Member postings for alan frost

Graham, you have built an excellent shed and the documentation if anything outdoes the build which is excellent. I am in the final stages of completing a 105 sq. ft. extension to the rear of my garage and was beginning to think my budget had run away but believe I have built it to a very high standard, perhaps at a much lower cost per sq. ft. mainly because I have very cheap high quality timber suppliers.

One wall is formed from the garage wall and a second wall has 18 inches formed from another wall I have not had to build which obviously saved on cost but against that I had to lay the slab (4 inches mainly but 6 inches where I have inserted very thick walled steel sections to take a leg vice and as immovable holes for bending). The base layers are DPM, 2 inches of Kingspan,Vapour barrier . 4 inches concrete with steel mesh). I used modified metal post stubs for supporting the 3 X 3 verticals,set into the concrete. I have also fireproofed the entire structure (inside and out ) with Ecosol (excellent service technically and always next day delivery to me in Scotland) and treated all tongues and grooves ,newly cut faces and the main structural members (all 3 X 3 s ) with Jotun Visir. I think this is probably the best rorproofer altho whether it does what it says on the tin I can't tell you as its all in Norwegian)..

I obtained 36 mm tongue and groove cladding (finished thickness about 30mm thick) cladding, excellent quality, Scandanavian grown timber (would have preferred Siberian) but as I paid £12 per sq. metre I was happy to settle for Scandanavian). I would have preferred lapped timber to T and G as I would have then controlled the overlap but the T and G price was too tempting. My initial plan was to use tanalised timber but I got fed up with arranging a load to Scotland from the Yorkshire tanalised timber mafia. This proved fortunate in hindsight as tanalised timber is expensive and difficult to fireproof and at £12 a sq. metre that pays for an awful lot of visir. All timber fixings are screws or ss ring nails (60mm) My bottom layer of cladding consists of thermalite blocks, profiled by me, they cut very easily , to take a sloping ,watershedding, fibre cement cladding (expensive but rot proof and slightly more insulating than timber.All thermal bridges,such as the metal post stubs have been "broken " with kings span. I have 3 inch kings span for the pent roof (8 ft 6 inches falling to 6 feet 5 inches) and 25mm Kingspan for the walls to be installed this winter. I have still to make the smallish windows (security) and doors (a double door about 5 feet wide.

One wall has two zigs and a zag to preserve the view from my lounge window giving 6 corners in all all of which I have mitred for extra security (i did buy a compound chop saw for the job which makes good mitre joints quicker than hand sawing butt joints).

The roof is clad in half inch sarking, fireproofed this twice, and will then have two mm glass fibre mat with bitumen "torched on" as my roof slope is only 12 degrees (the mat is meant for flat roofs) which will be covered with Wickes felt shingles. under this as stated 3 inches of kingspan for the highest half of the pent roof and two inches for the lower half to be installed before Xmas,I hope.

I have procured all the materials except , double glazing panes,Butinox 3, window fittings. locks and bolts..electrical fittings,compressed air fittings (the zigzag wall gives a convenient housing for a vertical compressor, sound insulated by the kingspan. ) Probably a few other bits as well. Visir is a bit expensive and slow to apply to the main area of cladding which will have to be content with a double spraying of modern gutless wood preserver followed by 3 coats of Butinox 3 (12 years life they say even in Scotland--but pricey ).

I have all receipts and had avoided doing a total due to a suspicion I had run over my estimate of £2000 but will do an add up when I have procured all the fittings I have still to get). There are also complications in that I bought enough cladding to build my grandkids a hut so they can sleep out on the tree platform in summer -Has to hold 4 ) and I have vast quantities of DPM ,vapour barrier, and ss nails left over plus 4 fibre cement boards for the base of my other shed)

I think any saving I might have made is probably due to the cheapo prices I got for the cladding, other timber (I paid the guy £20 more than he asked as he's my last remaining cheap timber supplier and I don't want him going out of business. ) I believe the concrete was pretty cheap as well at £200 for cash , which included a man to help with the borrowing, use of barrows, and was mixed to my specification in one of those posh new lorries that mix it on the spot, so you only pay for exactly what you need. The man who supplies my timber (not the same as supplied the cladding) always supplies top grade timber and last time I costed some from him I worked price out per cc (to compare with Wickes as I could n't have got timber that size from Wickes) and it worked out under one sixth yes one sixth, Wickes price. Wickes by the way supply better timber IMO, than the other chain stores ,and are by no means the dearest.

