Member postings for Another JohnS

Breakups are interesting. The instigators (or, hopefully, unsuccessful instigators) always expect things to go their own way.

Over here in Canada, we have Quebec popping up the idea of separation, and Alberta and the west.

I read this recently, in an obituary of one of our indigenous leaders:

"Although he was friendly with the Quebec separatist leader René Lévesque, Mr. Gros-Louis remained a federalist. During a 1992 appearance at a Quebec National Assembly committee studying Quebec sovereignty, Mr. Gros-Louis was asked by a Parti Québécois legislator whether First Nations in a separate Quebec would insist on forming their own mini-states, turning Quebec into a “Swiss cheese full of holes.” To which Mr. Gros-Louis responded. “We’ll leave you the holes and we’ll keep the cheese.”"

Things like, taking the James Bay hydroelectric dam, cities like (I assume) Montreal and Quebec, etc. leaving the Quebecois with the dregs.

You open Pandoras' box, and you never know what you'll let out.

Sigh.

(ref: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-huron-wendat-grand-chief-was-a-strong-and-charismatic-advocate-for-his/)

Sam - this happens a lot with businesses that are in Canada, but deal with the USA.

Even for individuals - google "shipping to Ogdensburg" - Canadians around here will ship to an address just across the border, then drive over, and declare the goods on return. (not now though due to COVID the border's closed).

I have not bothered doing this yet, but I know multiple people who use this service - a bit of a ride in the car, about $10.00 for the bridge tolls, and pick up your parcel, and skip the $$ customs import fees that would be put on the package.

Sure, you have to pay duty on the border, but there is some exemptions for day-trips, from what I understand.

(if I miss picking up a parcel, last time I drove to the local UPS depot, it was 2 hours round trip with city driving - almost faster to drive to the USA...)

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I used to purchase stuff from the USA and ship to Canada, but as 99% of it is from China, I order directly now, and sometimes the parts + postage from china is LESS than the shipping from the USA, and that's not even taking into account the markup by the companies in the USA.

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Funny world - John.

Marc;

That's a good choice, in my opinion. His designs and instructions are second to none, and at the end you'll have a great little locomotive.

I built the 1st Shay, and am finishing up a Martin Evans "Ivatt", and have built a little LBSC locomotive. Kozo's design, (completeness and accuracy and instructions) leave the others in the dust.

John.

William - I understand, coming from a country where the southern neighbours are inch-based. (I live in Canada)

However - for a bit in the '90s I lived in Europe, got a European lathe, and inch materials and BA were just not available where I lived.

I can remember looking at and trying to use this lathe, throwing my hands towards the gods, saying something quite close to "Just what the f(deleted) is a g(deleted) d(deleted) f(deleted)ing millimetre????" (there might have been more expletives thrown in for good measure) I don't normally swear, but, when times call for it...

When I figured it was close to a 10c coin, I managed, and my little Tich with BA fasteners was completed.

Now, living back in Canada, I do *everything* metric - it's so easy, in my opinion. Sure, materials come in inch, but generally one can adapt, especially if things are machined. My current project is a Martin Evans design ("Ivatt" and everything is converted to metric before I machine.

Just my thoughts on a Saturday evening.

Edited By John Alexander Stewart on 08/11/2020 01:09:16

There's always Nick Feast's Q1 as described in the Model Engineer.

Polly Models/Bruce Engineering sell castings and laser-cut bits, from what I remember. A fairly quick build, "different" locomotive, and not a lot of time making little brass bits!

Hi Andrew;

Lima Locomotive works made the Shay - straight bevel gears - that is what you see in the MEM thread. Heisler also used straight bevel gears, it's only the Climax that has skew bevel gears. (and, I'm not sure about the Climax class "A" machines - never seen one in person)

Anyway, I'm sure, knowing your skills, you'll find/discover/develop about a half-dozen tooth profiles that'll work!

Andrew;

I seem to remember reading that the Climax gears were hand-made wood patterns, then cast. i.e. not machined.

Although having seen about 1/2 dozen of them, I can't say that I looked that closely! The other 2 (Shay, Heisler) are more interesting, IMHO.

Kozo gives us a way to machine gears good enough for his model Climax, machining on small machines in the average workshop, so I give him top marks.

Yes, it is good to see you back posting; hope the flying stuff is also going well. Cheers from Canada!

Way back when, a colleague and family was flying in a 767 that had fuel gauge issues, and glided into Gimli Manitoba. They got on at the stop in Ottawa, and were flying out to see parents, etc.

It had zero working gauges (allowed at the time) and the tanks were not properly dip-sticked.

So, maybe a known-accurate fuel gauge, with the associated cost, on a priceless aircraft makes sense, despite the initial "wait a sec- I could give them a bargain and make 2 for that price" thought!

And, if anyone wants to see what the back of a boxpok wheel casting looks like:

**LINK**

It's in front of a block of flats, on what was part of the Canadian Locomotive Companies' land; CLC built and exported locomotives all over the world; there's at least one in running condition somewhere in France/Switzerland (ex. SNCF141Rs were built in Montreal, Kingston ON, and somewhere else in the USA)

Now, why they had to mount it with the back facing up escapes me, they look better outside side out, in my opinion!

Does this count? (lets see if the link works...)

**LINK**

Clive;

FYI: About a decade ago, at SIGGRAPH, a 3d gantry-style router was presented, called "DIYLILCNC", and plans were available by download.

It used a Dremel for the spindle, and could do aluminum. This was when 3D printing was really doing well with home-built machines; a group thought that "subtractive machining" was something that might fly with those without tons of money for the then-current CNC mills. It used LinuxCNC if I remember correctly, so was certainly within the price range of the youngsters.

