Member postings for Samsaranda

From your comments so far Ian I think you are flogging a dead horse, sorry chop saw.

Dave W

I see that according to Silly Old Dufffer the state should have stamped on me many years ago for my stand on my children’s well-being, sorry to disappoint still alive and well, well I was the last time I checked and my three children made it through life successfully. 😇.

Dave W

Pretty certain that our exposure to the childhood diseases, I had measles and chickenpox in the 50’s, has given our immune systems a boost over those that have been brought up in a semi sterile environment such as youngsters today are, and yes we were sent out to play with the kids who had these diseases in order to get it over with as it was a sure thing you were going to get them sooner or later. I have concerns over wether vaccinations that are the norm today are the way to go, I believe that natural exposure to diseases is the way to condition our immune systems gently, having a large number of vaccinations in your formative years is flooding an undeveloped immune system with huge loadings that wouldn’t occur naturally. I speak with some experience on the subject as when my first daughter was vaccinated at 3 months old she had a series of convulsions and was left partially paralysed, this was later classified as vaccine damage. In respect of further vaccinations of my affected daughter and our two further daughters I asked a consultant at hospital whether we should have the vaccinations carried out and his words were, you have one child already vaccine damaged if they were his children he would not go down that route. His rationale was that there may be a genetic issue within our family that had caused the extreme reaction to vaccination, if you did not vaccinate then the chances of suffering the disease were a risk but the reaction to the disease may well be mild whereas if you vaccinate then there is instantly an exposure and statistically you were at risk of perhaps serious reaction due to the concentrated exposure from vaccination. The affected daughter is now in her fifties and still disabled to a degree but has her own family. When we chose not to allow vaccination of our children all those years ago we were harassed by the medical authorities and the children were put under pressure by the schools to have the vaccinations, once the children became adults we handed them the responsibility for their own vaccinations. Danny, I used to visit Shoeburyness when I was in the Air Force, we used to take aircraft and materials to the ranges on Foulness Island for experiments with ordinance, my overriding memory of Foulness Island is that it was the coldest place I have worked at in the UK, the wind blew straight in off the North Sea, bitterly cold.

Dave W

Ian, it is a sickening feeling when you see the magic smoke coming from our tools, recently had the same with my Bosch mains drill whilst drilling some hefty holes in brick. The drill had given me many years of service (abuse) so I cut my losses and scrapped it, the replacement was another Bosch drill, I was so impressed with the performance of its predecessor that I had no qualms with the same make again. I have a Lidl chop saw with which I am much impressed, fingers crossed that it’s reliability matches the Bosch drill. I think that today’s products are generally not cost effective to repair but saying that I recently bought a Silverline electric plane and that came complete with spare brushes, definitely not the norm nowadays. Probably worth checking the cable clamp as advocated by Alistair but beyond that the chop saw is probably destined for the graveyard.

Dave W

Mick, refreshing to hear from someone who has inside knowledge and experience of our justice system, I might add that your thoughts directly mirror those of my son in law who is a serving sergeant in the police, he has become so frustrated that the system is gradually disintegrating that he is counting the days, literally he has a calendar made out, till he can leave with his pension. It is a sorry state for our police to be in where those with experience and knowledge are so frustrated at not being able to police effectively, no wonder our society is disintegrating.

Dave W

This and other crimes are awarded community service as punishment, the theory being that the miscreants can in some way make recompense to society in general by carrying out community work. The theory has some merit but the reality is far different. A few years ago I was Churchwarden at our local church and the probation service who then organised community service agreed to send a number of those sentenced to community service to mow the grass in our rather large churchyard. Those detailed to carry out the task arrived on site, were briefed by a supervisor on what they had to do and provided with the mowers and petrol and the supervisor then left the site to go onto another group. As soon as the supervisor left the site the petrol was poured away and those remaining then focussed their attention on trying to break into the church to find something worth stealing. Needless to say we called a halt to accepting any further community service, our whole justice system appears to be in crisis with ineffective management from the top down. Unfortunately there are far too many do-gooders in our society who have too much influence in setting out our justice system. The current situation is a reflection of how broken our whole social system is, nothing is considered unless there is a profit at the end of the process. The austerity of the last ten years has accelerated the decline and problems our infrastructure is crumbling because of lack of investment. Sadly there was another example of extreme vandalism this last weekend when the Heathfield Agricultural Show here in East Sussex suffered an attack and the sidewalls of a number of large marquees were slashed during the night, causing many thousands of pounds worth of damage, inevitably insurance companies will pick up the bill and we will all pay through higher insurance premiums in the future.

Dave W

When I was in the Air Force, and on a unit carrying out major servicing of large transport aircraft, it was sometimes necessary to carry out repairs to the fibreglass air conditioning ducting in the aircraft, this meant visiting one of the servicing bays in the hangar which did fibreglass repairs for some resin to carry out the necessary repair. The personnel in the fibreglass bay would mix enough resin for your repair in a small cardboard box so that you could carry it to where you needed it. A favourite trick played on newbies was to mix the resin with twice the amount of hardener than was required, this considerably sped up the reaction the result was that by the time you got back to where you needed it, the box was literally smoking and so hot it was about to burst into flames, you only had one shot with this trick as newbies caught on that they had been set up. It is incredible how much heat can be generated with the reaction.

