Member postings for Simon0362

Michael, I totally agree - but I am at a loss to know what else to call it...
As you can see from the original photos at the top of this thread and Gerry's later, it resembles verdigris and I am convinced its a chemical effect since there were no fumes or surface material burning away when I heated it.

If you know what it may be called, I am sure that would advance me in my search...currently 'not-verdigris', is not helping!

I believe that there is very little bronze exposed on the outside - and I can attack it further to leave just the trace of the repair - and its not blackening, its a verdigris finish which in my logical way (meaning unknowledgeable) should also advere/affect bronze thanks to the copper content. But then, I never made any pretence to be a chemist!

I think Rob may have the general idea, problem I have found so far is the torrent of search engine hits referencing painted on patina finishes...

So an update to anyone following this thread.

Thanks to a very kind offer, I was sent some coated SiF Bronze to use for my attempts at a repair.

The excellent advice in this thread and privately suggested heating the bell to red, cooling and then mechanically brushing the joint surfaces - that was achieved successfully. I then used a Dremel with a tungsten burr to further clean and to make a V-groove on the inside of the bell to allow the braze to flow.

I then clipped the two pieces together and applied some Tenacity N°1 flux. The two parts were held together by thye spring tension in the bell itself (spoiler alert!).

The next step was heating and applying the Sif Bronze to the interior and allowing to cool. I was pleasantly surprised at how it flowed nicely into the inside groove although my technique leaves much to be desired I suspect!

Significant effort was then required to clean it up. Sadly, the two parts slipped slightly so one joint is near perfect and almost invisible, the other side has a small step - maybe next time I should bind with iron wire or similar.

I struggled to remove the two fluxes and eventually mechanically ground them from the inside and picked bits off from the outside.

Finally, the best part of all is that IT RINGS!! Proof of the pudding is in a 20 second YouTube video for anyone interested at (https://youtube.com/shorts/hAzSyVrEpdk?feature=share) Ringing Bell

Finally, finally....does anybody have any ideas about how to replace the verdigris finish on the bell - I am pretty sure it was a chemical effect rather than paint and all I can find on the web seem to refer to paint substitute finishes. Answers on a postcard please - or better still, here!

Simon

I have been following this thread with interest whilst also reading some interesting books on the gut and microbiome. My non medical understanding is that some of the ailments and problems are starting to be potentially attributed to the state of our gut microbiome with a mis-balance in the make-up of the bugs within.
As a total non-expert in the field, I offer the following books to describe and explain:

· Gut by Giulia Enders (The first I read and the oldest one written)

· 10% Human: How Your Body’s Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness by Alanna Collen (probably the most readable one, includes interesting theories about the spread of obesity in the US)

· Dark Matter: The New Science of the Microbiome by James Kinross (the most technical and driest of the three)

No connections with any of the authors etc, all downloaded from standard bookshop sites.

Simon

NDIY - spot on - AMSOIL were the guys

(and that should be 50-60k miles, just forgot my AZERTY keyboard!)

Edited By Simon0362 on 20/07/2023 16:00:25

Many years ago when I was running my Scimatar some -à-èàk miles a year, I was persuaded to invest in a bypass filter - I don't recall from where but I am fairly sure it was a US supplier. This had a take-off connection on the oil pressure tapping and it fed a significant sized filter that was capable of extracting particles at least an order of magnitude smaller than the main filter. The idea was that it slowly filtered all of the small stuff in the background and left the main filter to get on with it. From (probably faulty) memory, it was supposed to last 100k miles, but they were £25 to replace - so an order of magnitude more than the standard filter.

I installed it after an oil change and watched the oil over the years - certainly for some significant period the oil remained clear or at least much cleaner than it had. The company also had an analysis option but arms and legs were involved I recall.

On a seperate note, my V8 Aston engine required an oil change every 2500 miles....standard 20/50 or whatever spec it was supposed to be went in 'oily' and used to drain out after 2500 miles in a much thinner state - I was told that the combined tolerances and surfaces were able to tear the viscous long chain molecules into runny short chain ones. No idea if it was true but changing to a suitable full synthetic cured that issue.

Simon

A couple of thoughts:
I have a pack of epoxy dating from way back purchased from the model aircraft world, and the hardener had crystals forming in it - when I tried to use it, it refused to set. The web suggested that I should heat it gently for the crystals to dissolve back in - this was successful, although I no longer trust the pack!
Also....and our achive specialists can help me here - there was an article some years back (10+?) about engineering adhesives and the instructions for epoxy mixing were to slide a spatula across the mix to combine, rather than stirring. I recall that this was to better combine the two parts - I have taken that advice ever since!