The guys seemed to be there for a couple of years, but faded out.

Maybe they were before their time, or maybe the Chinese routers are where it's at.

John.

John;

First, check your messages for Andy Pugh info.

If your mill ls like my "King Canada KC20" (sold under different names) then yes, you can send the signal to a computer; it won't give you rotation direction nor does it have an index pulse, but it's great for ensuring that the mill is running at the correct speed, no matter what gear you are in.

John;

If you are referring to Andy Pugh's hobbing videos; it is still very relevant and in use all the time. It's LinuxCNC, which is the base for the Tormach controls now.

You can contact him via the LinuxCNC.org forum, or the mailing list, he seems to be very helpful.

It seems like any optical encoder can interface so long as it has the index pulse will work with LinuxCNC for this purpose.

It's a cost-effective solution, but one that is not off the shelf.

John.

Hi all;

I keep both an on-line and paper file system of interesting articles. Well, not any more, unfortunately.

Q: Anyone figured out how to print out articles? I do like to scribble on printed copies, as I convert to metric, or make machine-specific notes, then (usually) scan them in for my workshop records.

On my computer systems, ether printing prints nothing, or prints out the left hand side of the first column, and nothing else.

Maybe it's a user problem?

My Mac computers print blank pages;

Also, on one of my computer systems (Linux) jumbles letters - see the attached screen grab!

Yeah, I know, I should

a) not be a ludite (despite working on the html5 standards for a bit)

b) use Windows10 (which I have, but as that computer is for "Canadian Controlled Goods" work, I am loathe to do much other than work-work on it;

c) have a photographic memory so I don't need to keep notes!

So, advice most welcome.

Many thanks - the support and guidance was appreciated.

The Acrylic faceplate machined with absolutely no issues, and results delivered to owner. (doing this for a friend of a friend, he's a radio nut, and had ONE piece of Acrylic of the correct size - no screw-ups allowed.

I decided to mill on my manual mill - Centec 2B, the part barely fit with maybe 5mm extra Y travel, but fit it did. On the Centec, I could have my nose down close, and adjust the feed as appropriate; next time I'll know better how to do this on CNC.

JohnS.

Hi all; was given a task to mill a pocket and outline in a bit of 3mm Acrylic.

The searching I did here mentions turning, on-line it's with high speed spindles.

What have YOU done with a slowish (say, max 5,000rpm) spindle on either a manual or CNC mill? Say, 3mm or 4mm 2 flute cutter.

I expect to hold this piece down with double sided tape, hopefully I can get it off of the carrier again. :-|

Advice more than welcome. Thanks - JohnS.

Maybe because of space, flat takes up less room.

All the fittings I make are flat faced; seem to work just fine. As a fellow live steamer once said "with flat facings, you can always stick a teflon washer in to help seal if required"

Iain;

My first build was an LBSC Tich; there were issues during the build.

No matter - if you want to do it, do it. I did - people kept saying "start with a stationary engine! Build something larger!! Purchase one and fix it up!!!" but I went down the path I wanted to go.

But you have been warned - know that you have to plan ahead and think about fits and interferences. Talk to others and go through the mentioned on-line build logs. Maybe it's part of the fun?

I'm back on my Ivatt 2-6-0 Martin Evans' design; took a break and built a Kozo Hiraoka Shay (first version) and, on coming back to the Ivatt, it hit me just how good a designer and draughtsman Kozo Hiraoka is.

I think that I'd rather build another Kozo engine than a Martin Evans' one; saying that, there's 2 Simplexes at our club, (one regular, one super) and both run and run and run with minor maintenance. (and, I think one had to have its' rear axle replaced after many, many miles on a ground track)

I ordered some specific steel from a UK supplier (you'd know the one, but I won't mention the name) and they packaged it up and mailed it.

Unfortunately, mail shipments between UK and Canada are slow (probably ALL shipments are slow, between anywhere that needs planes to fly) so after a few weeks it's still not here.

No problem, I've got other projects (plus full time work) keeping me busy, and if in the unlikely event it gets lost, the materials can be sourced locally, once the stores re-open after the COVID-19 shutdown.

Years ago, (mid-70s) I used to order packages from Reeves, as a kid I did not pay for air-mail. My 2nd set of Tich Cylinder Castings took over 6 months; lots of other castings and so forth took about the same length of time; a month or two for this package from the UK metals supplier will be *nothing* in comparison!

Interesting times we are currently living through.

John; this is one of these interesting conundrums:

a) LinuxCNC is light-years ahead of Mach3;

b) Mach3 does well enough for most current home workshops;

c) if Mach3 is good enough, there's no incentive to update, but you're stuck with essentially dead software.

What to do?

I most certainly understand people sticking with Mach3, but I decided to try LinuxCNC and do enjoy the utter reliability of it. I've currently got 3 machines running LinuxCNC, may be 4 soon if I get off my duff. I mean, these machines are tools, like comparing a Warco or Boxford to an Emco Maximat or something; all would do a fine job in my workshop, given my skill-set.

The late John Stevenson and I exchanged lots of email, and in-person discussions over pints about LinuxCNC and it's hard-to-configure compared to Mach3 setups, and he was of course correct; for me Linux is easy, as I've been developing software on it for over 2 decades; for me Windows is rarely used and seems awkward. That's just the way life is.

By the way, I picked up a KX1 over here (Canada) years ago, without stepper controllers, and John Stevenson and I had a real discussion on it, as he said "impossible". He called the factory in China to ask what's up with mine. It ends up, it was one of a batch for internal use in China, that somehow leaked out - he did not know this, as the KX1 was his baby.