Member postings for Tony Jeffree

When I went to Uni, I was driving a Heinkel bubblecar, and all of my worldly goods, including the hi fi, fitted in it with room to spare. I think the largest load it ever carried was myself, 3 (student) passengers, and a guitar. I have to say that the oversteer, which was always present on these machines but was normally manageable, became somewhat alarming!

Engineering note: the primary cause of the oversteer on the Heinkel and its RHD variant, the Trojan, was the rubber mountings for the engine/trailing arm/rear wheel assembly. There were 3 mounting points in a triangle - one at the top and one either side at the bottom. These were designed to be flexible to absorb some of the vibration from the 200cc single pot engine, but also allowed the back wheel to be flexed off-line when cornering. Normally you corrected for this automatically, so while hacking round a left-hander (for example), the steering wheel ended up being rotated significantly right of centre, and you didn't notice. A bit like the way speedway motorbike riders take a left hand corner with the back wheel hung out and the handlebars turned approx. at right angles to the right. All good fun!

That is indeed correct - sodium chlorate is also a poison. So don't put sodium chlorate on yer fish & chips - or you will likely find that you have had your chips.

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 23/08/2017 17:21:39

I have to say I wouldn't choose to do it if there was a better option, but with guests appearing in the cottages later today, and our house dependent on the same septic tank, there wasn't a lot of option! At least now I have a pretty good idea where the problem is likely to occur!

That is a good plan - I will investigate.

One of the joys of living out in the wilds of Mull is that when the plumbing fails, you have to fix it yourself. The main drainage from our holiday cottages was backed up - much bubbling in the shower when you flushed the loo, which doesn't bode well - so on with the grubby jeans & gather a few tools; a screwdriver to open the inspection hatches, a hose pipe, a set of drain rods (bought after the last time this happened), and a submersible pump. The inspection chamber next to the septic tank proved to be full - so the blockage was in the short (2 foot) pipe between the chamber and the tank. So in with the pump to empty out the inspection chamber (plus all the pipework and chambers backed up behind it). Then attack the problem with the drain rods with the 4" rubber disc on the end. Non-trivial to get the rod into the hole to start with - the exit pipe is about 3' down into the inspection chamber, so not the best angle to go at. Much pushing and shoving and eventually the drain rod/plunger goes round the bend and I managed to get a good pumping action going that seemed to improve matters. Retrieved the plunger and shoved it down the vertical breather pipe for the septic tank - the exit pipe from the inspection chamber joins this vertical pipe about 3' down - and met significant resistance. Gave it a bit of welly and cleared the blockage - turned out to be a large "fat berg" that had formed where the drain feeds into the tank. Very nasty. All flowing freely now...

...and I am much refreshed after a long sh- sh- shower.

I used brass plates and soldered in brass blanking pins

My own ventures into building dividing heads resulted in this design:

http://www.jeffree.co.uk/pages/divheadmk2.html

A blatant crib of the GHT approach, but using 30:1 ratio worm wheels to give "only" 1/100th of a degree of resolution, and small enough to be used on a Taig lathe cross-slide with the spindle at centre height. My use of it as a manual dividing head ended once I had drilled all the division plates; once I had built the stepper-motor attachment, there was never a good reason to use a manual dividing head from that point on. I did attempt to cut a gear wheel using manual division after I had finished all the plates, but inevitably, I lost concentration and cut a "thin" tooth. At that point I realised that life was just way to short to do manual division.

This is exactly why I built my DivisionMaster.

Not exactly a model, or engineering, but it does involve a workshop. I've been working on a 12' rowing boat kit for the last few weeks & making good progress:

The bottom is glassesd and coated in resin, ready for sanding, filling, and painting. Still work to do on the inside - more pics when I turn it over again.

Very nasty. Cyano seems to react badly on contact with some plastics - for example the plastic used in fleeces. Gets very hot & emits toxic smoke.

The X stands for Xcruciating...

Whatever it is, it is a pain in the a$$

It is vitally important to get you split your infinitives welded up before further damage is caused. One minute it is just a split infinitive. And the next minute, you will be starting a sentence with a conjunction...and it is down hill from there.

For a complete treatise on common grammar errors (in a humorous vein, of course), see:

http://www.creativeteachingsite.com/humorgrammar.htm

Doesn't surprise me - many papers are finished using minerals such as calcium carbonate or clay, and so will be abrasive.

Indeed...and the paper disc will cut skin far more easily than a conventional abrasive cutting disc.

It has an exothermic reaction with polyester fabrics too.

We do indeed - we can't just pop down to Be and Queue anymore...

Thanks!