Member postings for Nigel Graham 2

There are areas of the English Channel and North Sea floors thickly carpeted with sand and gravel, washed in by rivers, or left when the Channel was a river valley in the present Ice Age's Last Glacial Maximum.

Some of this gravel is collected by suction-dredgers such as illustrated above, for building aggregate (I assume it has to be washed to remove the salt) and one such deposit is off the Kent and Sussex coast.

Maybe 15 years ago now, this trade became the focus of a genuine (not campaigners' environmental concern, but not as you might expect, over destroyed sea-floor wildlife and habitats. At least, not as far as my involvement goes.

Instead a marine-biology department somewhere I know not, were worried about the underwater noise of the dredging driving fish and mammals away. So the firm for I worked was sub-contracted to take underwater sound-spectra, by amplitude with frequency, at planned points around the dredger, whose crew were perfectly happy about it all. Two of us - scientist and I as lab assistant - spending the day on a small work-boat owned by an environmental-surveying company, circling the dredger at set distances and taking hydrophone readings.

The dredger was noisy enough on the surface, with the continual roar of its engines and of gravel and water being pumped aboard. Big cascades of sand-coloured water poured from the hold overflows, creating a plume of aquatic "fog" drifting down-Channel on the strong tidal stream.

The skipper of the chartered boat pointed to the plume and remarked, " I'd have thought they'd worry far more about that silt settling to the sea-bed and choking the tiny animals living in it! "

He had a point, but if " they " were also asking that question, it was to others, outside of my firm's remit and expertise.

Our manager duly sent in the report. I never learnt how it was received or what became of the customer's study.

That last comment suggests the lining was added at some stage later.

Could be your only alternative is by scraping but that does risk scarring the wood, especially if areas of the adhesive bond are stronger than the wood's own grain strength.

Alternatively, use the lathe but trepan the teeth off? (Equivalent to using the rotary-table and slot-drilling.)

No it would not be an Act of God because it would a failure of a man-made structure due to human failings since its construction.

Flooding on a flood-plain would be " an Act of God ", because a flood-plain is entirely natural, and like meanders which some land-owners used mistakenly to think better replaced by straight cuts, are parts of the river's natural self-control; and have not been altered significantly by human agency until built over. In many areas they were used to agricultural advantage as " water meadows " by controlling the flooding to help the river place new mineral-bearing sediments on the ground, and to keep the soil slightly warmer through the coldest parts of Winter.

That dam must have been constructed correctly. If not, it could not survived no doubt many floods since. The builders did now that man-made things wear out though, so built to last whilst assumed that like anything else - roads, railways, ships, buildings - would be maintained.

We know its drain-valves and pipes were overhauled several years ago, but has anyone been inspecting the structure regularly (probably annually) and ensuring any repairs were carried out; within the last few decades?

After all, think how many homes and churches - including gigantic Mediaeval cathedrals - many centuries old are still being used as intended, in Britain. How is that possible? Apart from obvious up-dating like sanitation and electricity, by being looked after throughout their lives.

I wondered about syphons, too, but whichever method's used the water has to be released somewhere, and that seems only to be a river already swollen, and the canal - but the latter may be effective by judicious opening of lock and side-spill hatches down-hill.

We can only watch and hope that the reservoir can be drained as quickly and safely as possible. The first need is to render the area safe enough for everyone to return home.

I would guess proper repairs will take a long time and might necessitate replacing the entire dam face.

++--

As for the town's lavatories....

I recall a former work colleague describing his parental home's arrangements in a "Coronation Street" style, Victorian housing-estate, in Leeds I think.

The necessaria at the ends of the back yards were flushed by rain-water from the roof down-spouts filling flop-jacks below the outhouse floors. Inevitably, in dry weather, down the yard had a certain, umm, ambience; whilst in wet, the place resounded with the constant " whoosh! crash! " of lots of flop-jacks all working away.

The homes including my grandparents' in Nottingham's similar Hyson Green estate also had brick outhouses beyond the tiny back gardens. Plush ones though, due to these new-fangled, high-level, cast-iron syphonic cisterns supplied from the mains water. (T'other grandparents over in Arnold were even better-off: their 1930s home's loo was indoors, off the side of the back porch.)

It will depend on the class of the adhesive, and may be worth experimenting with some scrap materials before risking damaging the box and felt.

