Member postings for Adam Mara

Reminds me of my ironmongers apprentice days in the 50's. We sold loose raw liseed oil, boiled linseed oil, turps sub, genuine turps, creosote and meths, all in 45 gallon barrels, the linsed oil was always the messy slow running one to use. There were also 2 x 1000 gallon paraffin tanks in the leanto, so it was quite a messy area with leakages and spillage! The shop was sold in the early nineties, and the area redeveloped into a shopping mall, bet they had contamination issues!

We live 4 miles from the Wash, I don't know what one of our neighbours puts out, but we often get a flock of seagulls circling round and diving into their garden. They don't visit our garden, probably because at least 4 of the neighbourhood cats use it as a convenience and cat fight ground!

A foam based VHB tape might do the job, I use them to bond acrylics. I have also found Wilko's Hard Plastic adhesive to be pretty good some. But as the others have warned, many 'oily' plastics are difficult to glue, I opt for 'mechanical' fixing in preference.

Certainly sold as spring washers in my days as a country ironmonger! Made by Herbert Terry in Reddich, and were a devil to count as they always stuck together. Still have some Terrys flat steel spanners in my workshop, but they are all imperial, and not much use on metric!

Our house was requisitioned by the army in WW2, and we moved to a cottage in a village near Grantham to be near my dad a radio amateur on the RAF reserve who was called up early. He was then posted to Egypt for 3 years, and my mum became friendly with a Land Girl working on the next door farm. I only found out recently that my OG was used for a Gin and Orange drink to cheer themselves u!p! I survived, and the land girl eventually married mum's brother.

I remember the days when Japanese import cars were declared as 'rubbish' against UK models, its a different story now!

Just look at the cost of buying a new, or even good secondhand Myford lathe, a new Chinese model can be bought for a fraction of the price, good enough for me as a rank amateur, and many other hobbyists by the looks of the number of companies selling them in the UK.

When I was working, it always saddened me that all the major machinery we purchased was foreign, American. Austrian, French, Dutch and Japanese, and a lot of the materials we use are imported.

I have been quite happy with the cutters I bought from Amazon on my little 3018 CNC router, just engraved 6 25mm x 50mm brass plates with 3 lines of text, and the cutter is still good! Snapped a couple of 1.55mm, but that was down to operator error. (Note to self - read the instructions!)

Another happy Worcester user here, we have a big 1930's 4 bedroom semi, the boiler was installed last May, including a power flush, new pump and magnetic thingy for sludge £2750, and the winter heating quarter bill dropped £150 with the modern boiler.

I am 80, had an 'eye stoke' 5 weeks ago, leaving me with severe double vision, and unable to drive. My wife has breathing difficulties due to treatment for cancer, but we don't qualify! We have had Tesco deliveries for the last four years, our last one is tomorrow, as we cannot get any more, tried to complain but they don't accept emails, the phone line is never answered and a letter to the CEO also goes unanswered.

My sons closed our business down on Friday, they think we can survive around 20 weeks. Biggest worry is how many of our self employed and small business customers will be still trading when we return. How many more of the suppliers for our hobby will have to follow ARC's decision over the next few weeks?

My 6 year old Suzuki passed today with flying colours!, the garage was just doing pre booked MOT's and is closing down on Friday.

The family company closes down on Friday, the employed staff finished on Monday, and my two sons running it finish on Friday, we have been asked to make spit guards, but cannot obtain the materials. The company has survived 2 world wars and several recessions, but not sure we can survive a pre-longed stoppage.

Depending on your requirements, a 3 in 1 metal worker might be suitable, capacity 305mm width, and thickness up to around 1mm, guillotines, bends and rolls as well. I find mine very useful, its mainly used for making 0.9mm aluminium boxes and brackets.

I have been engraving on and off for around 50 years. Started with a Gravograph IM3, and within a year purchased a larger model which had ratio's from 1 to 1 up to 1 to 8, and purchased a computer model when they became available. My sons run the business now, we still have a IM3 a 10 year old computer Gravograph machine which get some use but most of our work is done on a Trotec laser machine these days. We also have a Gerber Dimension CNC router we have had for 25 years!

In my workshop I have my own Gravograph IT4 cup engraver, an ongoing project, which now looks like being abandoned due to my eyesight problem. Anyway to get to the point, it has a 3500rpm motor on it, but it a slightly smaller pulley on the head, so the cutter will be going a little faster. It appears to be the same motor as fitted to the manual machines.

Andrew, yes I have got some 1/8" cutters, and also some 11/64" which fitted one of our original machines, if you decide to go along that route. They are from Pantograph Services who we have used for years.

Andrew, if you go along with Baz's suggestion, I think I have some Gravograph 1/8" in my workshop, please PM me if you are interested. I have used successfully for doing brass relief lettering.

Can't check at the moment as I had an eye stroke 2 weeks ago and are struggling with severe double vision, and the workshop is out of bounds at the moment!

In the early 50's I bought a pair of Eclipse bar magnets from a shop close to Canterbury Cathedral, I still have them hardlyn used in the original box base with the keepers, sadly there is hardly enough strength to hold the keepers on

I'm retired, but have access to a commercial Trotec Speedy 400 laser cutter (capacity 1000mm x 600mm and 300mm in height, which I have used to cut up to 16mm Perspex. South Lincs if that helps, please PM if interested.

For day to day use on 'unimportant' sites, I use a combination of my late dads 'Ham' radio call sign, and my grandfathers telephone number which I inherited when I married in 1965, Easily remembered, until BT in their wisdom issued us with a new phone number in one of their 'upgrades'.

Very likely an Aven Trimmatool blade, a Surform rival from the 50's and 60's, as far as I can remember!, sold a few in my time.

Now where did I leave the chuck key?

Nothing new in using American aircraft! My father in law was an upper gunner in a RAF B17 involved in early electronic counter measures in 1944/45. Like many, he would say little about his experiences, the only thing he ever told us that afrer one mission all they found of the rear gunner were his boots. Very brave young men, FIL was only 18, sadly he died quite young, before what they did became public knowledge.

This thread made me get out my licence to see my 'codes', and they are exactly the same as yours. I did opt out of the 7.5 tonne class on one of the previous renewals, not having driven one for 20 years!

I am up for my 82 year old renewal next year, and it really surprises me there are no mandated tests to renew your licence. My eldest son and one of my son in law's both in their early 50's have health and eyesight checks every 3 years before they can renew their HGV licences, neither of them actually drive HGV's for a living, but hang on to them 'just in case!