I may yet get a shock when I do the final addition but my gut feeling is that for 105 sq. ft it will come in at under £2500 of which the Visir (4 litres at about £15 a litre), fireproofing (Eco-sol WD 15 litres at about £80 for 5 litres ) and the Butinox 3 (still to be procured) are not insignificant contributors.

The shed is 11 feet 6 X 11 feet , but only 105 sq. ft due to the zigzag wall.

erdLL HAS TWO ZIGS AND Apost stumetal

Ian, very generous offer but rather than put you to trouble in view of huge demand (understandable--if there's owt for nowt, i'll be there wi'barra.) I might as well save you the bother and cultivate a local offset lithographer as I assume they are all glad to be rid of these printers blankets when past use.

I am aware how much time packaging and posting can take and large rubber sheets will obviously be useful in my ongoing efforts to upgrade my living quarters to a hovel. (I say "quarters", "sixteenths"would be more appropriate.) .

Should my local efforts come to naught I may yet contact you via this thread for advice or to take advantage of your generous offer but I fully expect my unscrupulous tongue will shortly mean I am awash with rubber sheets (not a bad thing to lay in for a man of advancing years) . Should I fail locally I shall of course submit the required remittance and also forward a complimentary set of soft jaws for a Pratt Burnerd 160mm chuck, a considerable quantity of which (brand new and boxed ) have fallen into my equally unscrupulous hands. That is if they would be of use to you.

This would be at least some compensation for your own generous efforts in giving up your time packaging and posting these sheets.

Very warmest regards

Don't worry Izaak. We all understood your post except Nick who will be re-brained or medicated.

A lot of us knew this and incidentally the usually horrendously priced accessories for Emcomat 7.8.10 sizes (if I've got them right ) can also be avoided by buying Chinese (and very adequate) copies as many of the F.E. machines used Emco as their pattern. For instance £30 (roughly) steadies from a host of suppliers fit the Emco VIO whereas a s/h original Emco part may go for £2-300 on ebay. No or minimal modification is required.

For those who did nt know you have performed a service appreciated no doubt by the sane , a club to which I have never claimed to belong although I would like to think I have some manners.

Ian is perhaps being a little modest about NZ's engineering attractions. Not steam but there is a wonderful by any standards transport Museum between Palmerston North and Wellington (forget exactly where but sure Ian will know ) I got the feeling they probably did n't know the value of some of the items in there and a pretty good one but smaller S. of Christchurch (mainly old tractors and agricultural stuff.)

The South Island is even better with a fantastic museum at Wanaka (not much of a rust problem there and much is outside.) Whats more theres lots of stuff inside to keep the ladies happy. Outside Earth moving plant, huge US and Japanese fire Engines ,aircraft , WW2 fighting machines of all kinds and lots more. There is also a very interesting 3D museum which is a lot better than just "3D museum" suggests . Full of full size optical illusions.,puzzles, Trompe l'oeil paintings etc which have to be seen to be believed.A whole day in Wanaka (not far from Queenstown) would not be wasted. The Kiwis love their old vehicles and engineering history and there must be a lot more. You can also visit Richard ""Bamboo" Pearse's monument etc. , a guy who incredibly built probably the first aircraft to fly, (the engine -the lot) on his remote farm well away from large cities on the South Island. There is a lot of evidence he took off and made a few flights for considerable distances and he did n't use a catapult assisted launch unlike the Wrights' first efforts. He never claimed to be first as he never mastered the controlled landing. He took off and made controlled flights but did n't think it counted unless you made a controlled landing. Happily he survived all the landings but the last part of his life was rather tragic

Edited By alan frost on 26/10/2014 02:06:06

Thanks for the link ,I was unaware of Charnwood.

