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Member postings for Ian Abbott

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

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Thread: Safety
22/11/2009 11:54:27
Hi Chris,
Yes several people were left with substantial damage.  Entire classes succumbing to fumes in the short term, had to be moved out of rooms where the fumes were being pumped out of one studio and into the fresh air intake of some classrooms.  As you say not everyone is affected in the same way.  In the US, there were a large number of successful lawsuits against petroleum companies and educational institutions.  In Canada, (don't know about UK regulations) a lot of people were left destitute; they can't work at a steady job, disability payments are difficult to get, unless one is missing the odd head and they can't contribute to pension schemes, so they don't get a federal pension worth mentioning.
A number of lawsuits were initiated in Canada, but none made it through the system.
This Canadian university  made a deal with the Worker's Compensation Board to designate all students at the university as "employees".  Under the provincial legislation, employees cannot take legal action against an employer when covered but must claim through the provincial WCB.  
The WCB was set up basically to prevent payments to workers if at all possible.  Managers were given bonuses for how much cash they saved by cheating injured workers.  A lot of noise started enquiries, but I doubt that it has changed.
There is an organization in New York who advocate for safety in the arts, but it's uphill and they can only act for people in the US.  They can be very helpful in identifying problem situations though.
The health and safety crowd are a nuisance, usually over the top, so most people tend to not take them seriously.  If they were more sensible in their approach, then we may take notice of them.  I reckon that more people are injured because of too much safety legislation than would be with more rational approach. 
 
Ian 
21/11/2009 12:04:02
I have to admit to being a little shy of solvents.  About twenty years ago, a university (place of higher learning and integrity) cheaped out of venting their artists studios.  Now, I can't feel my hands and feet, with varying levels of sensory and motor control in between them and my head.  This was supposed to be a change of career from the engineering stuff and I was working in theatre design.
I don't work in theatre now, I don't walk with a stick any more, and I can stay upright on the Enfield, but drawing is hit and miss and anything other than a flat road means frequent stops to let the legs catch up.
Think multiple sclerosis without the inconvenience of having a disease.  I take a cocktail of drugs every day (and for the rest of my life) to control the pain and other symptoms.
 
I like to think that others may learn to avoid crap like this by being very, very, careful.
 
Removing curmudgeon hat. 
 
Ian 
Thread: failing spark plugs
20/11/2009 19:46:48
To check for power at the plug wire, get a bystander, wife, kids, cat's tail, they will tell you if the coil output is satisfactory.
 
Don't ask me if I've done this.
 
Ian 
Thread: Safety
20/11/2009 19:39:21
A couple of things.
 
First, safety.  Of the models. 
In my early teens I built a couple of ship models, rigging, sails, all meticulously rendered.
My mother "dusted" them and then put "them away" in a big "toy box" along with balsa and paper aeroplanes.  Then put books on top.  My wife is also a "stacker"......
I'm making sure that she can't see the screen as I write this. 
 
And, more seriously.
Something which hasn't been around for many years is carbon-tetrachloride.  I don't think that you can buy it any more, but poking around the old barn the other day which the owners are converting to a cottage, reminded me that there may still be some of those old Pyrene pump fire extinguishers which had carbon-tet in them.
This stuff is deadly.  It puts fires out by depriving them of oxygen.  It can also put people out the same way.
When I was an apprentice, carbon-tet was used by electricians for washing motors out.  No ventilation of course, bare hands.  This stuff is do deadly that we could shoot flies out of the air with a squirt oil can.  It killed them in flight!
Anyway, like lacquer thinners, it destroys brain cells and the nervous system from inhalation and through the skin.
Lesson, if you find an old fire extinguisher at the back of an old workshop, get someone from the fire station to take care of the contents.
 
Ian 
Thread: Auto Cad
18/11/2009 15:26:04
On that last message, the plotter ran on a windoze machine running it's own software, networked to the Macs.
 
Ian 
18/11/2009 15:23:42
Our newish plotter which we sold last year used EPS or DXF files, but was happier with EPS.  If I'm sending stuff off, I usually send copies of DXF, EPS, PDF and JPG, on a disc, that way they can sort out what they want themselves. It only takes a a few seconds to save each one.
 