Happy Bastille Day to my fello French residents!

Thanks for all the advice. Discussions with the owner have pushed me towards a brazed fix. Watch this space for updates and photos !

Simon

Very nicely done. My own wifi temperature monitor keeps killing the charging circuit, probably too many volts from the solar panel.

The photos show a small and delicately cast bell in cast iron which didn’t survive being dropped onto the tiled floor.
I have been asked if I can fix it and before attacking it, I wondered if the panel had some advice (even if it was don’t bother!).
I doubt that it will ring again with the same sound but something better than the dull noise would be good.

Looking closely, it appears that a crack was already in existence and the fall simply finished the job. One side of the break is mildly corroded, the other bright.
I was contemplating cleaning and attempting a silver solder or braze joint from the inside to limit the visible repairs but not sure what the effects of serious heat will be on such a delicate casting with a 2mm or so wall.

any thoughts gratefully received.
simon

Dave, ummm....not entirely true....

Floppies from the single density single sided FM encoded 8" versions right through to the 3.5" double sided, double density, MFM encoded had the entire write process controlled by the disk controller on the PC. These were initially separate boards, then separate devices before being incorporated into the main uProcessors.
Disks often but not always came with a formatting laid down by the manufacturer but this was only for convenience.
The floppy Disk Controller (FDC), if instructed to do a format, monitored the Index line on the interface and then laid down ‘n’ sectors with headers consisting of head/track and sector n° as well as data status (deleted or not) and a CNC code and then laid down the data part of the sector with ‘m’ bytes of data (usually FF) followed by a similar checksum. From memory, the data section always started with some 1s/0s pattern – but its nearly 40 years since I looked closely!
Once the format was finished, the header part was never changed (apart from altering the deleted flag & CNC) unless another format was performed.

If the FDC was instructed to write to a sector, it waggled the head and track lines to the drive and then read the headers until it the right sector, read through the header, waited until the data section marker and then splurged the data plus the updated CNC. A similar process for reading a sector. Some FDCs started reading from the index point, some just read and waited until the right sector came around.

If you requested a quick format, I think they generally just set all header flags to ‘deleted’. A full format just rewrote everything.

Macs were very different in that the FDC was much more controlling and I seem to remember that the entire track, headers and data, were sync’d from the index point and that (maybe) there was a physical feedback of the sector through their interface.

Hard drives of that era (ST506, ST412) followed the same logic and flow, it just happened a lot faster!

I spent nearly 10 years digitally emulating floppys, and a range of hard drives from those fitted to IBM PC-ATs through solutions attached to mini and mainframes as well as odd balls such as drums and core-stores…..fascinating stuff until SCSI came along and moved the intelligence to the drive.

"Yes".

Adds an extra dimension to the text, happy to see more of them

Wow, never even thought of that. In my case the batteries slide into a recepticle with blade contacts. The print looks like this and the blade contacts are embedded in epoxy in two of the three rectangular sockets in this view. The new battery wants to see a blade and the existing brush clearer wants to see a balde as well so the electrical connections are simply blade terminals extracted from the duff electronics board.

Now, maybe I should go into business......

Mildly diverting from the original topic ( why not, everyone else seems to do it !), I bought a brush clearer several years ago from a cheap and cheerful source expecting little of it. It and the 40V battery dated 2014 have done stirling service until I left the battery out in the rain for several days and destroyed the inbuilt electronics board. Needing a hedge trimmer on a pole, I took another punt on one that also came with a mini chainsaw and a battery that resembles the brush clearer’s bu t turned out to be a bit smaller all round.
I then turned to my 3D printer and several hours and 4 iterations later I had an adapter allowing the new battery (also 40V of course) to slide in just like the original. I also disassembled the duff battery pack resulting in a store of 18650 batteries, each separated and individually charged to ensure they were in good condition. I was also slightly surprised to find that there were 20 batteries, arranged in 10 paralleled pairs which I didn’t think was good for balanced charging.
so don’t ditch the equipment if the battery has packed up, hunt down something similar and get adapting !

Simon

I am waiting for an announcement about a rapid and scheduled re-assembly of the rocket following the PR stating that there was a rapid and unscheduled disassembly …..

Simon

Maybe you were thinking of this thread I started?
https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=186184
Spam emails

Thanks Jason, I was wondering what faux-pas I was commiting!

I admit to using a countersink - one of the chunky 2 cutting edge ones with an 8mm shaft. Not sure why its looked down on though?

My southern English mother was bemused to be told to "Dinnae fash yerself hinny" on one of her first visits to the prospective parents in law based in the far north east of England, some 20 miles from the border and had to ask Dad for a translation.