I could say more but one stir a week is enough.

HansR , yes I could have added the odd bit of blacksmithing to my list of interests. Not sure forging one of those would be encouraged by the law in the UK and I'm not sure I would want to meet that blacksmith when he had his axe. He seems a bit twitchy to me.

Regards

Maybe the clue is in the thread title "not a modeller" i.e a Baldric definition of Home Workshopper as in "Cat"-- "NOT a dog".

Got me there Js. I kno there is two in horse if that helps.

Got an idea. If someone could write an article for MEW on making model axes then someone else could write a little article on grinding them.

Just read the earlier posts on this thread which confirms my suspicions about mind sets. For what its worth I think Neil Wyatt looks like possibly becoming the best editor we have had for a while. Imo he is gradually getting rid of the padded articles on "Oiling My Myford" etc and so far seems to be keeping clear of "testing" proprietary equipment "for the magazine " , an affliction of recent years. He also seems a reasonably nice and helpful fellow, judging by his posts and now we have him ,and the under appreciated Diane, plus JS as a moderator maybe the whinging little axe grinders will feel less welcome on this forum.

I live in hope as the forum does contain a wealth and broad spectrum of engineering knowledge.

As usual JS hits the nail on the head.

Can I add my ha'pennorth to this thread

1) As a chartered injuneer (Thick Sandwich course, Electronic), but not a very good one I don't give a b----r what they call me but would observe that the confusion over what an injuneer is has probably helped make British fully qualified professional engineers among the worst paid in the world. Not a bone of contention to me personally as I spotted that technical sales guys were well paid , had an expense a/c , and a very nice free company vehicle every year and in my day that meant free,even down to the petrol for foreign holidays. Even so its a handicap to the country.

2) I do slightly mind being called a modeller . While i like and admire the type of models built by MEW readers I don't entirely like the mindset that goes with many of the builders. I build and restore tools and prefer engineering that makes stuff for the real world especially if it saves me a bob or two (things like heat pumps, wind turbines, cheap trailers (free materials for the transport of etc etc) so I prefer the term Home Workshop but again I don't really give a b----r about it.

I also like the other sort of models, but at 71 can't get my hands on many these days. 'Course if injurers were paid proper I'd have saved a million or two to use as bait.

Very near Cambridge (about 18 miles) is the Fenland drainage museum at Prickwillow (two old diesels I believe), and also ,even nearer (about 12 miles ) a steam drainage engine at Stretham. Also a little bit further away on the A10 at Brandon Creek is a Very large Crossley fenland drainage engine. This as far as I know is not open to the public but can be viewed through the windows from the adjacent river bank.

My Uncle ran this and a very large Mirrlees (now dismantled and gone) on this site for many years. If you knock on the door of the adjacent house, which he and his family lived in) the owner might let you into the engine shed for a look round. The surviving Crossley is about a mile north of the river bridge at Brandon Creek on the A10 ,on the left as you head North. On the right is a modern brick building housing the replacement automatic electric pump. You'll see the big engine shed and can probably park in the yard to get access to the river bank (about 40 yards.)

I believe the Stretham and Prickwillow engines have running days but you'll have to check all this on the internet.

Edited By alan frost on 22/07/2014 12:44:16

All repaired and working, and back on duty hauling trailers full of infill back up a very steep garden slope. Well I did promise to report back. Fitted a new cheap Maplin DPDT switch (which was one problem ) and a weaker compression spring to cut down the amount of braking from the aluminium disc (still more than adequate) due to the high reduction gearing..

Quite tricky to repair as the "wiring harness" was a bit of a mystery until I realised the power cut switch when the hoist is fully wound in only has to work when lifting and is not wired to operate when winding out-fairly obvious when considering it as a complete hoist but baffled me for a bit when the motor was isolated on the bench. Have now received a bigger model but glad this one repaired as it saves me modifying the mechanical mounting.