PVA might respond to hot water - the question with water or any water-based solvent is what it might do to the woodwork, which is unlikely to be protected under the felt.

An impact adhesive like Evo-stick, or a rubber-based one, might dissolve in meths, isopropyl alcohol or white spirit, though I've not tried these. There are some solvents made for removing adhesive labels safely - I do not know if they will touch cured impact-adhesive, but again, might be worth a try.

'

At work I used to use a very effective but remarkably safe, citrus-oil based, solvent intended primarily intended for cleaning electrical equipment. I'm sorry, I forget its name but I am fairly sure it was an Ambersil product, made for cleaning electrical equipment. The present Ambersil site lists what seems the nearest equivalent, Ambersolv SB1. The soiling it claims to remove include include rubber-based adhesives.

I don't know if Ambersil sell directly. Possibly not, especially to single-use buyers, but the material ought be available through a tools or automotive factor. The solvent we bought came in 5l bottles via RadioSpares I think, but Ambersil seems now to list only aerosol cans, and if it works, like all the solvents, you might need a fair bit thanks to the shielding given by the felt.

'

Synthetic resins are well-nigh insoluble. I have encountered professionally one or two nasty solvents that do attack them, but very slowly. However you'd probably find them very hard to obtain, they might not reach the adhesive without evaporating from the felt, and they could do as much damage to the wood and felt as to the glue. And to you if don't handle them with the care they demand.

Whatever you try, could end up doing more harm than good, unfortunately, hence my suggestion that you use test-pieces first, from scrap materials.

May be worth contacting a professional furniture-restorer for advice.

'

Personally, faced with the same problem, I'd revise why I want to expose the wood, unless the felt is so badly damaged and filthy it is neither use nor ornament. (In which case perhaps to renew it, especially if restoring an antique.) After all, it was put there for a purpose!

So it all looks as if the appropriate valves etc are there - and were renewed / refurbished recently - but they don't look as if they'd have much effect on the flood itself as the explanations say they would take some days to drain the reservoir normally.

They aren't the problem though, and the spillway had been acting as it should.

Unfortunately no-one could have anticipated the spillway surface being ripped up, exposing the clay core. It could have taken just a couple of small holes to let water to flow under the first slab, to initiate the erosion.

I am pretty sure Wechat is the application the People's Republic of China is using to track its Muslim and Khazak minorities. If not it is something very similar.

China is perhaps the world leader in developing such software, and has already sold it to a number of other governments.

However, we cannot be too smug or complacent about far-away dictatorships using such spying. An item on Radio 4 the other day described a programme anyone can buy on-line, designed specifically for spying on others such as after a broken partnership. Or leading to such a breakdown. The speaker - sorry, I forget her name - had used this, and found far from helping her it made a lot more miserable because it implied not only she could not trust others, but she herself was not trustworthy.

The less one's involvement with the Internet at large, or the smart-phone-on-24-hours syndrome, the better. I refuse point-blank to use Facebook and its ilk, and I would certainly not buy a so-called " smart " 'phone if some business tried to insist I do. I know it would be for its, not my, convenience.

'

BT Internet hopes you won't do it, but you can switch off the so-called "Targetted Cookies" prior to using its e-post service. It only saves the setting for that session though. A linguistically ugly phrase for a socially ugly concept - selling your details to advertising agencies unknown to you, with only the most slender of implicit permission from you. Outlook has a similar feature but instead lists its clients... hundreds of them, but you can "Select all", and I do.

'

A warning tale came from a friend who a few years ago, proudly displayed photos of his recently-completed, major model-engineering project on Facebook. It elicited a number of enquiries about its value.... (He did delete them.)

Al lour thoughts are with the residents of Whaley Bridge and settlements downstream.

Does the dam have a flushing / drain-valve at its foot, as many do?

That might not have coped with the height of the flood, and it will only add yet more to the swollen R. Goyt - but at least in a controlled manner until the water has dropped below spill-way level.

Such developer won't be stopped until the mortgage-lenders and home-insurers concertedly say, in public, " Build on that flood-plain if you like, but the houses are all cash sales only and no Acts of God insurance. "

I think a lot of the enormous estates springing up everywhere without the slightest regard for local physical or human geography are being driven by remote planners who appear simply to apply politicians' theories, to fill in the white spaces on an AA road-atlas.

