Member postings for Samsaranda

I have had problems in machining some of the cast iron components for my Allchin TE, it wasn’t just chilling on the surface, there was extreme hardness extending to quite some depth in the castings which made them unmachineable. These were sizeable castings, I gave them a few days in the base of our woodburner in the lounge, this made very little difference so I bit the bullet and ordered in some billets of cast iron of the necessary diameter and made the parts from scratch. I have previously read of problems encountered by other modellers when dealing with the supplier in respect of exchanging poor quality castings with them, their attitude wasn’t helpful. Castings that have surface chilling are relatively easy to deal with, you just need to remove the surface skin, but poor quality castings that have deep areas of real hardness and with hard inclusions are no good and only fit for the scrap bin. I was lucky with my castings it was possible, with a lot of extra machining, I was able to make them from cast iron bar, albeit some was 100 mm diameter, it was a joy to machine and the tool went through like a knife in butter. Dave W

The AVM lathe looks a serious bit of kit, I am jealous. Dave W

I had the same problem on my Honda Jazz about a year ago, it has stop/start technology so required the much more expensive battery for the technology. I just changed the battery over, there was no instructions in the car handbook that it required any special fitting procedures, my battery change was just straightforward and everything worked as it should do, maybe your Fiesta would be the same. Dave W

Today we had arranged for Lakeland to collect an ironing board that had been replaced because it arrived damaged, they informed us that Evri would collect the return item, we received an email from Evri indicating that they would call between 12.30 and 13.30. At 12.30 we received another email from Evri that they had called and no one was in, this was untrue we have been in all day waiting for them to pick up the item, and we also have a Ring Doorbell so anyone who sets foot inside our front garden is automatically recorded, the camera showed that no one had been anywhere near our front garden. I telephoned Lakeland to complain, they checked the tracking information of the Evri courier tasked with the pick up, apparently the closest he had been to our address was 2.8 miles, surprise surprise. I conveyed to the Lakeland operative what I thought of their choice to use Evri as carriers, I wasn’t very complimentary about Evri’s performance based on our past experiences with them, I said to Lakeland that their choice of carrier was a poor choice; they rearranged the return to take place tomorrow and changed the carrier to Fed Ex. The performance of Hermes/Evri has certainly not improved since their name change, they still seem to rely on a number of individuals using their private cars to deliver parcels, you wonder how many of these arrangements are covered with proper business class insurance, I feel sorry for anyone involved in an accident with an “uninsured “ driver, been there done, that it’s a real pain. Dave W

Duraphos is advertised on the net, it is apparently a Firearms Finish, the website is American and lists the prices in dollars, doesn’t appear cheap though. Dave W

In my youth I came across a similarly skilled craftsman in our local town, his workshop was very stark and basic, just like those featured in the videos from the Indian sub continent. All the local garages used to send their rebores for him to do along with crankshaft regrinds and other difficult weld repairs. He operated in an old Mews Stable building that had a cobbled floor from the days when it housed horses. When you went there you would always find a number of reboring machines scattered around and working away on car cylinder blocks. I took him the cylinder block from my old side valve Ford Popular, a 50’s vintage car, it needed a rebore because a ring had broken up and had damaged the cylinder. He rebored all four cylinders, supplied the oversize pistons and remetalled the main and big end bearings, reground the valves and set their clearances and supplied the gaskets necessary to re-assemble the engine, the cost astounded me it was only £22 10 shillings, this was in 1966. The gentleman was a highly skilled old style craftsman, he reminded me of “ Sir John “ and his expertise with weld repairing motor shafts. Dave W

Old Mart,

I was aware of the Royal Mail regulations but they are at best confusing and in some places seem to contradict themselves by saying certain items are prohibited but in another area the same items appear permitted. I think our local Post Office person has the right interpretation of the regs, he refuses point blank to accept any batteries or equipment with them fitted. Dave W

In respect of Royal Mail and the carriage of batteries I bet you couldn’t get a package containing batteries past our local village postmaster, he refuses point blank to accept any batteries no matter what they are contained in, having witnessed how volatile batteries can be I am with him all the way.

in respect of the batteries that my wife uses in her cochlear implant, they are very expensive, costing into three figures each, and until the Royal Mail refused to carry them they always included a postage paid envelope to return the old batteries, apparently there was some value in recycling them for some purpose, but now the patient is asked to dispose of them and any recycling value is lost. (This is a private contractor who supplies the NHS with spares and repairs for the cochlear implants so there is an impact indirectly on public funds in that this now increases the overall contract costs). Dave W

A lot of batteries can have the potential to explode, that is discharge rapidly and violently, Lithium cells are prone to catch fire spontaneously, hence the Air Carriage regs concerning their exclusion from enclosed baggage holds on aircraft. Royal Mail will not carry any batteries in mail, any equipment containing batteries or just batteries on their own must be consigned through a carrier who will handle packages that are correctly packaged with all relevant labelling. My wife has a cochlear implant which uses small rechargeable batteries, previously sent via Royal Mail Special Delivery now have to be sent via DPD. Dave W