If you are using a Mac with Vectorworks and some other CAD programmes, you may need to "Export to DXF", which will create a new file somewhere, which can then be burned to disc and read by any platform.
 
Programmes such as Adobe Illustrator can also "save as"  EPS and DXF files, though I've found that importing such files to Illustrator sometimes gives odd results.
 
Ian 
Thread: Metric vs Imperial - Practical or Traditional?
15/11/2009 22:37:35
The boss and I were rolling off the couch watching the Stig chauffeur James May.
 
Ian 
Thread: Safety
12/11/2009 19:00:51
'Kay, a few simple but nasty ones.
 
Lacquer thinner, destroys brain cells, is both absorbed through the skin and inhaled. Always  wear a respirator with organic cartridges, gloves and full cover.  Also a fan blowing away from the user.
 
N-hexane.  This is a light petroleum distillate.  Used in things like spray adhesive, it fries the myelin coating on the nervous system, leaving damage similar to multiple sclerosis. 
I know this one from personal experience and it 'aint nice.
N-hexane used to be found on the MSDS sheets, until the chemical companies found out what it did.  Now, it's just lumped together under the general heading of "Petroleum Distillates".  Nice of them.
Solvent cement used for joining plastic plumbing pipes can cause the same damage.  I'm not sure if it's n-hexane, but the outcome is the same.
Organic cartridge respirator, fan and gloves again for any stuff like this. 
 
Fumes from arc welding are bad, as are soldering fumes.  Generally, moving air will suffice, respirators aren't that convenient for this, but there are some nice, but expensive air flow helmets and visors.  Acid based soldering flux fumes can cause eye damage, I'm told.
 
Off the wall one here.  Wash hands _before_  going to the loo.  Genital cancer is common in engineering circles.
 
Ian
Thread: Metric vs Imperial - Practical or Traditional?
11/11/2009 20:26:16
Sorry, it's just too easy, like making fun of Gordon Brown.....
 
Still curmudgeonly.
 
Ian 
11/11/2009 19:40:00
Thinking back to the old pounds, shillings and pence etc., we used to make money out of American tourists who couldn't handle the exchange.  I thought that those days had passed, but when I was living on the West Coast of Canada, we had a lot of American tourists and they couldn't do the conversion from US to Canadian dollars either.
Now this seems strange, as it's just a matter of percentage, metric again, but on thinking about it, the problem, it's that the school system there in the US, as over here in the UK and in Canada is now crap.
 
How is it that we were thrown out of school aged 15 and on to college, with a complete knowledge of ten different types of measurement and a wide vocabulary, but in the current western "civilization", schools turn out young adults at 18 who can't spell (even with a spellcheck) and can barely count to ten?
 
Feeling curmudgeonly tonight.
 
Ian 
Thread: O-ring coming off pulley when motor power is cut
11/11/2009 19:08:54
How about a toothed belt and pulleys?
 
Ian 
Thread: TIG welding sets
30/10/2009 19:26:32
This might not be applicable to you, but one thing that I like about the MIG (other than the simplicity after you get used to the set up) is that I can wedge myself against something and use two hands to hold the gun.  The bod and hands don't necessarily do what I intend them to do and the TIG does need a steady hand.  The older members of the group will probably relate to this.
 
Ian 
29/10/2009 20:50:10
Watch that duty cycle bit.  Unless you're paying good money, the cycle can be remarkably short on welding and long on waiting.  Twenty minutes continuous welding is a long time and an inexpensive unit might only give you three or four minutes welding and a thirty minute wait for the trip to reset.   Go for fan cooled, which'll give you longer welding and shorter waiting. 
TIG is a good balance between MIG and stick welders, though I prefer the MIG.
 
Ian 
Thread: Grinding hss
21/10/2009 20:12:46
A couple of comments.
 
