Member postings for Nigel Graham 2

Martin -

It is possible, sort of, to assemble the chuck with the collet up on the dogs rather than between them, but I think it would tell you almost straight away because you would be unable to screw the nut on more than a turn or two.

The square looks to be smaller than the rod can accommodate, unless that part visible is actually a sleeve carrying the shaft inside it.

Perhaps more to the point, it looks a bit short rather than too small. I'd suggest it ought end flush with the face of the operating-arm for maximum strength and contact area.

It looks as if this was once a common pattern.

Of my two specimens, typically I can only find one at the moment. It is apparently of " Crown " make - at least as stamped rather faintly on the body, together with a symbol like that for the King in chess notation.

More faint stampings give the 0 - 1/2 inch capacity.

It has no taper shank, but instead a though-hole that appears to be bored MT2 - an odd way round of doing things.

Testing the Vee-jaws shows they are for hexagonal, not square stock.

I have an idea the other, wherever it is hiding, is a Westcott chuck; and also has a taper (Jacob's??) socket rather than shank.

What tooling nowadays has a hexagonal rather than round or square shank? It's now very common, for screwdriver bits and the like. So maybe these rather splendid antiques have a new role, on pillar-tools!

I've cracked a problem I had mounting the boiler in the chassis of my miniature steam-wagon.

The space between the chassis rails is 5 inches wider than the vertical cylindrical firebox (ignoring lagging, for which I have allowed half-inch thickness), so the boiler has to rest in a sub-frame which I am also making as the boiler's lifting-cradle.

Whilst also trying to think ahead of such matters as pipe-runs, including the option to fit a super-heater with the pipes hidden as much as possible under the lagging - the prototype fed its compound engine, hot wet fluff through a prominent pipe rising from a globe-valve regulator on the firebox crown.

Lots of modifications, lots of bits of angle-steel yet to be " tiddlified " from their present all-angular shapes; one bit modified further to clear a ball-joint on the Ackermann steering. The cosmetic trimmings come once their functional aspects are established.

'

There is a particular personal aspect to this.

I had been working all last week, up to Sunday evening, on the travelling-hoist for the workshop.

On Monday morning I heard of the death of a fellow model-engineering club member whom I realised had been a friend for longer than any others I know; since the time we had both been teenaged Junior Members.

He and I both embarked on our rather ambitious projects at around the same time - mine being a hopelessly over-ambitious attempt to build the steam-wagon at 6-inch scale. (Eventually I started again at the more sensible 4-inch - but still taking far too long.)

Later on Monday afternoon I put aside the hoist parts and resumed work on the wagon. It gave me some solace but more to the point, working on that rather than anything else seemed a fitting farewell.

As I recall the Mamod safety-valve is not adjustable, but was factory-set by its design, so all you can do is ensure it lifts. It might possible to ensure it is not seized by manipulating it by hand, cold and off the boiler.

Any club boiler-testers here who know the right pressure for these?

If you've received no nuisance calls recently it's 'cos they were ringing me - pretending to be my bank's anti-fraud department!

I don't think the air is noticeably clearer than usual where I am, because I live on the SW English coast; but I am becoming accustomed to the much quieter surroundings. Far less traffic about, though the helicopter base a couple of miles way is still operating (training pilots).

I have not had to use the pedestrian lights between the Co-op and me for a few weeks now: I just wait for the three approaching cars to go by... then typically the four that have arrived in the other direction.

I do count my blessings though. Although missing my caving, model-engineering society and geology-group activities, and occasional Sunday Lunch in my local (proper beer too), I am retired so my daily life has not changed much. I have a modest garden, a friendly neighbour, and of course my workshop and enough projects for that humorous Walker-Midgley poster about immortality.

It must be awful for those cooped up in flats, and who have no real hobbies or interests in life - and two friends with incurable, stealthy, long illnesses are always in my thoughts.

Didn't get into the workshop until late afternoon.

Had to visit my bank - bus to town, a few minutes discussion through its half-open front door then some hole-in-the-wall activity; and walked home via the Co-Op. So food shopping and exercise in one trip.

The walk partly along the asphalted formation of what had been the railway from Weymouth to Portland.

Twigged where I had frustratingly gone awry in my present project, investigated a possible solution but realised making new parts is the only proper way, and cut the blanks before retiring for the evening.

'

I'd also had a go at removing the kinks from my garden hose; polythene with an open-weave reinforcing within the wall. Bad storage had set flats in it. Discovering the sun shining on the length lying on the ground made it much more pliable, I G-clamped the edges of some of the flats to squeeze them back to near-cylindrical, and left it to bask in the sun then cool as the house shadow came across it. It's an experiment, but I have a Plan Two if that fails.

