Member postings for Samsaranda

I think half a gnat’s is probably all that is required. 😇.
Dave W

Nigel, I know just how frustrated you are with your pollen filter, I previously owned a Renault Modus, to change a headlight bulb you had to remove the whole front panel of the bodywork, labour charge by a Renault garage was in excess of £100. All I can say is French cars have always been “quirky”, moved on from Renault to Honda’s, so much more logical and so far with three Hondas nothing has required attention outside of the normal services.
Dave W

Witnessed a ring injury to a finger, was when I was in the Air Force, we had mobile hydraulically operated access platforms, generically known as “safety raisers”, we were working at some height on the wing of a Brittania aircraft, the environment was very oily and slippery. One of my team was descending the ladder on the safety raiser when his shoes slipped off the metal rungs due to the oil and his ring on his finger got caught at the top of the ladder, this meant that for a moment in time his whole weight was pulling his finger through his ring. When we got him down the whole of the flesh on his ring finger was neatly rolled up to where his fingernail was, needless to say he was in agony with a very traumatic injury, the medics repaired it by rolling the flesh back into place and stitching it up. Up until that time I used to permanently wear a signet ring, thar day it came off and never went back on again, I used to then wear it on a chain round my neck. In respect of wearing gloves around machinery, the only gloves I wear are welding gloves when welding Or nitrile gloves when using cleaning solvents, when you have seen and dealt with a work related traumatic injury it stays with you always.
Dave W

Zeolite also used by fish keepers for removing ammonia from the water, the ammonia being waste product excreted by the fish, too much dissolved ammonia will burn the fishes gills and also build up to toxic levels.
Dave W

I understand that rust will appear on the surface of stainless steel if the surface oxide coat, which prevents chemical reaction taking place with the underlying stainless alloy taking place, is breached chemically. A good example of this is where stainless cooks knives put into a dishwasher will sometimes be left with rust spots in random places, this doesn’t happen every time they are washed but only when something chemically breaches the stainless protective oxide layer. Metallurgists will be able to explain much better than I can.
Dave W

My Champion V20 mill is sitting on the supplied metal stand, I was less than impressed with the lack of rigidity of the stand. It didn’t improve after it was bolted to the concrete, the setup wobbled like the proverbial jelly but not to the extent that it would topple. I resorted to fixing a support at the back of the stand ,securely bolted to the wall, it improved it but did not give the rigidity that I would be happy with, at some point in the future I plan on constructing a substantial wooden stand instead of the flexible tin box it currently sits on. Lee hope you manage to find some way to get the stability you are seeking.
Dave W

Apart from model engineering one of my other hobbies is clay pigeon shooting, on the wall of our clubhouse is a very relevant cartoon which says, “When anything happens to me I worry that my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them”.
Dave W

My chuck keys live on top of the headstock, thankfully my current lathe has a chuck guard that prevents the lathe being started with the chuck key in situ, bad memories of the day in tech college, during the 60’s , when I started the lathe with the key in the chuck, do not wish to go there again.
Dave W

What did I do today, well not today but yesterday and nothing to do with engineering, I got my first hive of bees. Last summer I constructed a beehive, not a conventional one but a top bar hive, beekeepers will know what I mean, and tried unsuccessfully to lure in a swarm of bees, problem was I didn’t finish the hive until mid July and it was a bit late in the season to catch a passing swarm. A friend of mine decided during the winter that he was downsizing from 4 to 3 hives so I could have the bees from the spare, we had planned for the exchange to happen late May, lockdown permitting. Yesterday I got a phone call from my friend, the bees in the spare hive had swarmed and he captured them and they were now available and ready for transporting. So as both of us are self isolating we arranged he would leave the box on his drive and I would pick them up. Well bees successfully transported to my house, only one escaped in transit inside the car but that was no problem. Moving the bees from their transit box into the hive was a baptism of fire for me, I had studied a lot of theory about beekeeping, but that doesn’t prepare you for the first time you handle bees especially when you have a whole swarm to coax into a new hive. Well I made one fundamental mistake, I left a small gap with the zips on my hood, I felt a sting on my chin and then became aware of a bee on the inside of my hood, removed said bee and made sure the zips were then fully closed. Well the bees successfully transferred and the stragglers left outside soon found the entrance and were all inside the hive by nightfall. It was quite daunting dealing with a full swarm all on my own for a first encounter with live bees but I was understandably chuffed to achieve success with only one sting, all part of the learning process, another enjoyable hobby on my list to look forward to now.
Dave W

