Member postings for Nicholas Farr

Hi ega, I've found it easier to print the pages on paper wider than needed and then trim them to size after they have been stapled together and folded.

Regards Nick.

Hi, like Peter Greene, I bought a long reach one some twenty years or so ago, where from? well Staples of course.

They still sell them, albeit a different model, but mine does the same amount of pages. Log Arm Stapler

I can see the advantage of the one above with the "V" guides, as like Clive says, it can be tricky to get the staples in the correct place, but mine does have an adjustable back-stop to help.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 18/02/2023 21:32:31

Hi Nigel, just use a light oil smeared on the journals and inside the bearing inner race.

Regards Nick.

Hi Clive, I'm not saying the fabrications weren't made in a commercial shop, but having been involved in fabrication and welding all my working life, I can quite understand that someone who is/has been a fabricator/welder, could produce such a thing quite easily at home.

Regards Nick.

Hi, if anyone has any doubt, they only need to go to gov.uk/vehicle-tax check, to check their vehicle is taxed, and it will show you the date when the tax and MOT is due. You can also check that your own vehicle is insured by using MID.

Regards Nick.

Hi Pete, I don't know if there is any asbestos in my 65W one as I've never had any reason to take it apart, But there certainly wasn't any in the 250W one, there were Mica sheets though, which some had just fell to pieces, these were between the two heating elements and a separation strip of soft iron, and between the outside of the two heating elements and the outer shield, which was inserted into the slot of the copper bit.

I don't know why some rubbish these soldering irons, as they do the work they were made for, and both of mine have paid for themselves without any doubt. The one that is in pieces was one that I used in my old job many years ago, and got used for a whole day on a regular job over many years, until that particular piece of machinery became redundant, but it wasn't new when I got it, and it didn't melt like the Antex one that I did buy new, in the photo below.

I only had this one at home, but it didn't do even a quarter on the work the one above it did.

Regards Nick.

Hi Speedy Builder5, a photo of my 65 W & 250 W irons, which the copper bits are 18mm & 44mm wide, the big one does take a fair while to get hot though.

Hi John Haine, no cheap plastic on these, the handles are wood and the covers over the lead connections are Bakelite, and their quality is a long way upwards from your description and they have both done a fair amount of work in their long life.

Regards Nick.

Hi James, I have a 250 W one of the same make and that does the same thing, I keep meaning to run it from an isolation transformer to see if it will carry on working with an earth. I did have an old spare one, which the casing around the element was failing, but the elements on that one were shot, and while taking it apart, the mica insulation just fell into pieces, so I guess the mica in yours is breaking down. You will indeed find it hard to get any spares for it, so unless it is the lead at fault you may as well scrap it. They do have a good copper tip though, which you may be able to salvage and fix to a handle via a steel bar, and then use it the old way by heating it up in a suitable flame, which is what I have been considering to do with the one that I took apart, which I still have.

I do still have my father's 65 W one though, which is still working OK, and that must be getting on for 70 years old, as I remember watching him using it when I was very young.

Regards Nick.

Hi Martin, if you are using bright mild steel, it is most likely to have been cold rolled, which alters the grain structure and causes stresses in the metals outer edges. This will happen to any grade or quality of steel, and can be cured by heat treatment at the correct temperature, which should be done uniformly and ideally in a temperature controlled furnace, and then cooled slowly but not excessively slow.

