Member postings for DMB

There are more than one ME/MEW advertiser who frequently advertise blacking chemicals but unfortunately, cannot name them off top of head.

search internet-you never know!

Hullo Terryd,

You are probably right - Stainless doesnt like seawater. I once read a corrosion article about Stainless screws and boltshaving  been used on a wooden yacht and it was found that where they were hidden from sight inside the wood and permanently wet, they developed patches of corrosion which would eat the bolt away rather quickly until it failed so I understand Bronze is back in favour.

John.

Hi All,

Soft Solder Flux. I have not yet tried it but someone "at the club" recommended a flux which he said really does work on brass although the makers say its for copper tube in the plumbing industry; Wickes Active Paste Flux.John

Hi David,

I`m going Fri.  Have pre-ordered items from various traders to collect.

Merry Xmas & Happy Hogmanay!

John

Hi All,

Having said what I have in last post, I try to keep to one or other system as required by what`s offered on drawing/in book, rather than constantly trying to convert.

I think the hardest work on say, loco-building, is coping with a drawing which says 16G

brass sheet in stock is 1/16" and the angle to join it is say, 2mm thick. To find length of screw/rivet needed to join them, I would reduce everything to decimal parts of an inch.

John.  

Hi All,

I have a cork notice board in my workshop weith various notes drawing-pinned on, mainly laminated to keep `em clean.

Possibly of interest in the metric/imp section is something I cribbed from I cannot remember where;-

3 Horizontal lines, the first marked "inches" and reads left to right, .39  .79  1.18  1.57  1.97  2.36  2.76  3.15  3.54  3.94  4.33  4.72

Second line; 1  2  3    4 consecutively to 12

Third line reads "cm" (centimetres) 2.54  5.08  7.62  10.16  12.70  15.24  17.78  20.32 

22.86  25.40  27.94  30.48

Obviously, in the vertical, the .39 is directly above "1" in next lower line and in turn, directly above "2.54" in the bottom line.

Suppose you want to know what 6cm is, in inches. Look @ "6" in middle row and read

up to top row = 2.36 inches.

What`s 8" in metric? Look @ "8" in middle row again and read down to bottom row =

23.32cm/203.2mm

How easy is this.

ady,

Overnight flash rusting DOES take place on unprotected ferrous items. It used to happen a long time ago in my wooden shed workshop, cured by a number of precautions.

I am told that the London tube train rails rust overnight before first morning train.

BTW, its been snowing very fine powdery stuff for hours down here in Brighton and still only an inch or so and main roads black slush.

John

LBSC once recommended the compressed air escape from drain valves method, I think it was a loco. with `tween frames steam chests.

wots this? Bogies boogying around? ha ha!

eriously, check wheel gauge against track gauge as it sounds like flanges too tight fit `tween rails causing them to ride up sides of curved rail and jump off top.

How about lathe tools from the exhibition with hard tips apparently `brazed` on - with chewing gum?  `Cos they fell of as soon as they were shown to the work.

 

Hi All,

I swear a lot (in my workshop) about being such a greedy idiot to buy such cheap rubbish. Many years ago I bought various items at exhibitions, e. g.,  boxeed set of BA taps & dies which contained  something like no 7 BA taps but doubled - up 2BA, to fill the `holes` up. The vendor gets a box out from under the stand, opens it to show its full and then youre stuck with it, when at home you find the fraud. I also bought from another regular well known stall holder, a surface gauge which appeared to be OK til I put the scriber against a rule and the scriber and all its supporting adjustment mechanism promptly moved backwards!  However tightly it is fixed, the whole mechanism still moves. I have never worked out how to correct this and club members didnt know either. I have some nice Dormer drills with a shiny band on the shank where the size is very clearly stamped. I also have many drills, all black, very badly stamped, so bad I have to resort to a strong illumination at an angle + strong magnification to read a lot of them especially the smaller drills. This malaise seemed to start a few years ago when buying Metric drills but more recently to the old Imperial sizes. These drills again came from prominent ME suppliers. No doubt they are keeping their purchasing prices down by sourcing from the far east then selling to `us` at a high price and trousering the diff. Last week on a diff. thread I described the dodgy bandsaw that had to have a mod to stop the blade from keep jumping off the wheels. I could go on and at the same time praise my Myford lathe, Fobco Drill and the mill, all have given complete satisfaction albeit at a price. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hullo all,

 Ref Niloch, 9/11, the main picture on Machine Mart`s site, of their trolley. This is as used satisfactorily for sometime now by Worthing Model Engineers, who have actually modified it with an extension to the table and fitted rails to the table. 

