Member postings for The Merry Miller

Nyce wun tery.

Len.

Afternoon all,

Just purchased two large 2 MT HSS drills from a lads, grandfather's workshop at a bargain price, brand new, never been used.

The name Vandene on the drills is one I haven't heard of before.

Can anybody shed some light on the name?

Len. P.

It's really brilliant Clive, you just don't know what you are missing.

They're probably all gone by now, such a demand for them.

Len. P.

John,

Are you implying that because of planning regs. you can't have a pitched roof?

The extra storage storage space you would finish up with would be invaluable.

Another point that you could take as a warning, when I moved into my present house twenty years ago the brick built garage which was to be my workshop, had a very shallow pitched roof covered with corrugated asbestos.

The day after I moved in I entered the garage and found to my horror moisture dripping down everywhere from the underside of the asbestos all over my woodworking machines, it was just like blotting paper and was absolutely saturated.

Within two weeks it had been replaced with 1" ply and three layers of roofing felt, had no problems since.

Len. P.

I'm not a clock man but when I was an apprentice millwright in a power station in the '50's one of my tasks when working with the station Instrument Maker was stripping down and overhauling "bourdon" pressure gauges.

I was instructed to polish the pivots with "pith", no I haven't got a lisp either.

I don't know who the supplier was or even which plant the "pith" came from but the finish on the pivots was astonishing, so I was told. I suppose that technique isn't used any more!

Incidentally, I have used Solvol Autosol to polish Buffalo Horn handles on competition quality walking sticks and you could acheive a mirror finish eventually, but it's bloody hard work.

Len. P.

P.S. I'll be surprised if this post doesn't elicit a few bawdy responses.

I don't know if the problems that members have is allied to the browser they are using or even the operating system, or is it just related to the fact that the ad's are continually flashing thus distracting one from the main purpose of visiting the forum.

My view is that if the ad's are not flashing then there isn't a problem because, as mentioned before on this forum, all you have to do is press the "escape" button to stop them flashing.

I must admit that using IE 9 and Firefox 11, I have no problems at all (thats using Windows 7)

Personally I don't see that there is a problem with this website at all, perhaps I am just lucky.

Len. P.

Once again Essex leads the way!!

Len. P.

Just thought I'd mention it.

The Magazine "300 Years of the Steam Engine" was available in W H Smith's today (got my copy), why wait till the 25th to get it.

First impressions, brilliant, it's got to be as it has been edited by our own lovely Diane.

Great job Diane.

Len. P.

Notice how quick off the mark our David is when a femail posts, amazing!!

I tried to get it out that way Gordon, half successful due to very limited access and help from the missus!!

Len.

Don't know how it managed to double post?

Len.

Edited By The Merry Miller on 14/05/2012 20:07:52

I've gone for the Sealey set Clive.

Len.

Mike,

I've spent so much time in my life improvising tools that I thought I'd treat myself for a change as I'm now running out of time!!!

Come to think of it I am continually treating myself according to her indoors.

My grandson will no doubt feel happier no when he gets all of my proper tools eventually.

I don't think youngsters will know how to improvise until they have got a bit of time and experience under their belts.

Len. P.

Edited By The Merry Miller on 14/05/2012 17:35:00

Before I splash out on a decent set of circlip pliers I have a question.

I have a very large internal circlip to remove from a motorised gearbox.

The clip is about 2.5" dia and the two pin holes for removing the clip are about 0.1"dia on a pitch of 7/8".

Would the pliers in a standard set be capable of removing a clip this size or would I have to go for one of the larger sets?

Len. P.

Please be aware that as far as anodising goes, for maximum wear resistance "Hard Anodising" is normally specified as opposed to the normal decorative (coloured) anodising we see everywhere.

I have not seen it used for gears but I have used it for 16 mm static film guides with the film travelling through the guides at a very fast lick.(old engineering expression)

It has the drawback of increasing the component dimensions.

For example you can specify a thickness of up to 5-6 thou and this would result in a dimension growth of half this amount (i.e. 50% in and 50% out) and this would be taken into account at the design stage.

Also the finished coating is porous and non-conductive, in the dim distant past I have used it as an insulator on diode holders in Doppler Radar systems.

Most hard anodised components are subsequently sealed (closing the pores) and this sealer could be one of many things including lubricants, ptfe etc.

Whether or not Anodising companies nowadays are prepared to accept very small orders is debatable.

Clive,

There are other metals that can be anodised including Titanium and Zinc.

Len. P.

Had similar response a few weeks back.

I placed an order over the phone with the man himself for some BMS Hex.

A week later I received an e-mail saying he had none in stock but was expecting some in within a few days.

No further e-mails materialised nor phone calls from him despite sending him more e-mails. Tried telephoning him several times but each time got an answerphone message saying "no one was available to take the call".

In the end I sent him an e-mail cancelling the order to which again I received no response.

No money was debited from my account so the matter is now dead and he has lost another customer and no doubt will lose a few more!.

There are suppliers out there who give immaculate service unfortunately Macc Models doesn't appear to want to be one of them.

Len. P.

Question that suddenly intrigued me whilst sipping a glass of red over dinner this evening.

I wonder why Joseph Whitworth settled on 55 degrees and not 60 as was taken up later on by many other sections and standards.

Come to that how did 47.5 degrees become the standard for BA threads?

Didn't these people talk to each other?

Comments should be interesting!

Len. P.

Faux pas on the Maplin kit, it contains 300 clips not 30, sorry Mr Maplin.

Wife came back from shopping:

You know that box of clips you were looking at in Maplin this morning?

Yes, I said.

Well I thought you didn't want them them because they were too expensive.

No, it was because I thought they were ----------*

Well I bought the box for you as a surprise.

You are an angel, I said.

Len. P.

P.S. That's a good lead Harold, thanks.

Edited By The Merry Miller on 11/04/2012 19:55:00

I have located a British company that distributes springs, circlips and things and you can buy kits also for reasonable prices so I may give them a try. I did check with them and they assured me the circlips were made in this country!!

They can be found on this link if anyone is interested, http://www.calebcomp.co.uk.

Also another British company that does the lot are: www.springmasters.com trouble is their delivery charge is about £9 per kit.

Popped into Maplin this morning, they do a kit of 30 for £2.99, the mind boggles.

Anyway thanks for your suggestions lads.

Len. P.

Edited By The Merry Miller on 11/04/2012 13:56:53

As promised attached are some pictures of my grandfather's Plumb-bob/pendulum whatever.

The small male tapered section you can see has a fine groove cut into the taper.

When the fine wire or fine twine used to suspend the device was fitted through a very small hole in the top of the mating tapered cup it would have been located along this groove and the end passed through the cross hole visible in the picture. The mating tapered cup would then have been pushed down onto the male section thus trapping the wire/cord/twine, a bit risky I would have thought. The tapered cup disappeared years ago.

The largest dia. of the taper is only 1/4", the length of the taper is 3/8". The overall length is 5 1/2" and diameter is 3/4".

Note also the spool arrangement which would have been used for storing the suspending medium which I think had it been fine wire, could have caused some coiling problems!

You can just make out the slotted screwed plug in the main body behind which is the quantity of Mercury.

Len. P.

P.S. I know it needs cleaning up.

Edited By The Merry Miller on 11/04/2012 12:14:11

Edited By David Clark 1 on 11/04/2012 12:51:23