The temperature will be between 400-700 C depending on a few parameters Recrystallization Temperature of Steel. As JasonB has said, taking a little off each side at a time, will help stop bending. Hot rolled (Blue/Black) steel doesn't normally suffer form this problem though.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 06/02/2023 09:27:39

Hi, today I had to fit a new horn on my car, which was a pain to get at to say the least, unless I went through the whole rigmarole of removing the front bumper as described in the Haynes workshop manual and I would have had to have an assistant to lift it off as well, which I don't have, and I didn't know if the horn itself was the problem or a wiring fault. This is the first horn that I've ever had to change in my life and on all the cars that I have ever owned. I found it was the horn at fault yesterday afternoon, and fetch a new one ready to fit today, but of course the new one came with spade connections, whereas the original has a plug in connection, and the new horn has the connections on the other side as well, now I know I could have snipped the plug off and crimped spade connections on, but the ends were much too short, coming out of the wiring loom and that would have been awkward to do as well, however, luck was on my side, as the socket on the old horn was clipped on with plastic retainers and once it was removed, revealed a pair of bullet type connections in the socket piece, so I just made up two short leads with one end bullets and the other end spades crimped on and I put some heatshrink sleeving over the exposed parts and onto the wire covering, which should stop water and dirt ingress getting into the crimped areas.

Regards Nick.

Hi Clive, never really thought much about the two "T's" so that's something I've learnt today.

Regards Nick.

Hi. I watched the Apprentice this evening, and I've often wondered what makes most of those candidates supposably highly intelligent, and why does the one who gets fired, always thinks Lord Sugar has made a big mistake? Lord Sugar was a successful businessman long before any of them were born. I'm no businessman of any sort, but I didn't see one good idea from any of them. Quite glad I was a "Blue Collar worker" at least I had a good sense of direction in my chosen trade by the time I left school. Yes I still had a lot to learn and I made mistakes, but I did approach jobs the way I was shown, and didn't modify the tasks until I was able and confident to do them in a more efficient way, and was very successful with the work I did.

Regards Nick.

Hi, like a lot of people, I've had a few watches with luminous hands and the main five minute positions. The photo below shows the remains of one that I had many many years ago. The luminous parts will still glow for a couple of moments when exposed to the light on my phone camera for about a minute, but it took a few shoots to capture an image, as the luminous glow disappeared as quick as a flash, and the bottom photo shows them at about half the brightness from when I switched the camera light off.

My younger brother and I were given a Crucifix with a luminous figure, by one of our parents friends when I was about eight, and these would glow quite brightly, longer than it took for us to fall asleep, it still will glow for a while after shining an LED array battery hand held light on for about a minute, although it has been stored in different boxes/draws for most of my life.

Regards Nick.

Hi Nigel, nothing wrong with shielded bearings for your layshaft, they will keep general dirt and particles that wear from the V-belts out and won't have any drag on the shaft. Get good quality or better still, high quality bearings, which should last many cheap ones out and likely to be cheaper in the long run and if you go to Simply Bearings, look in the Brand/Quality box, unless of course you like the job of changing them. Martensitic Stainless steel can be hardened and tempered in a few different ways, but I wouldn't think you would need them and they are dearer.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 02/02/2023 18:59:05

Hi John, I suppose that it all depends on one's understanding of the meaning of the words, for example, the start button for a lathe spindle is often stated as forwards and reverse, which doesn't really make sense, because for machining with the tool on the same side of the work as the operator, you would press the button for forwards, that would mean the material you are about to cut, would be going backwards from the operators point of view, i.e. the workpiece would rotate from the back of the machine towards you. So looking at it from the spindles point of view to the work, it would in fact be going clockwise. It can be very confusing, e.g. do the wheels on your car turn clockwise or counter clockwise, when the car is traveling forwards? Answer, depends on which side of the car you are viewing them from and if you are inside the car, they would be reverse of what anyone would see on the outside, but they would still be rotating in the same direction. It's starting to muddle my grey cells now.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 28/01/2023 11:58:59

Hi Bazyle, about 22 years ago, I went into Commets to buy my teenage son a microwave as he didn't have anything to cook hot meals with in the flat where he was. The microwave cost about £55.00 and the shop assistant said I could get extra cover beyond the guarantee, which would have cost around £30.00, which I didn't think was very good value, so I said no, and went on to say, I'll just get another new one if it goes wrong after the guarantee has run, after all it's only half a days pay. Well he gasped with a bit of horror and said he wished he even got £50.00 in a day. I though, oops, said the wrong thing there.

