table (no power feeds!) .

Regards Mike

Sorry for your loss, not easy to deal with.

Have you thought about contacting the 'Repair shop' on the telly - just the sort of thing they love featuring. Just an idea if you can't find anyone willing to take it on here - mind you there a lot of clock people on the forum so will be suprprised if you don't get any offers of assistance.

All the best. Mike

Great place to visit!

What tickled me the first time I went was when getting near in the car the roadsigns saying !CAUTION - Tanks Crossing! etc. Necessary of course, but not the sort of thing you see every day

Have Fun.

Sorry, mean to insert a link there. This short video clearly shows that a gear will move a worm as it does initially, albeit with a bit of manual help to get things going. Antique spit roaster

In days gone by, I wonder how many kitchen skivvies have had a thump around the head from that flying arm whizzing round at a rate of knots? No health & safety back then...

Regards Mike

https://youtu.be/vwF6z2tJHVA shows a similar setup in operation

No Dick you aren't daft, this is bugging me as well! It doesn't appear to work like a clock escapement but the rotation of the 3 armed fly would control the overall speed. But if you have to rotate this manually - what's the point? It would be easier to have a peasant with a crank handle attached to the ox or whatever?

Looks nice. Seems to run very well - better than any of my hot-air engine efforts!

Is the maker the same one (Olds & Sons) that produces that elevator featured in posts a week or so back?

rehards Mike

+1 for that!

Welcome Tim. Plenty of good friendly advice here!. As Dave suggests, perhaps don't try to run before you can walk, While training courses are a good grounding, nothing beats hands-on experience with your own machines / tools in your normal environment. Get the basics right first and everything else will follow. Practice on small projects first, try making a few add-ons for your new kit (plenty of plans/ideas on this forum or in books) make sure you can work to good accuracy from plans etc. Nothing more likely to dampen your enthusiasm than one failed project after another - Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.

Best of luck, Mike

The parts diagram (do a Google search) only shows one screw holding the cover in place so is fairly standard. I can only suggest that you may have stripped the screw head - perhaps it was initially fitted using the wrong key. They can be very tight anyway as the grubscrew bears on the splines and the tip gets a bit mangled. If copious tapping with a light hammer / block of wood fails to loosen it I'm afraid its likely that the tap will need to come off for more vigorous inspection - sorry.

Best of luck - Mike

Although (as I previously commented) I like lathe cut threads, as Nicholas Wheeler says it can sometimes be a hassle to set up for a relatively quick 'one-off' job.

Something I knocked up years ago (which has a relationship to electrical conduit threading tools) is great for getting common threads started and aligned perfectly staright - was quite easy to make (can't remember where I saw the plans originally) and works a treat if the thread isn't going to be too short. This has a set of common metric bushes for 4,6,8 & 10mm. Other sizes can be knocked up in 5 mins as required.

One big advantage is the work can be held in your bench vice, avoiding the chance of slippage you get sometimes (particularly on bigger thread sizes) when holding in a lathe chuck when using tailstock die holders etc..

There may be commercial versions available? But quite easy to make for free from odd stock lying about

regards Mike

All the above posts contain very sound advice. Its well worth persevering with cutting threads in a lathe as the results will be far more predictable than using manual dies. It does take take practice though - like everything in life!

regards

An amusing soldering iron story! (yes there is one)

As a youth, after never settling into a job that interested me, I ended up working as a junior technition for an American company that supplied & maintained electro-mechanical & electronic invoicing machines ( pre office computer days). One model was quite a clever bit of electronic kit with a box of discrete components / TTL ics etc in the back. One feature was a group of indicators on the front panel, these were in place of small neons / lamps and were quite delicate. they had the habit of sticking occasionaly. Not repairable, change out - one screw 2 soldered tab connections the famous '5 minute job'.

As a first 'ouside' job, I was sent to do one locally, With my brand new tool kit in hand I confidently appeared and began to settle in front of the machine and remove the small access cover. Got my screwdriver and soldering iron to hand. At this point I should mention that many of the older mechanical electro-mechanical machines the company looked after were 110V supplied by a large auto transformer on the floor. These had 4 american-style sockets on the top. Nobody had told me about this 'feature'!

This piece of more modern kit was standard 220 UK however.

Looked at my soldering iron and noticed it had a 'funny' plug on it - no problem, I duly rewired it with a standard 13 amp plug I had in my kit on something else. Plugged it in and started to desolder the indicator, did notice the body of the iron was getting very, very hot. ( to be fair to me the boss had given me the standard toolkit used for electromechanical kit -i.e. the 110v sort, so sodering irons were designed to fit into the transformer mentioned above - but I didn't know and had never come across anything different to UK 'mains' before)

You are probably ahead of me at this point. PHUT!

The machine was in the workshop for about a week while the proper techs had to change virtually every electronic component - I was not popular to say the least! The customer wasn't very pleased either. I had to return there occasionaly over the years by which time I was fully experienced and competant - but there always seemed to be a bit of an 'atmosphere' though whenever I turned up.

Oh the confidence / ignorance of youth!

If you're drilling into brass you may need to consider the cutting edge of your drill. It may need the rake taking down a bit ( do a forum search on this - plenty of suggestions / opinions) as it's a new drill it will probably be 'optimised' for ferrous materials. As Bernard says, the cutting lips must be absolutley equal (as near as practical on such a small size) and your cutting speed needs to be as high as possible.

Best of luck

Very interesting short vid. Am I being thick (probably), but I still don't really see the advantage of this against the 'traditional' method whereby you rotate the archimedes screw inside the tube? I know they tried to explain it, but I still cannot for the life of me see why the result should be different. Apparently its widely used so it must be better.

Anybody?

regards Mike