Not an Ordnance Survey map though. Those have contours but officials can't read them when determining safe distances from flood-prone rivers. As a friend in Yorkshire put it, he had problems with his insurer because he lived within a few hundred yards of the bank... but " They " were unable to spot that his road was some 200 feet above it!

If you are making anything from published plans, the drawings should specify the appropriate material for each component.

I've never tried clock-making but I imagine the same would apply.

Whereabouts are though, Chris? Noting SillyOldDuffer's comment that O-1 and W-1 are American specifications, you are likely to find equivalents in the UK, but by EN (BS) designations.

I've worked, at a semi-skilled level, in machine-shops, and all the drawings I saw had "Remove All Burrs And Sharp Edges" in the pro-forma labels.

One day, as a materials store-keeper with a company making specialist printing-machines, I re-stacked some steel plates that had been cut but left ragged, and a knife-like burr on one of them bit me. Someone patched me up from the first-aid kit but he also used a spray-on coagulant, like a powder version of the old Styptic Pencil, which made the injury look far worse and made me feel very faint!

Worse though befell a miller who had to make two long trapezoidal bars from a single length of stainless-steel flat. He drilled rows of holes down the stock to screw it down to T-nuts, then proceeded to profile the bars. He did not though use a sacrificial plate or spacers and cut right through the flat, but milled trenches stopping only a few thou above the table, so when released the profiles would break off.

Only one of them slipped in his hand, still with its razor-sharp "blade"... I think he had to have stiches in his hand.

My work was cutting the blanks for machining and had always to deburr them on a horizontal linisher, before issuing. Safety, but also to allow proper setting-up. As for the stock, my main concern was always to leave the colour-coded end intact.

A lot of the smaller, machined components were deburred in a tumbler: an octagonal drum with circular cheeks that ran on driving-rollers, and filled with the parts mixed with finely-abrasive stones and soapy water. It gave the work-pieces very slightly rounded edges and a satin finish, but if mild-steel they had to be rinsed off and sprayed with WD-40 immediately after tumbling.

Don't want to worry you FullaFlava, but those brightly-coloured plastic trays look upside-down and all those sockets and things will fall out.....

'Fraid tidy and I don't mix; Spaniards or not. I try but everything gets all jumbled up again! A lot of it's where all my workshop things have accreted randomly and been stored randomly over many years, through various house moves too, and are overflowing the space available.

In Nick Clarke's post:

Peter - I used a rack for a time but found it awkward because I am short; making passing re-belays more difficult. I recall one particular pitch (Slit Pot in Simpson's Hole) whose take-off was so tight I had to remove my wet-suit jacket to gain about half an inch clearance, then ooze through the squeeze with the rack bars nestling in the valleys between my ribs. Once out, I retrieved the jacket and abseiled down.

Duncan - your club (Nottingham) played a part in introducing me to model-engineering; along with an exhibition by Weymouth & District MES of which I am still a member.

My first attempt at driving a miniature steam locomotive was a lap or two of the Valley Road track when, during a family holiday visiting relatives in my ancestral town, my uncle took me there for an afternoon. He was the Society's Hon. Sec. for many years.

I don't know who owned the loco, but it's remarkable that he was generous enough to entrust it for a solo drive to a complete novice in early teens and whom he'd not previously met! I have been invited to drive other's engines, both rail and road, plenty of times over the years since; but it's not a common practice and I feel it rather a compliment.

Good news, Del Greco!

Plenty of help & advice available here if you need it.

Errr, was the pun intended?

Not very fast no, but the paper's already shredded, breaks down easily when damp, and a lot of printer inks are soluble in water.

Vic -

The absent screw turned up on your bench... You too have a house-proud mouse in your workshop?

+

Some years ago - before I owned a computer - I wanted to carry out an rather awkward calculation, a bit too much for pencil-and-paper. I forget what but it was model-engineering related.

Could not find my scientific calculator anywhere!

Slide-rule then? Could not find that either.

Nothing for it but to use logarithm tables, with a little revision from the example in an old engineering text-book that contains the tables.

Next day, went to Woolworths for a replacement calculator; surprised to find that in a reverse pattern to early portable 'phones they'd not shrunk but expanded from shirt-pocket to cagoule-pocket dimensions.

Three weeks later, searching for something else, I opened a drawer and there was the original calculator! I decided homes and workshops develop tiny black-holes, floating randomly but invisibly around the place (light can't escape...). They eagerly swallow anything loose in gravity-range but with insufficient energy to sustain themselves, soon dissipate and drop their loot anywhere but where you'd originally put it.