John.

Hi all,

I checked some usual ME suppliers and either they apparently did not stock, or were too expensive, for my want. Have ended up ordering  3/4" AF Hex. x 12" Phos. Bronze bar from College Engineering, £11.45 + VAT, in my old copy of their advert and arranging to pick it up from next months ME exbn. - not far away - I live in Brighton. Do you all think this is probably a reasonable price?

Have also ordered for collection from xbn., from Tracy Tools, 5/16" x 40T Tap £3 and Die £4. Nearly fell off chair when I saw prices from some advertisers and since my wants will get limited use, I thought thats all I need to pay. About the most polite remark made by those who know me is that I`m tight!! But why spend  £35 (incl. carriage) when a mere £7 will do?

John.

Hullo Clive,

I have a habit of doing what I call "looking over the fence to see what others are up to."

By this I mean that I will often pick up woodworking or other hobby mags in newsagents to see if there are any bright ideas in other hobbies which could be useful in model engineering. Sometimes I actually `push the boat out` and BUY the mag! Anyway, I have learned one possible reason why my far eastern bandsaw occasionally `drops` its blade. The woodworking version by well - known makes have rubber tyres on the wheels, but my metal - cutting one doesn`t. I have also seen plenty of recommendations to buy/make a BS with the biggest wheels you can as the blade doesn`t then have to bend so much and will last a lot longer. Another is to splash out on a decent blade costing bigger pennies - like most things quality pays in the end. I kept having the blade jamming between the roller bearing guides because said guides wre free to move sideways due to excessive clearance. This was cured by turning up large fat washers to fill the clearance.

John.  

Sorry, can spell! Previous post said "cast ali. frem" but this was meant to be "frame",

Do you have to have concrete beams? Many tracks have A shaped support pillars topped by all sorts of beams including wood. Worthing Model Engineers use 2 channel steel sections laid on sides with the `bottom` of the channels back to back. I dont know how the beams were bent. The passenger car bogies (cast ali. - frem) have an outboard steel drop - arm bolted on with a right - angled stubby bar which travels inside the channel, but not normally touching it. This arrangement serves as a very effective anti - tip device. I am anformed that the track was not originally planned in this way and that  a member responsible for devising the anti - tip thought up this simple brilliant solution.

Solving the channel bending prob. would make a simple system for other tracks without recourse to many additional bars and tubes of steel added on under the track with the increased difficulty in grass cutting under the track.

Just a thought but hope it helps someone.

John.

I had a spot of `bovver` trying to buy tickets. A red box kept appearing saying something like, "if you registered before Nov.`09, need to put in new password." I eventually did and got what I wanted.

Perhaps Baz should try again.

John.

Hi all,

This is a response to Mark Dickinsons post of 25th; "In the 1960`s we took `acid` to make the world seem weird now the world is weird and we take Prozac to make it `normal`!"

Hi all,

 

A long time ago I purchased a Clarkson milling chuck in its box and 4 Imperial sized collets. My reasoning was that all the exbn. tool stands were flogging 2nd hand endmills and slotcutters in Imperial sizes in large quantities,probably because they were being got rid of by industry on the cheap to tool dealers. I thought that I could buy metric collets later, if and when needed/forced to. This has worked well, since I am still using above collets and cutters for most designs in the mags are still Imp. and it doesnt of course matter whether a 5/8D cutter is used purely for fast metal removal or if its 16mmD.

In the past I have cobbled-up Tee nuts and studs + odd washers to do whatever job was in hand. Now I plan to put all those bits on one side in a spares box for when/if I need extra clamping. At the present, I am making a proper set of studs, nuts and extensions, all in 8mm thread, so I can simply buy hex. nuts to fit tops of the studs.

Likewise with any thing else where I think about future needs when only metric nuts and bolts, screws will be easily available, I now choose metric threads.

The exception of course, is on my models where I will continue with whichever thread has been traditionally used.

John.