Didn’t happen to me but a fellow cadet, I was a member of our schools CCF and every summer we all went away to summer camp. This particular year we were in the wilds of Norfolk, accommodated in Nissan huts miles away from civilisation, we were preparing to go on a night exercise and had been issued with I think it was 5 of blank rounds for our ancient 303 Lee Enfield rifles. There was one of our number who was always showing off, his party trick was to see how long that he could hold his rifle level with his shoulder with just one arm. His rifle was loaded with his 5 blanks and when his strength gave out the rifle descended to a vertical position and ended up with the muzzle on the toe of his regulation hob nailed army boot which we were all wearing. Unfortunately when holding the rifle up for his demonstration of personal strength he was holding it in the area of the trigger guard, his trigger finger was curled around the trigger, as the muzzle struck his toe his finger caused the trigger to operate and the gun went off, he didn’t have the safety catch applied. Blank cartridges do not have a bullet fitted to the cartridge case but instead inside the case is a dense cardboard wad, this wad was driven through the leather of his boot and was embedded half way through his foot, which was a mess. He was lucky that his stupidity only injured himself it could have been a lot worse . Dave W

When I was stationed at RAF Stanley in the Falklands in Jan 85, boredom was a problem, we worked 6 days a week and had to be ready in case Argentina decided to try again. Going through our stock of aerosols of dye penetrant and developer we found a lot that were well beyond the best before date so we decided to experiment with them. Our section had a large minefield behind it and on the edge of that we had an incinerator consisting of a 50 gallon drum with holes punched in the sides. We lit a nice little fire inside the drum and then proceeded to drop the out of date aerosols into the fire. After a short period of time the aerosols would explode with a loud thud and the debris from the cans was propelled about 50 feet skywards, needless to say we kept our distance to avoid the shrapnel that was caused.

Another incident happened one sunny day when it was very quiet and peaceful, adjacent to our section was a ground equipment workshop and positioned adjacent was a port a cabin block of toilets. Every three months the base was subject to a three day exercise when we all adopted a war posture and played soldiers. During these exercises to make them seem real plenty of thunder flashes were used; one enterprising young airman managed to squirrel one away and kept it for use later, definitely a practice that was frowned upon. Well on the day in question there was an almighty bang which came from the portacabin toilets, he had set it off in the toilets, and because it was in a confined space the noise was deafening, everybody was galvanised into action thinking we were under attack from Argentina, it quickly became apparent that it was a one off explosion and the culprit was soon identified, the roasting that he got from his Warrant Officer was something else, I think he behaved for the rest of his time in the Falklands. Dave W

It is rather ironic that the USA in the 1880’s I think it was, recognised and adopted the metre standard but since then have steadfastly stuck to imperial measurements in their engineering. Dave W

Just to digress there appears to be a proliferation of lottery’s appearing on the internet and being featured on Facebook that offer expensive watches, Rolex and Omega etc, as prizes, also lotteries featuring unique collectors cars worth fair sums of money. These must be scams particularly as so many are appearing at the same time. Dave W

The Engineerium was a museum that was on my list to visit, sadly it closed before I could make it there, a sad loss to the world of engineering. Dave W

I think it’s fairly clear that consumers are being ripped off by an industry that is set up to service shareholders ! Dave W

When I was an NDT Technician we regularly used radioactive isotopes of much greater intensity than the one featured in this case, our sources were similar in size and were stored inside a depleted uranium containment. They were portable and were carried in normal road vehicles when moved between sites. Our isotopes were used typically for radiographic inspection of aircraft engines, the isotope placed on one side of the engine and the film on the other side, we then retreated to a safe distance whilst the exposure took place. The information filtering out about the incident in Oz seems to point to extremely careless handling of a piece of equipment that requires great care, its container appeared to have suffered much neglect also. Radioactive sources like these are being moved continually by road everywhere, hospitals and industry mainly, we have to have faith in respect of those involved having been trained correctly and behaving responsibly. Dave W

I joined the Air Force in the early 60’s and was posted to a transportation unit, we moved large aircraft loads by road; this meant that we spent a lot of time staying in lorry driver digs when we were out on the road. I remember one such accommodation that was near Colchester, it was winter and we had temperatures of about minus ten at night, this accommodation had plenty of rads distributed around the room but the owner had obviously tried to prevent the cost of running the heating being excessive and he had crimped the pipes with what was probably a G cramp, the result was that first rad on the circuit was barely lukewarm and the others stone cold because the flow was severely restricted. It was one of the coldest nights that I spent out on the road, that night all of us on the team slept fully clothed in our uniforms and wet weather gear, it was freezing. Yes crimping up the copper pipe will severely restrict the flow but as others have commented will it or won’t it crack in the process, you may be lucky but it will be a gamble. Dave W

Spent yesterday tackling a leak on my workshop roof, it was leaking from a box gutter that was where two existing sheds were side by side and converted into one building forming my workshop. The box gutter had been formed using Sterling board and then a couple of layers of torch on felt. My son in law, who is a lead worker, suggested that the felt in the box gutter would be better replaced with lead, the gutter is two metres long about 100 mm deep and 260 mm wide. When we exposed the Sterling board we found a fair amount of rot so we had to cut back and replace more than intended, no problem though it is now rebuilt with 19 mm exterior ply. The gutter is now lined with lead and well and truly solid, hopefully leaks all sorted now. The only drawback to working outside on a roof in January is the cold, it was bitter cold and only 2 degrees C, we didn’t get finished until the sun went down so getting even colder then. Dave W

A few years ago my neighbour had a Renault and he drove through some floodwater and the engine stopped. It had ingested a considerable amount of water because the air intake was so low down in the engine compartment, the engine was totally wrecked, I believe the water caused hydraulicaling in the cylinders and the engine was not repairable. Dave W

I wouldn’t use a sponge in place of the proper air filter it will inevitably be sucked into the engine, proper air filters have reinforcements that prevent this happening. A drive to the dealers to get a replacement wouldn’t hurt the engine, it would only be potentially harmful if you decided to run without permanently. Dave W