Member postings for Skarven

I was assemblying and lubricating the front suspension of a 1997 Polaris Indy700 CX snowmobile. Some of the points required a conical grease gun! i haven't seen those for a while. Is that an American thing?

A picture.

or maybe like this?

**LINK**

Kai

Edited By Skarven on 20/10/2012 21:23:56

Bazyle

is the St Katherine's dock maritime museum the same as or part of the Royal Museums Greenwich?

I had problems finding it on Yahoo.

Kai

I started with a 2-axis Sino SDS6-2V for my mill and a 3 axes SDS6-3V one for my lathe. I missed the Z of the mill, and bought another SDS6-3V Universal Display Console - 3 Axis Display from Allendale. Later I have come to the conclusion that I could just have used the 3-axis on the mill and sacrifised the 3rd axes on the lathe compound. I now have a spare 2-axis Sino SDS6-V2. If you are interested I could bring it to Sandown on Friday

You could use only one console for both, it only take a few minutes to set the scale directions and resolution and a few other things. You will loose any scale zero-settings though, and I often find myself using the mill while something is set up in the lathe or the other way around. I would also use a switch to change over the two or three scales, and make a very good ground connection between the two machines to make shure nothing will go wrong.

The cost of the extra Sino display (Allendale) is £208 for the 3-axis and £167 for the 2-axis. The scales are from about £80 to £120, so the the total for 2 complete 3-axes systems will be aproximately £1000. You would save some money going for one display, and you can allways buy another one later if you find the changeover is to much. You will have to have dedicated scales for the two machines.

Kai

It looks like an interesting place. I will probably visit them. Thank you.

Kai

Hi,I'm going to London for the Model Engineer Exhibition,
staying in Bayswater from Okt 30 til November 3rd.
I also want to do some 'Workshop Shopping'.
I can probably get many of the things I want at the Exibition on Friday,
but it would be nice to do some shoping on Wednesday/Thursday too! (And a museum or too).

The things I want to buy is: Parallels, Wavy parallels,Angle plates, Angle set, quares, Reamers, Engineers clamps, Test bar, Digital scale for tailstock, Coolant pipes ...

If I can get it on the plane back, (paid luggage is 10kg + 2 x 20kg), I might
also buy a milling vice, rotary table ...

Visiting MEE at SandownLast year I also went up to CHRONOS in Dunstable, and I might go there now too,
but several of the things that I want to buy is out of stock.
It is a bit far from London too, and a trip will take most of the day.

Are there any other shops in London or the surrounding area that I should visit?

Kai

The invention of a sewage system was a gradual development over thousonds of years demanded by a growing problem facilitated by a growing population. The same could be said of the decreasing water use of the flushing toilet.

I still front the bow and arrow as an example that needs real inginuety and a real grasp of mechanical principles. The atlatl and spear throwing devices is all decreasing the accuracy of the spear, which is not spectacular anyway. If you have spent a few hour sneaking up on a pray, you would want to hit it with the first shot. If it is hurt, it can be folowed to the end, no matter how far.

In my opinion the bow and arrow is the greatest LEAP in mechanical development in human history.

If you look at the spear and atlatl that came after it it (did they?). they are just extencions to what was already known, but the bow and arrow needed a genuine understanding of mechanical priciples which is unsurpassed even in modern history. Considering that they had almost nothing to build upon, this, IMO is the greatest mechanical LEAP of invention in human history.

Kai

If you consider only how complex a mechanical device is it there are many canidates. Lathes , Steam Engines ....

Now, if you consider the magnitude of invention and ingenuity, I think there is nothing competing with the BOW and ARROW!

While you could look at the spear as an advanced stone throwing thing and the throwing stick (is that the right term?) as an arm lengthening thing as just developments of the same thing, the BOW and ARROW stands out. It takes a lot of thought and invention to actually bend a stick, hold it with some rope, and then use it to throw arrows at distances no man could throw a spear. This would get food at the homestead and more time for thought!

About 10 years ago when I was working in Rugby, I made a trip to what I think was called Midland Air Museum close to Coventry. They had a Vulcan Bomber. I was very impressed! The guy who looked after it was what I would call a young old man who had flown Hurricanes during the war! You could climb into it and have a real look at it.

This was one of my best museum experiences.

I thought it is the English way, not to give your name until it is a bit more personal?