The cross-beam for a travelling-hoist I am building is a 6-foot gauge 4-wheel bogie, the beam itself a frame built from 4 lengths of angle-steel linked by flat plates and channels.

Recognising it would be very difficult to make angle-iron rails truly level and parallel in a 16 X 6 ft concrete-block shed built to the nearest half-block, I am giving the "bogie" simple horn-blocks with rubber pads. The design is further complicated by limited head-room at one end - and the frame has to hang below the suspension.

Taking all care I drilled all the plates on the milling-machine, the angles against an angle-plate on the bench-drill (space reasons), and the frame came out very satisfactorily.

Fabricated the horns complete with lead-in bevels to aid the upwards assembly necessary...

... Then discovered their screw-holes did not line up with the DRO-set holes waiting in the chassis plates!

Annoyed and disappointed I decided what holes could be enlarged and/or slotted in what bits. There goes their pristine accuracy, and I reflected though this is a purely functional tool, not exhibition entry, I still want to make a decent job of it.

Then it hit me, this morning.

I'd used the wrong ends as data, matching the datum corners marked by drill-dots on the frame-plates, but not right for their own purpose; and I might have escaped by simply inverting them, with new bevels.

Using some very ratty old steel hadn't helped either.

Nothing for it now though, really, but to make new horns, from some metal in good condition, and I cut the blanks this evening.

'

The moral?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, fore-sight is even better!

(Probably available from stockists of round-tuits and spare moments.)

One suggestion:

Clean up a section of the bar near the tail end.

Turn a simple cylindrical bush, generously thick-walled, to be a tight push-fit on that area.

You might want to fit a grub-screw that will sink below the outer surface and touch one of the flats (use a shim pad to protect the surface), as the bush contacts the work-piece only on the edges.

Now support the work in the 4-jaw with the steady running on the bush - but ensure accurate centring in the chuck otherwise the outer end of the bar will try to move in a circle exaggerating the error, and cause a lot of problems.

'

Another, based on a long-established trick for good-quality square bar, is to make two such bushes, both a tight push-fit. The first as above, the other split along its length to be gripped wrapped round the stock, in a 3-jaw chuck.

'

Probably the ideal way for a task like that is to use a between-centres boring-bar if you have those and a T-slotted saddle on your lathe. You would still use a long drill for the pilot hole.

Sometimes I wonder what planet I am from...

I can honestly say I can recall none of the culinary horrors others describe...

'

Our Mam was quite a good cook and baker (of cakes and pies, she never tried making bread), and our family ate well of a quite varied diet, though no more adventurous than most others in that 1950-60s era.

School meals? I cannot remember anything to complain about; and I loved the tapioca, semolina and rice-pudding others all sneer at. I still do! Mum made excellent baked rice pud.

'

S.O.D. pus his cake-testing skewer on it. It was never British food that was poor, and the country as a whole has a wide range of regional specialities as well as country-wide staples. It was lazy or inept cooking that let it down, and was so seized upon with great glee by the "life-style" columnists whom I grace not with the term "journalist", paid to discredit anything British, especially English.

As for "strange cloudy" ale, well your local pub might have been as bad as John Major's watering-holes that he infamously alleged heated their beers; but generally those days are thankfully past - though when we'll be able to sup good cask ale again is another matter....

I feel hungry now!

I made a special measuring tool for a dear friend of mine, for last Christmas.

She has a curious habit of cutting slices of cake into small cubes, so I made a centre-finder / calibrated square to aid accurate cutting. Machined from a scrap sheet stainless-steel shelf bracket (ex-catering equipment so appropriate!), I even calibrated its 2-hand long blade in hands and eighth-hands, reflecting her horse-riding hobby.

It is actually quite precise too, even though made in humour. I used the DRO on the mill to engrave the lines with a worn-out centre-drill, and tested the centre-finding by sharp pencil on the underside of a saucepan.

It's worth considering if you can do this by weighing in one go, the total of Evergreen for the lawn area. This will depend to some extent on how it's applied - as dry granules or a solution in water.

35g is barely an ounce and a quarter, so weighing it accurately is easier if in a larger amount.

You could also find some suitable container you can level-mark indelibly with the correct amount of that chemical, once established, for repeat use.

If you use a lot of garden additives by weight or volume, see if you can buy a low-cost scales and measuring-jug in your local shops that can open. Keep them in the shed or green-house!