If anyone is repairing acheapo  hoist , I feel i'm now fairly familiar with the innards of one. Reminds me of Italian engineering in that everything is done very cleverly in the cheapest way possible but it works well. (Give or take a low quality switch.)

Edited By alan frost on 01/05/2012 18:58:17

My plan eventually is to use an old brake disc or two to form a heavyish turntable on which to mount at least three of my grinders/linishers, indexing the turntable to bring the required grinder to the front of the bench. I prefer to have coarse, medium, fine ,green grit wheels , a polishing mop and a small linisher all available wthout changing a retruing wheels. This many grinders can devour and waste a lot of space unless mounted on an indexable turntable.

Ian,think you may be right in that although difficult to see the face between the end cap and the disc there may be a ring of friction material around the circumference of the disc to give friction between the disc and end cap.

I had assumed the gearbox which gives a large speed reduction would in effect give enough braking due to the high gear reduction. I can't really investigate the disc further without extracting the windings whch I am loathe to do. Maybe some grease on the splines (avoiding the friction ring) would assist magnetic force in attracting the disc away from the end cap.

Will have another play tomorrow and if necessary will extract the winding to get a good look at the disc ,even if this is destructive (if I can't fix it I will be less loathe to risk destruction ) as knowledge gained this way might be useful if I ever have to repair another. Will report back.

Generally speaking I have been pleasantly surprised with how well made the motor appears altho its also true it has stopped working.

Chinese products seem to go pretty well for me with the exception of the highly stressed items such as angle grinders. compressors, SDS drills and now, hoists. Unfortunately practically all the reasonably priced of these items , indeed practically all available, appear to be Chinese made. These items for me are very occasional use items and I usually shy away from digging up one of my small bags of gold to pay two or thee hundred pounds for an occasional use item.

With machine tools where stresses are highest I tend to stick to older European or British machines but with the general handyman's workshop items there is n't much choice. A possible exception is Costco who tend to import a lot of more reasonably priced U.S products but one does n't get the choice of several product ranges there.

Rgds.

Edited By alan frost on 28/04/2012 23:36:09

I repair everything I can (probably like most on here) but am puzzled by the construction of a (presumably) Chinese motor which drives my cheapo hoist . These are available (250Kgm) from £50 to about £100 and unless you are willing to pay 2X or 3X this , they are all that seem to be available.

Symptoms are a buzzing as if trying to start but no movement. Dismantled it and I'm puzzled by the construction. From the gearbox end we have end cap ,endcap bearing, armature, then a quite strong compression spring fitting over a splined section of the shaft, the splined section fitting into an aluminium (?) disc retained in the casing by the winding and other end cap. The disc about 1/2 inch thick floats freely in the casing and is internally splined to rotate with the armature. Then of course comes the other bearing which screws !!! into the endcap, after which a large Nylock nut screws onto a threaded portion of the armature. This is followed by the fan and fan housing.

Both bearings rotate freely and perfectly when unassembled but when assembled, possibly due to the friction caused by the compression spring which presses between the armature and the aluminium disc the armature is very stiff to turn, so stiff in fact that not enough starting torque is generated hence stalled "buzzing". No amount of adjustment to the locknut or screwing the bearing tighter or looser ( remember this bearing screws into the end cap) has enabled me to find a low friction position)

Overall the construction appears to be quite well made.

Any of the other recyclers from this site had one of these unusually constructed motors (in my view) to bits and found the secret of freeing up the armature. It all worked very well for several weeks before the fault developed.

Just my opinion but I would go for a Colchester too. Plenty of range variety of "big" sizes from Chipmasters, through master/student up to magnums and mastiffs, excellent built in threadcutting capabilities metric and imperial on the same machine, enough mass for real work, spares and accessories readily available,new and s/h fairly cheaply . Harrisons also good but tend to have lower spindle speeds and the range is more difficult to understand. Both are excellent quality.