Stephen, I run a dehumidifier in my workshop, it is a small unit mounted on the wall with a drain to outside, I have it on a time switch to coincide with the economy 7 off peak rate. I also run a small oil filled radiator, 750 watts, which is set to keep the temperature about 10 degrees C, the radiator is able to run 24 hours a day but the thermostat keeps the running costs down. I have found that this setup keeps humidity at bay and when you need to use the workshop it doesn’t take long to reach a reasonable working temp by switching up the radiator output. Running costs are quite reasonable, however we are large users of other power in our household as I run two large ponds with pumps and air pumps etc, 360 days a year, costs are a lot lower since I installed solar panels 18 months ago.
Dave W

To sidetrack the subject, Dave’s (SOD) mention of using an angle grinder indoors brings back memories of when I used one to cut a doorway indoors, it was many years ago but I still have to tread carefully when mentioning angle grinders within earshot of my long suffering wife.
Dave W

My apologies if I offended you Rod, I am very into wildlife preservation, we have plenty of species inhabiting our large garden and in past years have had hedgehogs breeding there amongst many others. I just get frustrated with Gulls though with their invasions that are noisy and messy. I agree humans are responsible for the Gulls behaviour as we have modified their behaviour and moved them from their natural habitats, so perhaps I need to direct my frustrations at our fellow man.
Dave W

It should be Rod. 👹

Dave W

Don’t know where on the South Coast you live Vintage Engineer but I live in East Sussex and we certainly haven’t lost our gulls, they are as always present and squawking. They are a real pest nesting on flat roofs and being super aggressive once their young start to become mobile. I cannot understand why they are still protected they are a perpetual nuisance.
Dave W

When working on aircraft and countersinking rivet holes we used a countersinking tool with the windy drill which was basically an adjustable depth stop that had very fine adjustment which accommodated different sizes of countersinking bits . The best way to control the size of the countersink is to use some type of depth stop.
Dave W

My grandfather fought at Gallipoli, he was in the British Army and was lucky he survived the First World War. He left the Army in 1920 and went on to have a very productive life passing away in his eighties, he never spoke of his experiences like so many veterans of the First World War.
Dave W

Larry not all traditional hardware shops have disappeared we have one locally, they have always had what I have wanted no matter how obscure. The shop is absolutely crammed with stock, the aisles between the shelves are so narrow you can’t get two people passing. If the item you want isn’t on the shelves then you can bet it is stored in their large basement. They have stock in there that I haven’t seen for years, I would just say it takes a certain type of eccentric person to run an establishment like that and the owner of this one certainly fits the profile. Unfortunately these establishments are now few and far between, the victims of the growth of the large superstores and society is the poorer for it. Apologies for sidetracking the thread.
Dave W

It seems our leaders may have carried out the planning for a pandemic but omitted to allocate any funds, a bit like arranging your house insurance then deciding not to pay the premium and hoping nothing will happen to your house.
Dave W

I remember my Dad keeping chickens at the bottom of our garden, most houses in our street used to keep chickens. We also used to get fresh rabbits, you had to be careful eating them and spit out the bits of lead shot, cooking the rabbit with lead in it frowned on today. Also remember Walls tinned sausages, my memory was they tasted great but the reality was probably totally different. Also Fray Bentos tinned steak and kidney pies, still available today I think. When I was in the Air Force we used to get very tasty steak and kidney puddings, commonly referred to as “baby’s heads”. When I was still at school I remember we used to get Cod liver oil and Malt, which used to come in a big brown jar, far more palatable the just cod liver oil on its own. In those days Victory V lozenges were a completely different recipe, they contained chloroform which you could get addicted to, I was always eating them, recipe was changed to remove the chloroform.
Dave W

Wife ordered some plants online from Jersey, didn’t hear anything for a while, not unusual because they despatch only when plants are ready, received an email on the 10th of Marchl that they had been despatched, they didn’t arrive until 25th , meanwhile wife was despairing that they would all be shrivelled up and dead, they weren’t they had survived remarkably well. These are extraordinary times and we just have to accept things as they are, makes you wonder how everything will ever go back to what we considered “normal”.
Dave W

Edited By Samsaranda on 21/04/2020 14:14:21