Member postings for Bill Pudney

I was born in 47. Playing in the bomb sites was great fun until Dad pointed out that a bomb site had been someone's house. I remember going into a big shop in the centre of Southampton, with Mum. It must have been around Festival of Britain time (1951 ish??) as there were flags and bunting all over the place. My main memory is of the large hole in the roof, and floor where according to Mum a bomb landed... still covered in tarpaulins.

Neill, my Dad who was an Engine Fitter in the RAF, made a small Spitfire out of two pennies and a halfpenny, I still have it on the mantelpiece. Mum used to say that he had a guardian angel looking after him. The first time was being attached to the BEF in 39/40. His transfer to a squadron was cancelled at the last moment, the ground crew of "his" squadron spent the war in a POW camp. He nearly had to go to either North Africa or India, but that was cancelled because of ill health. Finally his squadron was scheduled for Tiger Force, but that was cancelled when the A bomb was dropped.

Bill

I made my own, see my album "Chariot a vis" when I couldn't source any commercial ones, apart from Schaublin ones. Not having deep pockets I had to make them as they are somewhat smaller than the available run of the mill stuff.

Quite an entertaining process.

Best of luck!!

cheers

Bill

Some time ago, I wanted to glue some al. alloy bits to some delrin bits. So I asked the Tech Department of the material manufacturer what to do. They said (paraphrasing here), ..... "....Delrin (acetal resin) is very difficult to glue using any adhesive, the best thing to achieve a moderate joint is to design the joint so that there is some mechanical load taking system, e.g. a thread, and not rely on the adhesive to provide any strength to the joint. Slow cure (24 hour epoxy) will provide the best solution, clean scrupulously, clean again, mix and apply epoxy EXACTLY i.a.w. instructions and assemble. Allow to cure in a warm place for at least 24 hours before handling. Then don't be surprised if it falls apart!!

I used to use delrin as a mould for carbon/epoxy parts with only the minimal parting agent.

cheers

Bill

The first job I had in 'straya was at a company that made mining machinery. The car park was used to season castings, and there were a lot of them. Apparently the "seasoning time" was related to the length of the grass. It was advisable to be really careful when parking the car to avoid hitting a casting.

cheers

Bill

When I had to work for a living they had a diamond turning machine. It was in it's own air conditioned room and sat on it's own huge concrete pad. It was used to make optical mirrors from 6061 T6 al.alloy. Workpieces would come off the machine finished with an absolutely amazing finish, which despite being from al. alloy didn't corrode. Don't ask me why! The DT process took tiny (shallow DOC) cuts at startling rpm. Very expensive machine.

Got to go The Boss is breathing down my neck wanting the PC

cheers

Bill

Modern cars and motorcycles don't inspire me even a little bit. Sure they are amazingly reliable, go well enough, but I find them sooooo boring. Just transport!!

Hopper wrote...."...One famously sneaked through US naval lines undetected and got out again,then sent them a picture of their ship taken from alongside. " My late brother was in the RN, he served in conventional boats for 15 years, he told a couple of tales, this was one of them. It would have been in the late 60s or early 70s, Chris was on HMS Artemis, they had sailed across the Atlantic and the crew were vaguely surprised that she had made it across. They rendezvoused with a USN escort off the naval dockyard (Newport News???) being visited. The plan was to submerge and then sail into the middle of the dockyard whilst the USN tracked them, both from ashore, with their highly sophisticated submarine detection equipment and afloat. After a while the Artemis popped up in the middle of the dockyard. The USN didn't believe it, "...you cannot be here, we didn't see or hear you, you must have cheated...". So they had to exit the dockyard, and do it all over again, still not detected!!

Sorry for straying, it's what I do!!

cheers

Bill

In WW2 my dear old Dad was an engine fitter in the RAF, for the last 3 or 4 years on Lancaster squadrons and Merlins. He told a couple of stories...

1/ The way of identifying an RR engine from a Packard one without removing cowlings etc was to stick a hand up an exhaust port, an RR engine was cleaned up and smooth a Packard one was "as cast", not to say it was rough, just not as smooth as a RR one.

2/ On the squadrons RR engines and Packard engines were considered interchangeable. When an aircraft was built, in the build documentation the engine number and manufacturer would be indicated. Due to the demands of active service it wasn't unusual for non original engines to be installed as time went along, these could be either RR or Packard.

