Member postings for ChrisH

"Note to oneself. STOP BUYING STUFF."

Why?

Dials seem a good buy to me!

John Hinkley pointed us in the direction of doubleboost on youtube. However, I have been having problems with youtube recently not playing and giving an error message saying an error has occurred and please try again later.

Can anyone shed some light on this and how to get round it? Would like to view the video!

Chris

+1 for using cigarette papers for setting milling cutters up against the part to be milled, didn't measure the paper thickness but just assumed it was one thou give or take a midges. Quite accurate enough for most of the stuff I do!

Only got the green, didn't know there were other colours as don't smoke and that was just what the lady in the shop gave me.

Chris

Not knickers in a twist Tony, more a sad reflection of where we are going in modern life.

Brugge market picture I am not surprised at. The area of Brittany I go to, the town street markets frequently have trailing leads across the pavement to provide power to some of the traders; a tripping hazard to be avoided in the UK but the French do not make a fuss and just step over the leads, no more tripping over them than they do the kerb.

A supermarket in the nearby town last Feb/March was renewing itself internally whilst remaining open for business, at some points there were bunches of cables coming up from the floor for the freezer cabinets in the middle of open space, not fenced off in any way - but no freezer cabinets, they were still to be relocated. Another triping hazard you might say, but everyone just ignored them and avoided them, no worries. Not saying its right, just another way of doing things, different ships different splices as the saying goes.

Attitudes and practices related to H&S are very different abroad, again not saying its right, its just the way other countries do things, but it doesn't appear to be a big issue with reports of people suffering accidents or injuries.

" needs a sparky and a certificate of conformity now" - to wire in a 13 amp plug? Surely not!

Not so many years ago, back in the day, every electrical appliance you bought necessitated you then going out and buying a 13 amp plug, plus 3A and/or 5A fuses, (because very little of what you bought required a 13 fuse but thats what all plugs came - still does I think) and then fitting that to said just bought electrical appliance. And everyone did it. Even those thick-as-two-freezer-doors dumbos could wire in a 13A plug back then, and without disasters - I cannot recall newspapers or radio news or TV news running stories about someone blowing themselves up wiring in a 13A plug every day, or ever even. Wiring in a 13A plug was the first DIY job you learned back then, you just had to know it, so people did it. And survived.

So why has Nanny now decided that we're all so stupid and incapable that we require a sparky and a certificate of conformity to wire in a 13A plug? Just because electrical stuff now comes with a plug fitted? Then how do we, us adults, do really tricky stuff like crossing a busy road safely, on our own, without a certificate of conformity or going on a compulsory two day training course first, or holding someones hand. The world is slowly going mad!

And you wonder why people just switch off. Not '1984' yet is it?

End of rant for the day

Was trying to place an order with Tracy Tools yesterday on-line, but there was an issue with the webpage which wouldn't let me pay, so I had to phone the order in instead.

(Don't like having to phone orders in, others can hear what's going on, no need for Senior Management to know all that goes on and see every invoice that passes the door - married men will understand!)

The guy at Tracy Tools who took my order said one item was out of stock and wouldn't be in until next week; however, despite that, the total order arrived in the post today, less than 24 hours from order placement.

That's what I call excellent service - well done to Tracy Tools.

Chris

No Clive, not called anyone yet - who do we call? or will the bees just go off somewhere?

The problem is, to get to where the bee home is in the wall/roof is a matter of destruction. The wall does not have a cavity. The outbuilding is a very old (mid-late Victorian) and is constructed of a 2ft thick wall of mud and stone lumps with render on the inside and mortar on the outside. The roof boards have opened up a little (dried out I guess) to leave a small gap between the boards just big enough for the bees to crawl in.

I was thinking of just waiting for the winter and then sealing up the entrance. Where do you get sulphur smoke from? Had heard the petrol fumes kills them instantly too. Don't really want to kill them but neither do I really want them in the wall/roof of my shed! At least whatever happens aat least one mob has got away to start over again.

Chris

It would now appear that the queen - old, new? - and a mob of bees have made off and are now hanging in a tree behind my neighbours garden. Hope they find somewhere safe. I presume that another queen has stayed behind in the nest as there are still a limited number of bees hanging around the entrance, but only a few.

The swarm hanging off a branch - its the downward pointed cone thingy in roughly the middle of the picture.  The nest entrance is rounghly in a line directly under the swarm, between the roof timber and the top of the wall

Close up of the swarm

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 31/05/2020 13:59:49

Earlier this morning masses of bees came out their nest in the wall of my shed, thousands of them, all flying in an area about 10-15m across. The noise was tremendous. Tried to film a video of them but they did not come out well against the background, the little flying bees seemed so indistinct. Can only assume it might have been a queen out flying for her nuptials, maybe a new queen? Not up on these things! Something was exciting them but, obviously.

Now an hour later, all is quiet again, with 4 perhaps 6 only bees buzzing around the entrance.  Calmness reigns again!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 31/05/2020 11:53:03

Very interesting bee incident - magical even.

Found a huge, and I mean huge, bumble bee on the window cill in the conservatory last evening. It was still alive so I carefully relocated it to some flower plants outside. It was soon climbing very slowly around the flower head of a French Marigold.

This morning it was still there, and still moving, very slowly. Thinking it might need some energy I mixed a little teaspoon, about a 1/4, of honey with some water, put it on a side plate, put the bee on the plate and watched. It wandered seemingly aimlessly about so I steered it towards the honey solution. Suddenly it realised what was in front of it, the head went down, out came a long what looked like two pronged vee thingy from it's mouth area and out of the bottom of which came a little tongue which lapped at the honey solution for a few minutes. Then satisfied, the prongs were withdraw, a sudden spurt of solution came out its rear end and it trundled off around the plate so I put it back on the marigold flower head. It stayed there for a while and then suddenly next time I looked it had gone .