Years ago, a friend who owned a brass foundry had a wheel disintegrate.  The flying matter embedded the pieces of his face shield and the grinder shield into his face.  After a lot of surgery, they managed to rebuild his face and sort of save the sight in one eye, he lost the other.  He took all the precautions, had all the safety gear.
Since then, I never stand in front of the grinding wheel, always to one side, always wear leather gloves and face shield or goggles and never, ever trust a stone.
I've had angle grinder discs shatter on me, but I always wear heavy gloves and keep the shield between me and the spinning round bit. 
 
And.  I use a coarse open white stone to rough HSS and finish on a fine disc sander.  You need to be careful though, as a disc sander can build the heat up way too quickly.
Ideally, I'd like a proper tool grinder, but that 'aint going to happen unless the lottery comes up.  This system has worked for years though and the old Randa gives as good a finish as I've ever produced on a modern commercial lathe.
 
And, I always use water to dip HSS tools and they've always come out ok. 
 
Ian 
Thread: crap-o-matic
20/10/2009 20:18:11
I did entertain thoughts of a link between the big bottle of oxygen and the little one to top it up, but sense prevailed, not knowing what the pressure in the small one would be, there being no gauge.  Next time I go to our gas supplier, I'll find out what it'll cost me for a new one when I finally use up the originals.
 
I did think that the small bottles would make a nice reservoir to even out the flow of air from the little 12v compressor, so that I could use it  on my airbrushes.  Much more convenient than a 2hp job, which I haven't got around to buying new yet.   Better than junking them.
 
Ian 
15/10/2009 19:51:14
I bought the Bernz set as something that I could literally stick in my pocket and carry on to the boat or into the middle of a field, where the big bottles just weren't practical.  I started with a couple of bottles of each gas, which I'm still using after about fifteen years.  On the job, the price of gas wasn't a consideration though, the customer paid.
 
It works well for what it is and does the job at a reasonable price.  If I were looking at buying £500 worth of equipment for the occasional hobby job, £6 a bottle for oxygen might be a sensible alternative.
 
Having said that, I wouldn't even try to use it for a job where more than a couple of minutes heating is required, but I have brazed 1/4" stuff with it.
 
On full size welding sets, I bought two new commercial Oxy-Acetylene sets in 1981 for something like $50 each.  I used one until we left Canada last year which I sold for $75.  Now, I'm getting out the "brand new" set which has been in it's box for 28 years.
 
And, I picked up a £40 stick welder from Lidl a couple of months ago which we've been using to weld 3/8" steel on the combine harvester and hedge trimmer on the farm.  It's got a slow recovery cycle, but at £40, I can talk to the cows while I wait.  The thing is that it can be turned down to handle 1/6" sheet quite happily.
 
Ian 
Thread: You might be able to help me
14/10/2009 19:08:23
Dare I suggest grey ink?
 
Otherwise, what exactly is the mounting like.  Ours was a plastic circular clamp about 3/8" i.d., with a pinch screw and no clearance issues above it.
 
One potential problem is that the pen or cutter, whichever is installed, lifts between marks, so whatever is used must have a retaining system for the graphite powder or lead for whilst the plotter lifts as well as the feed.
 
If your plotter works like this, a ratchet could be incorporated between the pen holder and the body, using the lift to operate it.
 
Ian 
13/10/2009 19:18:19
I picked some of the Rotring tips from a yard sale a while back, though you can still probably buy them.  A cheap alternative would be the Stadler draughting pens, you can use them without the body and Stadler compasses sometimes come with screwed adaptor rings.  It would be possible to shorten the reservoir to keep the hight down.
 
Even cheaper would be a spacer to fit a "V5 Hi-Techpoint" pen from any stationary shop. 
 
All this assumes that there is enough space.
 
Also, the Summa plotter that we sold before we came back from Canada had little fibre tip marker dealies.  Boy, they were expensive though. 
 
Ian 
Thread: welding
13/10/2009 19:06:37
Sorry, it should of course read "BernzOmatic", not "BrenzOmatic", s'been a long day.
 
Ian 
13/10/2009 19:04:55
'Kay, the photos seem to be working now.  The postings are running under the ads though, oh well.
 
Anyway the photo of the BrenzOmatic Oxy-Propane torch should be showing on the albums bit on the Home page.
 
Ian 
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