3/ Apparently each engine had it's own toolkit. If an aircraft was lost or an engine destroyed, the toolkit would be returned to stores and subsequently reassigned to another engine. This didn't stop various bits of a toolkit going missing. As late as the mid 70s I can remember Dad saying, "....careful with that one son, that's a Merlin spanner".

4/ Each engine obviously had its own throttle in the cockpit, part of the arrangement was an emergency boost set up, which required the throttle to be pushed though a "tell tale" wire and enabled a short (I think 5 minutes) burst of absolute maximum power. One of Dads aircraft flew back from Berlin with two dead engines, one at about quarter power and the fourth with the throttle through the wire, flying at ever decreasing altitude the aircraft crossed the coast over East Anglia, only requiring the undercarriage to be lowered to land. At the end of the runway everything was switched off and the fourth engine just went clank clank and stopped, after several hours at emergency power. RR took the motor back and tried to find out why it had lasted so long.

Dad loved Merlins!! He wasn't particularly sentimental but he did go a bit misty eyed when talking about them.....except for the times that he had to do an engine change with snow on the ground and the aircraft at dispersal!!

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 20/02/2020 02:09:52

John Paton... Do I remember Bob Wells?? I'm in Australia now, so whilst I know the name, I never met Bob. However my (sadly late) elder brother, Chris, also flew free flight (F1A) largely at Middle Wallop, so I'm fairly sure that he would have at least known Bob. Bob was famous for his beautifully built models which flew so well. As it happens I too flew Wakefields, I think that Bobs models were predominately balsa and spruce, rather than composite.

George.....Physio. Spot on, the physio is absolutely vital. Where I had my knee "done" they had a machine which bent and extended the knee, with adjustable rate and amplitude. The nurses would strap you onto this machine before coming round from the anaesthetic. I also had to do hydrotherapy two or three times a week. Well worth all the pain though!!

cheers

Bill

I had a knee replacement in 2001...the twin towers disaster happened whilst I was in hospital. At the time I used to fly free flight model aeroplanes for an obsession, which entailed A LOT of walking. Prior to the knee replacement I had difficulties completing competitions; frequent early retirements were common. After the op. no worries!! I was in hospital for 3 days, the exit criteria were, 1/ Being able to bend knee more than 90 degrees, and hyperextend to "straight", 2/ Being able to walk with the use of a stick, 3/ Being able to negotiate stairs. There followed about 6 weeks of physio, with bucket loads of painkillers. It was well worth all the physio and pain...which was considerable!!

cheers

Bill

For what it's worth, in the mid 70s I was fortunate enough to be working as a ships draughtsman on the T22 frigate which became HMS Broadsword. This ship was all metric, and I was told that it was the first ship classified as "metric" to be designed and built by the MOD(N)

Since then I have been happy using either imperial or metric, although my preference is for metric, so much more logical than basing a system of measurement on the length of a random thumb, or forearm or whatever!!

cheers

Bill

I used to work for BAE Systems. When the Nimrod MRA4 was cancelled I heard that there was a huge sigh of relief around the company.

cheers

Bill

I do all my tapping powered by hand. Virtually all of the threads I tap are M6 or under. My "go to" tap holders are Starrett "T" holders, there are two, a small one which does everything under M4 and a large one which does everything over that. If the thread is over M6 (unusual for me) a conventional bar type tap holder is used. Some sort of centre is ALWAYS used to ensure that the tap stays lined up. If an array of holes is being tapped, the centres are marked out wherever possible using a height gauge, then into the (Sieg X2) mill, an optical centring scope lines everything up, spotting drill provides a starting point, pilot drill, tapping drill, countersink the hole to slightly over thread size; tap 1, using tapping fluid, clean swarf from hole; tap 2 using tapping fluid, clean swarf from hole; tap 3 using tapping fluid, clean swarf from hole. Then I move on to the next hole, starting with the centring scope...Sometimes only taps 2 and 3 are used. I must try spiral flute taps!!

I am about half way through tapping 16 x M3 x 0.5 in al. alloy, so far all the threads are good, to depth, they are blind, all point in about the same direction and (tempting fate here!) no broken taps. Yes, it does take a bit longer, but then I'm not on piecework!

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 16/01/2020 05:16:58

When I had to work for a living we had to make a small sample part from 316 SS. The shape of the part suggested that plate should be used, fortunately some was found. The material work hardened so fast that it was virtually impossible to machine. Some enquiries were made of the supplier and I was told that plate was made to be weldable rather than machineable. Bar was made to be machineable, and not weldable, and to make it machineable a small measure of (I think) sulphur was added. So some bar was obtained and found to machine beautifully.

