Member postings for Adam Mara

Gardening is my main love, and a lot of things I make on my lathe and mill are for my irrigation systems. There are various options, including drippers and sprinklers. In the greenhouse I tend to use trays with capillary matting in them, with a timer switching a solenoid valve to gravity feed water from a raised water butt. Pots are checked with a moisture meter, and the valve timing adjusted to suit.

Loads of BSW machine screws at work, at least 25 years old ex B&Q! PM me if don't have any luck, I will be going into work on Monday to collect the rent, and can pinch a few and post them to you!

Just a word of warning! My eldest daughter has a Victorian house with a large cellar, last year there was a cloudburst locally and the drains could not cope, leading to a flooded cellar, ruining the freezer, fortunately my son in law's extensive wine collection was not at affected!

I am 80 in October and this morning i got my annual state pension increase letter, I am informed that I will get an extra 25p a week when I reach 80. If I save it for a year I might be able to buy a bottle of second rate champagne to celebrate!

I agree with Neil, I would not buy anything direct from China I could not afford to lose. With the shipping time being 2 or 3 months, it will arrive after Brexit, and nobody has the fainest idea what will be happening. My SIL is a accountant for a shipping company, and they know no more about it than we do, its driving him mad!

Edited By Adam Mara on 13/02/2019 17:55:03

A trick we used at work for holding small pieces for routing was to cut a hole the size of the plate in a larger piece of scrap material slightly thinner than the workpiece. Both fixed to the sub plate with 3M VHB tape, then clamped to the machine bed. Fairly thin soft aluminium was used as a sub plate, as it was easier to 'peel' off.

JasonB, when I was at work, I used a Gerber Dimension 200 router with a Perske high speed motor, never had a problem with acrytlic melting , we used end mills and slot drills as required. As to acrylic not being flat, we always have a problem laser engraving jobs involving mortice and tenon joints, as they are often to tight, or loose due to variations in thickness.

I have a 1970's workshop with single wall brick , concrete floor and 100mm composite roofing, and have never had a problem with rust on my tools or machinery. My various machines are cover with covers made from a 'retired' caravan awning!

I have had a Chester DB7v metric version since 2012, had a problem with it when it was delivered, which was quickly rectified. It stopped working after about 3 years, and their service department soon got me going again ( a loose connection!). I find a great lathe, although it replaced an ancient worn out Drummond! If I ever changed it, it would be another Chester machine. Usual disclaimer!

Back in 1993, when we closed our ironmongery business in the town centre, our turnover was £300,000 a year, and our rates alone were £30,000 a year. Taking into account buying the stock, rent, wages and all the other expenses, never mind the shop lifting, it really was not worth the hassle. We still in business, but manufacturing now, low rates and no shop lifting! I seldom go into the town centre these days, and definitely not in the evenings.

I have found that the '2000' versions of Excel, Word and Access run happily on my updated last week W10 64bit. I have one or two specialist programs that will only run on W4W, and an old desktop is still used for those!

With my fading I have a 'Orders Pending' directory on my Outlook emails, just save the order confirmation to that, then delete it when the goods arrive.

For anyone that is interested there is an article on bombsight computers at

http://www.glennsmuseum.com/bombsights/everything.html

I have a few bits left from all those years ago, much has been lost, used or thrown away over the last 60 years. In the photo the brass gear are ex a Mk XIV or similar, the top aluminium gears are from some Canberra bomber equipment, but not sure what the dial was from. I also have a couple of heavy duty relays, which I believe were Lancaster spares.

My dad was a keen radio amateur, I used to go to ex WD sales with him, he bought loads of stuff at these sales, there was a lot to get rid off when he passed away!

I can tell you exactly what the motor is! Its from a WW2 aircraft bombsight computer, there were two in it and they are 24 volt. There were also lots of gears, bellows and dials in it, Mine was a present in the early 50s and still have a few gears left from it!

Thought it was me getting inconsistent results with my Panasonic bread maker using recipes, pleased to hear I am not alone. I get far better results from the ready to bake packs, Wrights Mixed Grain is favourite, and has a fairly long shelf life, but always read the instructions, this is what happened when I missed 'use half a pack' on a Ciabatta mix!

A bit off topic, but Micks comments about Delia gives you some idea of the power of TV. My wife managed our cookshop for 30+ years, and whenever the current 'chef of the day' used some utensil, sales soared! One we remember well was an egg wedger, lucky if you sold one a year, used on TV and they were selling like hot cakes. The older members of the forum may remember the 'Autochop' heavily promoted on TV around the 70's, we literally sold thousands, and probably like many kitchen gadgets, abandoned shortly afterwards. As for "Battle of Britain Model Squadron", one episode was enough for me! Once again, apologies for going off topic!

I have an old used cutter for a key cutting machine, unfortunately its 32mm diameter and 1.3mm thick, any use? Photo of new one!

My eldest daughter was a headmistress, when a new school was built I gained a unit with 24 handy trays in it, all the machine spares and accessories fit in it, apart from the 110mm rotary table, and the unit sits just underneath my milling machine! But I have no idea where my big box of assorted masonry nails are, 'sorted' out the workshop about 4 years ago, and never seen them since. Another vote for OLD AGE!

Sounds very much like the description of a rim lock spring. When I left work there was a assorted box of around 150mm lengths of steel for forming into lock springs. The works is closed until Tuesday, and I could find out then if they are still around. If they of interest, please PM me.

We sold a couple to a local cannery in the 50's, used to check height of bottles and tins against a master copy. Sadly the cannery has long gone, and now is a housing estate, like so much of our industry.