Dave W

Make sure the carriage is locked down as solid as you can get it.

Dave W

You need to eliminate or reduce the cause of your discomfort which is almost certainly caused by bending over your lathe or workbench. I suffered greatly until I moved my (bench) lathe onto a substantial, much higher bench and also raised my two workbenches to a much more comfortable height. I now suffer only if I spend prolonged hours in the workshop but that is probably age related more than poor posture while working.

Dave W

The secret of managing such days is realising early enough to stop before a major disaster and focus on another activity, well away from the workshop. I haven’t been able to crack this yet and only give up after having made a major faux pas.

Dave W

For finding cracks in brass cartridge cases I would assume the best method for detection would be a standard dye penetrant technique, very effective at showing fine hairline type cracks. Why would you be checking brass cartridge cases, I assume this is on used cartridges prior to reloading them?

Dave W

Colin, I await the debut of an electric Caterham 7.

Dave W

I needed a method of cutting steel and space in the workshop was a limiting factor so I discounted a band saw type of equipment and eventually chose a chop saw. I bought mine from Lidl when it was on offer, I had reservations about its capability but I needn’t have had, it is brilliant and cuts through steel like it is butter. I endorse Bricky’s comments about using it in proximity to windows, the steel sparks will weld themselves to glass, don’t ask how I found out.

Dave W

My daughter found a nearly new perching stool, domestic use type, on free cycle and thought that would suit Dad in his workshop. It is just the job and I can sit at the right height for my mill and lathe. Daughter is always coming up with useful items she finds on free cycle, a year ago she found a heated gilet that uses lithium batteries concealed in a pocket, the item was brand new, still in the manufacturers packaging, apparently someone bought it in Canada brought it back but never used it. Ideal for winter days when I go out clay pigeon shooting.

Dave W

PGK, many a true word is said in jest, EMP weaponry is a realistic threat that could cripple your adversaries and paralyse huge areas of population, best not contemplate such a scenario.

Dave W

Just to throw a thought into the EV mix, once all I.C. engined vehicles are no longer manufactured one assumes that the battlefields of the future will be amply provided with recharging stations such that tanks and logistic vehicles can continue to operate?

Dave W

It seems from the content of this posting that we are all more or less resigned to our transport going electric with its inevitable changes to our culture. There is one area which I fear will cause problems which may be difficult to solve, and that is if vehicle owners live in blocks of flats, or have garages with no prospect of power available or who have by necessity to rely on parking in the street, then on street charging will be inevitable. There has been much talk about the provision of on street charging being made available so it seems that it will happen, looking on the black side it means there will be numerous cars parked unattended but connected to charging points with a length of fairly hefty copper cable, the scrap industry will inevitably be swamped with scrap cables as the ne’er do wells harvest their spoils during the silent hours.

Dave W

Just to digress, the best science museum that I have visited is the Museum of Science and Industry located in Chicago, it is crammed full of first class exhibits. There is a reproduction of a coal mine located in the basement, reached via an elevator from the top floor, rigged to simulate a pit cage, very realistic. When you exit in the basement you are in a reconstructed coal mine complete with a pit railway system, it was so lifelike no expense had been spared. Another excellent exhibit is a captured German U-Boat located alongside the museum and reached via a tunnel which entered at one end of the vessel and you walk through the boat and using a Walkman commentary you are instructed on each area of operation in the boat. Just getting the U-Boat in position required lifting it from the adjacent lakeshore and winching it across a major highway which was closed for 22 hours while it took place. I believe that more expense on this exhibit has taken place as they have now housed it in its own exhibition hall. I was fortunate to visit the Chicago museum a few years ago when working in Wisconsin and we had a weekend to spare and visited the museum, the visit was excellent but I did not enjoy driving in Chicago, driving in America is ok but can be very stressful in the large cities. If anyone is contemplating visiting the Chicago area and have time to spare the museum is well worth a visit.

Dave W

Gary in respect of the streets lined with cars, unless a miraculous form of recharging in the streets is found and installed, albeit at great cost, then I fear far fewer households will have access to owning an EV in the future. The infrastructure for recharging some 30 million cars daily will require massive expenditure and installation, there is no doubt that EV’s will replace the internal combustion engined vehicles of today but there will be a huge social cost and dissatisfaction because there will be those at the lower end of vehicle ownership who will be excluded from ownership because of the impracticality of costs. I have yet see how freight transport will cope with EV recharging be it on long distance haulage or just the local deliveries of our online shopping where most delivery rounds are 8 to 10 hours continuous running. If the development of the EV revolution is going to be administered by politicians than I fear the going is going to be tough. No one as yet has ventured to mention how much all the infrastructure will cost, the only ones paying will be us, joe public. Dave W

Are all the changes that are being proposed a step too far too soon, it’s great to desire an electric powered utopia but it needs to be handled sensitively and intelligently, not sure that will happen, we all witnessed what happened with the introduction of the poll tax ( I am not making a political statement just illustrating how sudden change can precipitate unwanted consequences), I want a cleaner environment to live in, air pollution is a major issue, living on the South Coast we suffer from an extraordinarily high level of air pollution, I blame the French for it, you would expect that a coastal area would have clean sea air, not so here in East Sussex. How much real difference is the advent of all electric vehicles going to change this, I suspect not a lot.

Dave W