Member postings for Cyril Bonnett

More turbines

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Michael

This link on youtube of the same clip is much clearer.

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Cyril

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Flying down the A1 on my Honda 750 and too fast really, you're only young once, I was overtaken by a huge shadow, turned out to be a Vulcan flying so low that I thought it was going to land on the road. Just mind blowing.

Edited By Cyril Bonnett on 28/06/2015 20:20:43

Mine has a brass centre piece and a bottom circular piece screwed on with a star shaped hole.

I had the same problem, cut the bearing with the hacksaw in two places, opposite each other, then just tap the halves out.

I have a wooden workshop, unheated and very well ventilated, my tools and lathe do not rust I clean them and give them a liberal spray of WD40 about once a fortnight. all the machines sit on one side of the workshop and are covered by a huge lightweight plastic sheet/bag courtesy Jewsons the builder. Peter G Shaw is right about having to clean up but better wiping WD40 up that having to de-rust things.

Do not use blankets especially woollen ones in an unheated shed, I once went to see a coronet lathe, purchased new on retirement with just about every attachment you could get, the gentleman sat it at the rear of his very large garage. His health then quickly deteriorated to the extent that he never used it and it sat for a long time covered in blankets, safe so he thought from rust. When he's wife advertised it I rang him and asked how much, £150, so I nipped round to have a look.

His wife led me into the garage and said its under all those blankets, it was and would have been a very nice buy for the £150 except for the thick layer of fine red rust covering everything and beneath the rust very bad corrosion. Sadly the lathe was pretty well past it and I left feeling quite sorry for the fella. I found out later that when they moved to a smaller house it was sold for scrap.

PGK

Your idea is quite feasible, I have successfully used JB weld to repair a stripped flymo shaft, this year will be it fourth season since it was repaired. Quick and easy and saved loads of time stripping the engine down and cutting a new keyway, just have to keep a keen son from mowing the orchard again!

I had one of the British attempts to compete with the Japanese motorcycle industry, a Norton Commando MK3 Interstate. Recently I saw one offered at close to 5 grand in original condition, that made me laugh. I paid £1100 for one straight from the factory back in the eighties. Original condition included, porous front forks, chromium plated disks that soon lost the plating, exhaust pipes that kept coming loose, throttle cable physically so short the bike accelerated when turned left, rev cable that pulled on the bouncing engine casing and showered my right leg with oil, a prestolite starter that couldn't turn the engine over without help from the kick start and finally valve springs that lost their spring after 6 months. A Honda four cured those woes.

The demise of British industry has to be laid fairly and squarely with the bloody mindedness of both employees and employers aided by unions and politician, all greedy for money and power.

That the Japanese could produce a motorcycle that could travel at 110mph hour after hour without oil leaks or bits falling off and tick over the next day as sweetly as when new should have given British workers a hint of things to come, but no it was head in sand and 'buy British'

Even the 'new' British Triumph when it appeared looked more like a Japanese clone than some of the Japanese twin clones of British bikes that we used to see early on.

Here in Scotland in my two local towns, individual shops are fast disappearing, one has thirteen charity shops in its high street. The out of town shopping centres 70 and 90 miles away beckon.

At he end of the day it us the consumer that sent these shops into history, only now when they have gone do we bemoan the good old days, Bit like building small steam engines, all huff and puff about the past.

Forgotten engineering techniques! One I like would to forget was on top of a ski lift bull wheel at 3000ft+ on Meall a'Bhuiridh in the mid eighties. Drilling 16 x 5/8th bolt holes by hand with a pre war hand machine, I was only told it was pre war but not which war!. A November afternoon with temperatures at road level about minus 4 and a wind speed reported as upwards of 40mph. Memorable days.

1) Open the jaws of Keyless drill chuck fully, and remove M6x22 - Flat head

screw (left-handed and threadlocker coated) by turning clockwise using

cordless impact driver in Forward rotation mode with slotted bit.

After years of triumphs and a BMW I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Norton.

A Norton Mk3 Interstate, delivered by a factory van to Ernie Pages shop in Edinburgh, quick going over by factory mechanics 2 off, "take it round the block mate and tell us what you think"

First left hand turn and wha hey we were off like the clappers, reason throttle cable too short and that was just the beginning, a month later they dropped the price by £200, then breaking while entering a motorway service station the bike felt if it was going to fall apart, on investigation the 'chromed' front disk was losing its chrome.

The list goes on leaking rev cable that had been 'fixed' since the 2c model, exhausts that came loose at 80mph, after they had been 'fixed' Isolastic suspension that used to make the Edinburgh taxi drivers laugh.

The front forks developed black smudge marks that never went away; Ernie Page replaced them with a set off his window 2C model as Norton wanted me to send the forks to them. Reply was that the castings were porous!