Regards Nick.

Hi Hans, I guess it is an optical centre punch, but being it looks as if a bit has broken off the base that can be seen in the top picture, may be causing the inaccuracy of it.

Regards Nick.

Hi Nigel, I don't think it had any real practical use, and I don't think it was intended too. I believe it is a novelty item that shows some very cleaver design and machining, along with the patience to do it with a bit of quirky humour, But he did make it with a place to hide some paper money or other treasures inside the bolt, but you wouldn't know just by looking and handling the bolt. I actually liked it.

Regards Nick.

Hi Chris, the instructions that came with mine says the adjustments should be made to put the centre of the disc over the centre of the workpiece. As JasonB has pointed out, the disc will cut in a slight arc, which will be away from the operator. If you have it behind the centre of your workpiece, it will have the tendency for the forces at the start of the cut to put the load more onto the movable jaw, which you should not do. Starting with the disc on centre will give an equal pressure to the centre of the work and most of the force will be down into the base and once the cut has started, providing it is adequately held, should not have any tendency to roll or flip-up and the cutting forces will be shared mostly by the base and the fixed jaw. If the workpiece is not adequately held, the disc will have the tendency to roll or flip the workpiece in the front, behind or on centre, but if it is behind, the chances are it will roll or flip-up the workpiece and out towards the operator.

Regards Nick.

Hi, the house that I was born in had a mainline passing at the bottom of the street, which was about 40 M away, there were two other lines beyond some trees on the other side of the track, there was a back service lane to the terrace, which could be accessed from either end of the street, and we could get a good view of trains passing, but there was a signal on the short stretch between the street and the lane at the back, and very often a train had to stop while traffic was going in and out of the other two tracks, so we could get a real close look at the steam locos while they were waiting there. The mainline could be seen from the back bedroom of the house for about 86 M or so before disappearing behind the terrace some 40 M or so away from our terrace, we would all be watching out for an aunt of ours as she waved a hanky from a window on the train, when she was going back home to London, which was steam hauled back then. On Saturday mornings we would often wake up to goods trucks and or wagons, as they were all shunted about to form outbound trains, which were done with J69's till about 1960, when the first BR 03 0-6-0 shunters came along, which was more or less when steam was finished in our part of the world. It could often be seen at night when steam locos were going into the station, when the firebox door was open, and you got a good glimpse of orange which also lit up the inside of the cab. When we went to junior school, we had to cross the railway, but there was a footbridge, but the abutments were built of brick and ere too high for us to see over, and the bridge was made of high steel sheets that were impossible to see over without a ladder, however there was a small gap between the brickwork and the steel bridge on both sides and at both ends, but only one person at a time could look through them. Very often when we came home from school, they would be shunting freight about in the station sidings, which meant the crossing had to be closed to road traffic, so instead of going over the bridge, we would stop at the gates and watch a J69 going backwards and forwards a few times to get the trucks in the right order for either carrying on their journey or being sent out to the docks beyond the station. Summer holidays were a good time to see trains coming and going at the crossing, but there was nearly always queues of holiday makers in their cars as the road was the best route to bypass the town centre, and you mostly saw an ice cream man on his tricycle with the ice box over the two front wheels, and he would ride up and down the queue of traffic on the pavement or just be waiting at the crossing gates. We could see much of the outer part of the station from the kiddies play area (swings etc,) where the locos would be coupled up to their trains and waiting for the off, when the smoke would puff out vigorously as they got up too speed for about the 100 M towards the crossing, all steam vanished completely by 1962 and the diesels had taken their place, but we moved away from the railway area on 4th July 1966, but we could see one of the other tracks beyond a few other houses and across a very large playing field from the back upstairs bedrooms, but only DMU's used that track and at a less frequency but then that line was closed in 1968 except for the use of a freight train to a local quarry once a day.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 23/01/2023 17:34:33