Never seen the like of that before.

And, not to do with bees, but this morning a song thrush flew down into the garden. To be fair, it took one look at me and flew off again, but that is the first song thrush I've seen in England for years and years, decades even. Wish it would eat more of the snails which are eating my seedlings!

Chris

Clive - can you ID my bees for me from the photos I've posted?

Thanks,

Chris

The other thing about mounting the vice with the jaws parallel to the Tee-slots is that then a milling cutter being feed along the X axis, which is what happens most times, the teeth on the cutter is cutting towards a jaw in the vice and not towards the gap between them. Taking very light cuts the latter set-up is not a problem, but when taking heavy cuts it could quite well be a major problem..........

+1 for taking the swivel base off, mine came off before I even first mounted the vice and I have never seen the need to fit/use it. In the spirit of the late John S, it is currently holding down a bit of shed floor until something better comes along.

Also, bigger may be better and usually is, but whatever vice, you usually need to be able to completely machine a part held in the vice in both X and Y without having to relocate the part to finish one face because the part is outside the X and Y travels. No point in having a vice so big that the tool cannot reach front to back of something held in it. Having said that, there are exceptions to every rule!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 26/05/2020 10:50:19

Two pics of the bees nest entry, not very good, the sun kept upsetting things, the first:

If you closely you can see a load of bees just outside the entrance, plus a couple in flight, the second:

shows too much contrast at the entrance but a nice one of some of the bees!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 23/05/2020 14:58:00

Clive - thanks for the advice, much appreciated. Not sure they are bumble bees but:

The pics with two bees, the little fella on the left is still alive, just, but keeps trying to roll over onto her back, the one on the right is dead. As you can see from the pics with my rule in them, they are both about 1/2 to 3/4inch long. Found these amongst the lettuce I am growing under the nest entry. Wanted to get a photo of the entry which is usually full of bees coming and going on a sunny day like today, but the sun is in the wrong position for a good photo and there aren't that many bees flying right now, I think the high wind is putting them off.

Not worried they might attack me, just want them to go. Was wondering if these bees were a variety of masonery or charpenter bees, in which case if the latter they may attack the roof beam or roofing boards.

Sounds like I need to wait until winter then block up the entry. I have some wasp nest destroyer which you squirt from 2m away, but I would need to get up close to squirt it through the entry hole if I chose to use this. Or, I could just use some silicon sealant or the like.

Neil. A few years ago I came into my shed and there was a huge hornet sitting on the bench. Popped him into a jam jar and left him on the table outside the shed. The heat killed him. Next day I came in and there was his mate, probably come looking for him, sat in the exact same spot on my bench. He got the same jam jar treatment, Was worried then that all their mates might rock up, but they didn't. We had a nest of bees in the cavity of an extension wall at about the same time, and then saw a hornet showing an interest in the nest - shortly later all the bees in that nest had gone.

Chris

Chris

I have bees nesting in the roof of my shed, or it could be in the wall and accessed from the roof. My shed walls are old, about 2 foot wide, consisting of stone chunks held by mud, with render on the inside and mortar on the outside. The pitched roof is wooden boards with roofing felt over and tiles (Roman profile?) over. The bees are entering and exiting via a gap in the wooden roofingboards - after that where they go only they know at the moment.

They were there last year, I thought they might disappear over winter, but they are still there. I don't want them there fearful of the damage they might be doing to the roof wooden structure or indeed the wall, but I don't want to kill them really - we need all the pollinators we can get, but I do want them gone.

Any thoughts anyone on how I could persuade them to move along to another home somewhere else, maybe into the wood behind us?

Chris

Well, thanks to Ketan and his team my web access problem has been resolved.

It seems that some plonker of a dipstick, when he placed his last order which arrived so promptly, changed his email address but forgot to let his browser memory know and forgot clean that he had ever done such a thing or even contemplate it - old age and all that, alzheimer's kicking in nicely, which is why I couldn't log in to my account.

Have given myself a severe talking too............

So all's well in the world again, it's that sort of customer support that keeps customers,

Thanks Ketan,

Chris

Yes Ketan, wasn't really surprised that the order arrived so quickly despite the warning as your service is always so very prompt on orders and the post does seem to be getting through here in the sticks regardless, so very pleased to receive the order!

Chris

Welcome to the forum Boris, from Sunny Somerset, and yes, today it is lovely and sunny.

Visited Sydney quite a few times in the 1960's & 70's, was in our merchant navy, and have many happy memories of Oz in general, but not been back sine '79.

Chris

Must be just me then! Thanks to you all for establishing that.

Next question is why - what happened? Running a MacBook Pro on Mojave, all is usually OK with that, very strange and the answer is way above my pay scale.

Chris

Was so pleased a couple or more weeks ago to hear Arc was back in business. So late last week, logged onto my account, checked what I had in my wish list, added a bit more to it, then compiled an order. Despite their website tale of woe and doom on very delayed delivery, was extremely pleased to receive my order yesterday, no worries, a result, sorted!

Except, last weekend, went on the website and my log-in details didn't work. Tried over the next couple of days and the details still didn't work. So then re-registered using all the same user name and password and address details etc as before, and now again have an account, but without my past order details and the wish list is obviously blank; puzzling that my original user name and password were accepted as a new customer and the system didn't flag this up as already in use?

So, has anyone else had this problem in the last few days or is it just me?

I did write an email to Arc asking, but I suspect they are so heavily into being terribly busy right now that there is no time to reply to emails (after all, I got my order sent quick enough, and via my old account too....), so that doesn't bother me as such, I quite understand, but it does bother me that my account seems to have been lost and so I just wonder, is it just me, or has anyone else had this problem?

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 07/05/2020 23:11:53