I have many interests, Model Engineering, Steam Engines, Electronics, Programming, Ham Radio, Model Airplanes, Biology, Astronomy.....

Many of these interests seem odd to a lot of people. I do not have anything to hide, but I don't want people to just google me and find out all about me in seconds. I actually think the name people put on themselves is more telling than the one they were given at birth (Steambuff, CoalBurner...) and more easily remembered. My 'name' is from my early model airplane days when I was just as bad at flying as the fully laden bird Skarven (Cormorant?).

Kai

Hi, I will also recommend this book.

I just read it, and it is the best book I have seen explaining electric motors of all kinds.

It's written in a way that most people can understand, and it handles DC, AC, VFD...

Definetly a book for everyone using electric motors. I thought I had all this knowledge before I bought the book, but I learned quite a few things.

I have no experience with stirling engines, but I think the efficiency seems to be on the low side. An input of about 1000 to 2000 watts gas flame heating for a battery charging of 2W, then increased to 4W by improvements.

Is this typical for stirling engines?

Hi,

It is a little bit more expencive in Norway.

I just bought a 10 litre bottle of Argon from Air Liquide, (I think the price is the same for all gasses), and paid £545.-. that was including the gas. A bottle exchange is £78.

I use an old fire extinguisher with CO2 for MIG-welding. It's a 5 litre bottle that refills for about £27.

Hi all,

sorry for late response, been away...

Clive

"Perhaps you had raw OSR and have now reaped the benefit!"

No, the one I used was the Canola Oil low Erucic acid variant normally used for cooking.

"Using it must be like 'Frying tonight' and the smell must be like rotting cabbage as it comes from the Brassica type plant family."

In fact, the smell wasn't really bad. The problem was the gumming and the corrosion.

"The fact that the stain is still there after cleaning means its etched into the metal."

Yes, it is very little though, I can't feel it at all with my nails. I'm going to try some metal polish.

The main reason for using rapeseed oil was the fact that it was non-poisonous, and it was very easy to vipe off your hands.

I'm using the water soluble oil type now, but it has a few drawbacks: All of this is on the mill, I have not used it on the lathe yet.

It does not smell good. This is according to my wife. My tolerance for "machinery" smell is very high!

The very low viscosity makes a real SPLASH every time you start the pump and the fluid reaches the nozzle. This splash spreads oil far from the machine! It is easy to clean up though.

The surface finnish is not as good as it was with rapeseed. I suspect that this is also a result of the low viscosity?

I have the impression that the thick rapeseed oil had a dampening effect. It seems to me that I more easily get chatter now.

If I can lay my hands on a can of neat cutting oil, or a mineral, what we used to call winter oil (10W), I will try to use that. The problem with the cutting oils is that they all contains additives which are more or less poisonous. My biggest problem is that I have been unable to get either!

Hi,

I have been using rapeseed oil as a cutting oil on my lathe and mill for about 7-8 months, and beeen very pleased with the performance. This was discussed in another thread some time ago.

However, the sceptics were right, it started to smell a little, not a really bad smell, but....

The worst thing was not that it started to leave a gummy sort of residue. This was easily removed by some WD40, but I suspect that the oil also had absorbed some moisture , because under my tailstock, which had been standing in the same place for quite some time, there was a black corrosion mark on the ways, even if there was plenty of oil. I could not feel it with my nails, but it was there! I could almost remove it with one of the sponges with a hard green side, but not quite.

Now I'm trying out water soluble cutting oil

The finnish with rapeseed oil was better than with the new one.though

I can see the attraction of used disks as they are completely free, but at about 25£, even a new one should be an alternative. Actually, I can't see how they can make them, ship them, and sell them to the end user at that price

-----

It means I'll have to redesign the controller with a chip with A2D on board though. I can have instant response or build in a time delay.

-----

You could make simple AD converter with a capacitor, resistor and an IO pin switched between Output for discharging the C and threstate input for reading when it is charged to the point where the input changes from one state to the other. This is not difficult to program and uses only one pin on the micro.

Hi,

Littlemachineshop lists two types of cable to connect "inexpensive imported DRO scales to a display unit", one with Mini-DIN and one with RJ-11. I think these "inexpensive imported DRO scales" have the same interface as the calipers.

http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3483&category=132430212

It all depends on what you wants to connect it to