Largish toolroom lathes such as Holbrooks (bit old and slow spindle speeds), CVAs (excellent),DSGs (v.heavy and more expensive, bit slow on spindle speeds), and Smart and Browns all come up second hand, ridiculously cheaply for the quality, (usually cheaper than Colchesters) and are a class above Colchesters but unless you got a comprehensively equipped one chasing the accessories can be almost impossible and expensive.A very comprehensively tooled CVA toolroom lathe attracted no bids on ebay this week at a start price of £750. It was stated to be in goodish nick and probably cost, with the tooling £35,000 back in the 1950s !!! And IMO would have been worth every penny.  Hardings also in this class but for some strange reason are very much more expensive s/h.None of these except DSGs go as big as Colchesters. I would n't bother with a smaller lathe. Myfords for instance are nice for smaller model making but ridiculously expensive for the quality and capabilities compared with all the above and it sounds as if you want to do real work with the lathe. Boxfords are better value and have more capability than Myfords ,but why not go straight for an easy -to- use Colchester, which won't be much if any dearer. Another possibility is a 13 inch swing Emco but these are rarer s/h, a bit dearer and no gap bed.

I realise the above contains a lot of generalisations and you have to do the standard caveat emptor checks on a second hand lathe but I would say for your requirements as posted, a Colchester is almost the only choice. Just my two pennorth.

Edited By alan frost on 20/02/2012 01:15:36

Right, Chris, I will pick a day next week when no young children are in earshot and attempt photos. I have been lead to believe that dragon breath condensate is a reasonable substitute for virgin sweat so will try that.

Last time I attempted the photo posting  spell my mother-in -law had a rough landing and complained of power loss in the air. Her cat (which was riding pillion and got the worst of the turbulence) kept looking at me suspiciously and if they had ever connected the loss of broomstick power with a side effect of my spells I fear that at best I would have ended my days as a frog. Despite writing to her consumer magazine "Witch" ,they never managed to prove anything.

 Never the less in the interests of clarity I will try and repeat the feat (but no guarantees of success ).

Edited By alan frost on 19/02/2012 18:36:31

Edited By alan frost on 19/02/2012 18:41:02

Hi, ChrisH. Have modified my C80 so it cuts in vertical position. Keith is quite right it needs some persuasion. I had to cut away part of the belt guard, which would otherwise foul the end of the base. I used an old table from a belt grinder as the table and mounted it on a plate that replaces the gearbox cover and gives a very rigid mounting. I incorporated a pivot arrangement with a screwed adjustment that enables me to adjust the angle of cut so as to get the blade cutting exactly square to the table, or slightly offset for fine tapers . My mounting also allows adjustment to the table angle to give small angled cuts in the plane of the table. An adjustable support bar can be screwed into the cast iron section of the base to give extra table rigidity when very heavy parts need to be sawn.

This mod considerably increases the capacity of the saw and is the most useful mod. I have done to the saw. I also fitted a lift handle which when lifted forces two castors into contact with the ground, via push rods enabling the saw to be moved in wheel barrow fashion, out from its storage position. This works admirably and IMO is far superior to other castor arrangements I have seen (and tried ) on the internet forums. My mods were built out of scrapbinium and skipalloy and are not particularly pretty but work really well.

The bandsaw does not lock in the vertical cutting position the weight distribution being such that gravity holds the saw firmly vertical.

Another mod. I have in mind, but have not yet had occasion to fit , is to use one of those hydraulically operated door stops (most useful devices which can often be found in skips or bought cheaply second hand ) as the motive force to automatically feed stock into the blade when cutting vertically. (via a wire cord ).

I am reluctant to offer to post photos as I know how user unfriendly this site can be but if pushed will try and do so. (I have managed it before but had to invoke sorcery and the black arts and not sure I can remember all the spells. I also need the sweat of two young virgins , which I am running low on but could certainly be persuaded to attempt the photo posting spell if anyone could forward a gallon or two, or even better two  young virginal maidens.

)

Edited By alan frost on 18/02/2012 15:08:50

Edited By alan frost on 18/02/2012 15:21:22

Edited By alan frost on 18/02/2012 15:32:25

Edited By alan frost on 15/02/2012 00:28:55