Some use wedges between the chuck and spindle-nose, but you have to be very aware of what the wedges are bearing against; and opposing-wedges are better than a single one by not introducing a rather unfair side-load.

I think I have tried using two wedges drawn together by a clamp.

I managed to lose the plain-type drawbar for my Myford VMC mill during a house move, but when measuring and studying the manual so I could make a replacement, discovered I could make an ejecting one. The secret is a collar that engages a diameter step inside the spindle - but this machine also has an R8 taper, much easier to release than Morse, and the draw-bar also prevents the just-released tool from accidental free-fall.

Thank you!

Brian -

Back when one service, No.22 I think, ran from Upwey Wishing-well right through to Portland (Southwell), or even the Bill?

The service even to the housing-estate on the road up to the prison ended years ago.

Did you know Brian Jackson in your time on the buses? I think he retired as Inspector, but was instrumental in establishing the Dorset Transport Circle, mainly among the 00-gauge section of Weymouth & District MES, and the DTC buying for preservation the Bristol single-deck bus we all came to know by its Southern National fleet-number 1613 (Reg. No. LTA 772). I may be wrong but recall the company's fleet-numbers were not mere transfers or stencils, but neat bas-relief aluminium castings - as they should be!

I had often been a passenger on 1613 during its working life, when it was regularly on the school services! Brian would drive it on DTC trips.

I don't know if DTC still exists but I know the bus was eventually sold to a new owner (museum?) in Swindon. Brian has written a lot of Dorset public-transport books, and sometimes lectures on the subject.

Variations of that combination of fleet and registration numbers came in handy at work, as PC passwords, too.

M6; or possibly 0BA?

Those two threads are so similar that unless cut just-so and un-worn they will often fit together, though not by design (different angles).

I think that on my ML7 is 1/4" BSF, but I have not so far needed to use it so I could be wrong. Something for me to examine so thank-you for the tip!

Solved!!

Ruddy 'Ell!

Turns out they are traffic lights after all - thanks to a tip from my neighbour!

Thank you all for your suggestions - Dave could still be right about a pilots' land-mark though.

They are not temporary ones on road-works as Diogenes had suggested, but permanent, on the portals of a short tunnel leading to the prison, radio-station and Jailhouse Cafe. My neighbour recalled seeing the lights when driving to the café.

Why was I fooled into thinking they are not?

Optical illusions: they are high up the hill but I still thought them well below the prison entrance. The entrance is invisible over a mile away in the dark; and lower down than I'd believed having mistaken large, bright lights higher up still, for street-lamps on its approach

No road junction there.

Width apart: the road is fairly narrow but the entrance wing-walls are very wide, and the lamps must be on those.

General location: overlooking the air-station.

Unusual behaviour - the amber so short and faint it seemed just an artefact; the 1-minute cyclic pattern; on only at night. Or not visible in daylight even in dull weather - but they might be triggered in office hours by an approaching vehicle.

So their nocturnal behaviour might mean they have a secondary role as a night-flying land-mark, as Dave suggests. They shine roughly Northwards, across the W-E landing-strip some 300+ feet below.

'

I do not have a proper tripod mount for my binoculars but from Perko's suggestion I rested them on the tripod. This gave two things:

Sufficient steadiness - I have always had shaky hands - for me to see they do follow the normal 3-colour pattern though with a briefer, fainter amber.

Aiming-points and local horizon (a house roof) for daylight-viewing; so this morning, despite thin mist, I could see the tunnel portal just above that roof-line, and verify the lights were off.

Ah well, and no it was not the first of the month!

You wouldn't think I will have lived in this area for 61 years this year, but then, on my Officially Approved walk in only in the first LD week I discovered a twitchel I had not previously known, very close to home; linking two familiar roads and passing the Infants' and Primary Schools I had attended way back. Back when steam still ruled, passenger-and goods- trains drawn by ex-GWR pannier-tanks still served Weymouth Harbour.. And pikelets and 'Wagon Wheels' were of larger diameters!

The helicopter base was there then, as RNAS Portland, and adjacent to the now-vanished railway from Weymouth. Among the manoeuvres taught in the 1960s and 70s was frigate deck-landing, using a barge moored in what was RN (Portland). I think putting a helicopter on a frigate was a development new to that era.

Perko - Good idea , if I can find an efficient way to mount the binoculars - I had been thinking of doing that anyway. I already have a tripod.

Cornish Jack - I think the landing area is lit, and they do carry out night-flying, though not as late as midnight, I don't think.

Rocking Dodge - There could be, yes ....