Its finally trick was late at night travelling across the M8 heading back to barracks it developed a loud clatter, a quick neutral and engine switched off and coasted to the side of the motorway. Kicking it over, yes it did have an electric starter, aptly named 'prestolite' it sounded if a tappet had come loose. On inspection the right hand exhaust had developed about a quarter of an inch play. Abandoned for the night and picked up the next day with a land rover we took it to Ernie's shop, a valve spring (Japanese) had lost it spring sending the exhaust valve through the piston.. A week out of its guarantee Norton didn't want to know, Ernie paid for its repair and said sell it.

Edgar Brothers, Leith Walk had a customer looking for a interstate so a deal was done and I became the owner of a Honda 750F1 straight out of its crate, 500 miles over the weekend a service and off to Berlin by road, the first UK soldier to ride his bike through East Germany, in the winter.

The Honda tramped along at over 100mph on continental roadsfrom for four years doing over 120,000 miles and apart normal service replacements and a turn of the key and it purred into life, never missing a beat.

Norton certainly ended my boyhood dream!

WD40 stops rust and is cheap if purchased in bulk. Jewsons use huge poly bags to wrap boarding in, one covers lathe, bench drill and milling attachment down to the floor. Good ventilation all the time helps.

We used a 'cheap' small wireless camera on a model aircraft for testing a system to keep the camera's horizon level. Worked quite well and we went on to install a better camera, that was 15 years ago.

Cameras have come a long way since then and cheaper, paste this link into your browser it may give you some ideas

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Cyril

Ian

I have always enjoyed reading ME, my point is that the magazine seems to have moved away from the 'average model engineer' if there is such a person towards that of glossy money making rag and the shelves of newsagents are full of them.

Most of my time is spent with my family and friends none of which are in anyway interested with my hobby apart from curiosity, my other hobby is computers and has been since the 1980's but I have no wish to amalgamate the two.

Time and time again we hear that youngsters are not being encouraged into 'model engineering and that our youth lack many of the hands on skills that were taught in schools of the last century, skills that have lasted a life time.

Only last night I was browsing through copies of ME from the 1950/60s and what a difference in content, there is so much more to model engineering than CAD, laser cut frames or CNC controlled lathes and mills.

Each to their own though.

Edited By Cyril Bonnett on 18/08/2014 13:22:46

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The latest Model Engineering has a wonderful piece '21st Century Model Engineering' and says "respect and regard for anyone who can make a model by hand from various bits of scrap steel and brass"

Lasers, history, CNC, cad programs, found cheaper programs………,

Yes £160 or £1600 and you can pay with PayPal if you wish! Then you have to invest in your CNC mill, lathe 3d printer or whatever, hint a lottery win helps and your off.

But then you need time to learn your choice of CAD, perhaps those long wet winter nights if you’re not flooded out and that’s if it’s the right program, then move into the workshop and set up your CNC machinery, then the real fun begins.

Could it be that the “average model engineer” doesn’t have the time or resources and that their hobby is just that, a hobby that many have waited years till retirement to take it up.

Nowadays it seem that to many the prerequisite of any hobby is a healthy bank balance that enables one to invest heavily in whatever is needed, be it a £300 waterproof jacket or boots to the above mentioned cad programs and machinery.

Instead of Model Engineering perhaps can we rename the magazine something along the lines of ‘Splash the Cash, incorporating the defunct model engineering’

At one of the UK’s first commercial ski centres the MD stuck a sign up on one of the lifts, NO DUFFERS, you would be amazed how offensive those whose hobby was weekend skiing, the average skier, found that sign.

. to be continued!

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On his web page he say's that he can supply these tapes and dies, worth an email.

Hope this helps

The solvent used by the automotive industry for years was MEK. I have used it to repair ABS and use it as a degreaser.

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"Liquid glass" (sodium silicate) is added to the system through the radiator, and allowed to circu

late. Sodium silicate is suspended in the coolant until it reaches the cylinder head. At 100–105 °C sodium silicate loses water molecules to form a glass seal with a re-melt temperature above 810 °C.

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I've used WD40 since the end of the 60's keeping rust at bay on motorcycles and latterly in my unheated shed full of tools and machinery. The bike also gets washed with hot water with a small amount of paraffin tipped in. The last 5 litres cost £20 and came with a dispenser. I once had a reliant regal van that stopped running at the slightest hint of moisture, a quick spray and it ran like a dream, that is if a 3 wheeled under powered fibre glass bodied van with loose windows and an engine half way into the cab could be called a dream! There is a lot of negative comments about WD40 around but since my father came home from work, MOD, with a can of the stuff I have never had any problems with it, here's a link to the WD40 data sheets

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