This was up here in Australia, so it may only apply here, although apparently Australia hasn't made stainless steel for decades, or so I have been told.

Happy New Year and cheers!!

Bill

I've just had a look at my motors and the cylinder holding down screws are 1.25" long, not 1.75" as stated on my set of drawings. This may make the cap head screws easier to obtain!!.

Also, a couple of weekends ago I started the running in process on #1, it had been delayed by other stuff. It goes very well!! Starts easily, fairly smooth, turns a 9" x 4" Taipan at about 11,400 rpm which is pretty good. There are a few issues with the needle valve assembly, so there have been further delays whilst I try and put that right!!

I'm envious that you have a Velo to polish!! One of my favourite bikes!!

All the best

Bill

Two things....

1/ Where I did my apprenticeship, at Saunders Roe (later became BHC) East Cowes IOW. The machine shop was about 25...30 feet away from the sea wall. The company designed and built a large mill to machine the wing spars for the Princess flying boat, the mill had a bed 60 odd feet long, but only about two feet wide. This machine was installed in the corner of the building nearest the sea wall. When I was in the Millwrights dept I had to do some work on some equipment adjacent to this mill. My curiosity was aroused by the tide tables on the wall near the machine. I asked my boss, George the full time machine shop maintenance man about the tide tables and he explained....due to the proximity of the sea the machine bed moved up and down dependant on the tide state, there was only one guy who knew how to make accurate parts. He depended on the tide tables, and as the cutter traversed the bed, the cutter height had to be adjusted to suit the tide state. He did this with chalk marks on the bed with arrows to indicate "up" or "down" and a number to indicate dimension change. The expert had retired before my time, but was called back when there was a need. The last job was Vickers Valiant wing spars, apparently there was a giant corporate sigh of relief when the Valiant was scrapped!!

2/ I also worked at Vosper Thornycroft at their Southampton yard. The yard was established in the 1870s, the centenary of the yard was celebrated whilst I was there. In the machine shop the was a huge lathe designed purely to machine propeller shafts for destroyers. The whole yard knew when this machine was being used as there was a very low frequency rumble which could be heard and felt all over the yard

The Saunders Roe/BHC and Vosper Thornycroft sites where I worked are now pretty much closed. They both seem to be car parks......

cheers

Bill

On a slightly different scale, one of the top welders where I used to work, cut a coke can open and made a flat sheet, then cut that in half, so he ended up with two pieces of al. alloy sheet about 150mm x 60mm x 0.2mm thick. He then welded to two sheets back together to form one piece about 150mm x 120mm x 0.2mm thick.

Well I was impressed!!

cheers

Bill

My most used lathe is a Sieg C3. The chuck guard was removed the first time I used the faceplate, but the switch and associated wiring stayed in place until I had the lathe apart, when the switch and wiring were removed and replaced by a wire link on the PCB. I sometimes use a bit of sheet polycarbonate, if the chips are hot and/or dirty.

cheers

Bill

I was able to get 6BA socket head screws from GWR Fasteners, at least for the bearing housing and backplates. They no longer list the longer (1.25"??) cylinder retaining screws, afraid I cannot remember where I got mine. I've just had a look at the engines and mine are definitely 6BA SHCS.

cheers

Bill

The toolholders and toolpost are Siegs design, they do different sizes for different size lathes. They work moderately well but are not as good as some of the better quality QCTPs.

cheers

Bill

Both of mine used a machined from the solid crankpin. They were finished as well as I could do. Finished up with a "poor mans ground finish"....emery sticks and oil!! To use a pressed in needle roller would be somewhat better from a performance point of view, but there are technical issues, the crankweb needs to be a lot thicker, I've heard a minimum of 1.2 times the pin diameter, to ensure that the pin is well supported. However, some of my commercial modern highish performance 2.5cc motors use a 4.0mm diameter crankpin, which would "only" require a 4.8 or 5.0mm thick web. Theoretically. Then you have to answer the question "....Is this a Nalon Viper??" !!

Chrome plating various bits would be very nice, but introduces yet another layer of complexity as any plating would need grinding or at least honing/lapping.

You are spot on about the mess that cast iron makes, I recently finished a carriage and compound slide for a small (70mm centre height) lathe. This required a lot of machining, although I cleaned up after every session, (sometimes after every cut!), and took care with chip shields etc, the cast iron dust got everywhere.

best of luck!

cheers

Bill