Member postings for Russell Eberhardt

If you just want a program to use rather than worrying about BASIC etc;, look for NthreadP on Lathes.co.uk:

**LINK**

It works straight off on Windows machines and under Wine on Linux. There is another version for lathes with a screw cutting gearbox.

Russell

I would be inclined just to buy one new. I've had good service from the Seven Workshop in the past. Probably cheaper than a chunk of bronze to make one.

Russell

My go to reference is:

"Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible", by Blum.

Russell

Where would he use silver solder on a samurai sword? I have a 500 year old katana and I can't see where it would have been soldered.

Russell

It's a horrible mixture of tens and twenties, tens up to fifty and twenties up to 100. I still find it difficult after 18 years in France, especially with telephone numbers which are always spoken as pairs of digits from 00 to 99!

Russell

There was an advertisement in the 1920s for the Austin 7 that claimed that the total running costs of that car was less than 1 d. per mile and that it was less than the cost of walking and replacing worn out shoes. Perhaps we should all drive rather than walking to the shops to save the planet????

Russell

I don't see why it should upset the French. For many years they used the pouce (thumb) which was 1/12 of the pied (foot) and very close to the British equivalents. Indeed they still use BSP threads for domestic plumbing fittings, although named according to their approximate thread OD in mm.

Russell

+1 for oxalic acid. Also good for cleaning teak on boats.

Russell

Add to that mercury being played with at school, making various explosives in my parent's garage (the best one was nitrogen tri-iodide), etching glass with hydrofloric acid, etc.

Regards from another mid septagenarian surviver.

Russell

+1 for Onshape. I have used Solidworks in the past (before retirement) and I find Onshape similarly intuitive to use, being produced by a group of ex Solidworks people, so I might be biased. It is free and shows no signs of disappearing after six years or so. It will export STL files for 3D printing and create 2D drawings from the model.

The only downside is that, being browser based it can get rather slow for complicated models. I have however managed to import a complete Antikithera mechanism into it so it will certainly handle most of our needs!

Russell

For RF transparency I would avoid any black plastics as the common pigment used is carbon black which will make it rather lossy depending on frequency. For making printed UHF antennas we used to use clear high impact polystyrene but I guess that is not what the OP wants.

Russell

Russell.

Polycarbonate.

Russell

I've found Abbey blue gel to be effective and long lasting. I've used it on an old Laguiole David knife that a visitor had put in the dishwasher and removed the original blueing! After use they should just be wiped down with a drop of red wine to clean and sterilise them. Just dip your finger in the wine that accompanied your steak!

Russell

When I bought my first milling machine, about 17 years ago, I followed Harold Hall's "Milling a complete course" and found it very instructive. The first project after making T-nuts was an angle plate, again using the CES castings. While buying chinese angle plates is quicker and cheaper that doesn't give a beginner the same experience.

I commend the OP for trying to take that route.

Russell

Not much of a secret. Lanchester used that idea back in the 1930s they even used it with the shafts geared up to remove vibration harmonics on six cylinder engines.

Russell

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 12/05/2021 10:03:46

If it's the X1 type mill the column should come off O.K. with the nut removed. I would try a bit of penetrating oil and work it up and down a bit as you pull. ARC have some dismantling guides on their websites for their versions that might help.

Russell

Unfortunately very few FM radios are fitted with a proper aerial socket and the built in whip aerials are woefully inadequate. For best operation a whip aerial should be 1/4 wave, that is about 75 cm, long. The other problem is that in a house the signal will come from multiple paths each with a slightly different delay and interfere with each other. For compact reliable reception a WiFi receiver of some sort is much more reliable and easy to set up.

Russell

If you have an Android phone or tablet the "ClockSync" app gives you clock time derived from NTP with better than 10mS precision. Alternatively there are GPS time apps but they (only !) give 300 mS precision due to deficiencies in Android.

Russell

I have suffered similar problems for years with my FM radio alarm clock. Some days good reception of our local (about 15 km away) radio station other days reception would come and go as I walked about the room. DAB is not available in this area.

I spent about £40 on a Google Nest Mini and told it to set a daily alarm for 7 AM and play our local station. I can also use it to play any one of thousands of radio stations by just saying "Hey Google, play BBC radio three" for example. The sound quality is much better than I expected from such a small device but if I want real quality I can cast to my TV which outputs sound to my HiFi.

Russell

If they are glass, use jeweler's rouge. If Acrylic use Perspex polish but note it's not suitable for polycarbonate.

Russell