Brian - ... and there is indeed a fixed red aircraft-warning light above the Verne. I looked at the chart, well, its photographic version, and it does show that what I see is not there to aid shipping. They are anyway roughly above the yacht marina, not the main harbour.

Part of the road up there does lie roughly along my line of sight from home (yes, I am in Wyke Regis), whereas I thought it was a bit further round. So Diogenes might be right about traffic-lights, though they don't match normal traffic-light behaviour and seem to be switched off during the day. I believe there are traffic-lights on the prison entrance, which is an arch through an enormous embankment, but I don't think I am seeing them. They look too wide apart and too low down.

'

Found something else on that Google photo. To the West of Wyke Regis, someone called Anna had some fun making outlines and her name by walking in a meadow! '

Thank you Brian - I was hoping someone with first-hand knowledge would respond! I agree about the changes too, but at least the Air Station is still busy, and the harbour has become a genuine port rather than just the Canary Wharf Sailing Club's outpost. (The amateur sailors are catered for, but on former air-station and railway land.)

The landing area is hidden from me by houses in the next street, so I can see only that part of Portland over about 250-300feet a.s.l.

;

Sam - you could be right about the amber being an artefact. The lights probably use separate luminaires but at well over a mile way they would tend to blur during any change-over momentarily showing both. They don't seem to be in the right place for guiding ships; and anyway would not change colours as they do.

.

Diogenes - It's a thought. They are probably of about the right intensity, but they don't look quite right to be that, and in that location:

The only road there, at that height, serves the prison, an MoD radio station and a cafe - not open at midnight even in normal times! Also I don't know if any part of it is aligned with my line of sight. Two-lane road, not very wide - these lights look a bit too far apart, but it's hard to tell at well over a mile away.

Also temporary traffic-lights are not normally duplicated across a minor road like this one.

Constant 1 minute cycles - I timed it last night. Road-works lights often respond to an approaching vehicle, and I would see its lights - I doubt anyone would be driving up there at that time of night.

It is: Green 30s.

Amber: 1s at most and quite faint - see Sam's suggestion.

Red. 30s.

Amber ditto. Any red + amber phase would be difficult to differentiate from amber only, at that range.

Green again.

And they appear to be turned off during the day! Presently Portland is shrouded in thick mist but I would expect binoculars to reveal a faint glow, at least from the red lamps. They were not visible though in clearer daylight conditions when I tried to identify their location.

I'll have to go and look one day - but it's a long walk from home.

It's cabin fever settin' in, I do tell 'ee! I ought go and buy some scran, and get back in the workshop!

Something that's intriguing me...

Who knows about either air-stations or commercial harbours?

The former RN Air Station (Portland) is now a commercial helicopter training-base, currently being used by German Navy Search-&-Rescue pilots. (Yes, working even at present.)

I cannot see it from my house but from the bedroom window, facing South, I can see the highest part of Portland, about 400ft a.s.l., above it and Portland Port.

I've noticed late at night a pair of bright lamps, on the same level as each other but some distance apart, perhaps about 300ft a.s.l, somewhere above either the air-station or the harbour.

These both shine green for a while, then very briefly amber, before red for some while - I have not timed them but probably 30 seconds or more each red and green, only a second or two amber. Then straight back to green and the cycle starts again, simultaneously on both lamps.

I've not been able to distinguish their detailed location.

Does anyone know what these might be?

They are far too high up to be landing-pad lamps, and anyway unless it's been changed that is aligned roughly West-East whereas the lights seem aimed Northwards, roughly orthogonal to my line of sight - though they might be omnidirectional.

They also seem wrongly placed for marine navigation, but although red and green are used, amber is not; and the colour is normally constant even if flashing, to indicate which way a ship must steer.

All I can think is that they are so aligned that when they appear to merge or be in vertical line the helicopter is flying parallel to the landing-strip - but that surely has its own lamps, and why the slow colour-changing?

Put my caving-kit and tents in the loft - not going to need them for a while.....

Enjoyed a post-prandial walk only a modest distance from home, along part of The Fleet (the lagoon between Chesil Beach and mainland.)

Started machining the assemblies I welded yesterday.

Finished the first stage and emerged from the workshop, with my tummy reminding me it's long past tea-time and there are pikelets and hot-cross buns in the cake-tin, to hear applause and assorted banging and clanging.

What on Earth.....?

Then remembered it's Thursday and 8pm... Went out still in overalls and oily hands to join in and have a natter with the neighbours. Jenny next door remarked you never see so many of the street's residents all at once!