First searched the house for the dividing-head tailstock as I'll need to use that with a rotary-table for machining my wagon's crank-shaft. Found it!

Then attended to the cross-travel lock on the milling-machine.

The DRO revealed that when centre-drilling the ends of the crankshaft blank, the cross-travel was creeping by some 2-3 thou' just by these low drilling forces. (The blank being clamped vertically to an 8-inch long angle-box, just gave sufficient room for facing and centre-drilling with the tools in R8 spindle-collets.)

Investigating, I discovered the lock, which is not at all easily accessible, was not locking!

Then it was case of one thing after another...

The lock is a short rod with cross-pin handle, and a 5/16"BSW threaded spigot. This was some half-inch too short to reach the back of the gib, and oddly, looked as if cut off with a grinder. On the other hand half-inch would be too long for an anti-burring slug - IF the lock ever had one.

Removed the wiper mouldings and retainers as they interfered with the gib adjusters.

Removed and cleaned the gib.

Rooted through a come-in-handy box, found a suitable temporary lock - an old clevis with long tail of the right thread. I can worry about a tidier replacement later, especially as the vertical-slide locks need replacing too.

Nor had the long-travel locks, locked; I found and corrected with small slugs a while ago. These had looked as if hack-sawn short!

Re-fitted the gib and adjusted it, slightly tighter than previously.

Then found the wipers and retainers needed the holes for the adjusters filing oval as they had been made (by the factory) so far off-centre they would not go over the adjuster screws, now protruding from the slide.

Next, having to had remove the special conduit clamp I'd made for the long-travel encoder, it was an absolute rude-word to refit. So modified its mounting slightly. Refitted it.

Phew!

Stopped for a brew and to see who's done what today in their workshops!

Can I get on with the crank-shaft now?

A lot of the ambulance-chasing firms in, or working in, the UK went out of business. These were agencies working for real solicitors, and it was lucrative until two things happened. Firstly, enough people had realised the trap. Secondly, so many cases were thrown out, unsettled, as spurious without ever reaching court that the spivs were losing a lot of money.

'

I have had the occasional fictional-accident phone call, but soon threw them out. I can't remember how. I think I just said, " You are lying! "

'

Once had an Indian-sounding gentleman telephone to try to sell me a phones contract for only £8 a month. That's god value I replied, seeing as I pay only about £5 / month at most, on PAYG. Nothing daunted, after a few minutes he excused himself and a few moments later a young lady came on the phone in his place.

Aha, the charm offensive, eh? Chat up my wallet as well as me? I soon led her off-script and enjoyed about half an hour's general conversation at her employer's expense with no mention of phones at all..

A week or so later, ' Angel ' as she'd introduced herself, rang again. Nearing the end of another conversation about owt, but nowt about telephones, I warned her to be careful. I did not want her losing her job by this. The company did seem to be genuine.

Angel rang one more, a week or two later again. Again I warned her to be careful, and indeed it was the last call I had from her so I do hope they'd not found out and dismissed her.

'

Some of the fraudsters have developed a new trick, though so far only for the termination of Internet service scam. The message telling you this, and which 'phone button to press, is recorded. It's easy to verify by speaking to it. A human would respond instinctively; a recording carries on regardless even when you call it a liar, or use the sort of language that means your workshop floor has swallowed that delicate item you took an hour to make.

Thank you for that Doxford album, Jason.

It's good that its compilers have named the personnel where possible: it's all too easy to look at some magnificent piece of engineering and the machinery needed to make it and forget those machines are useless without skilled people to operate them. That still stands: the production operator simply feeding an NC machine-tool with stock billets need not necessarily understand its programming or indeed the machining, but someone has to.

Looking at those pictures reminds me of something a retired engineering manager told me. He was a former Commissioning Engineer (I think that was his title) for UKAEA, and of course risen from fully apprentice-trained when management was a skill acquired to help support the shop-floor work.

A very large proportion of that work was one-off, including very large components made from costly, traceable-source materials; so a huge responsibility on the machinists. He told me sometimes a machinist was so nervous making the last few cuts he had to give the poor bloke the moral support of literally standing by him, verifying measurements and control settings.

As far as I understood it no-one thought any the worse of the machinist. The management needed the work completed to its very high specifications above all else, and if the turner or miller needed help, and perhaps took an hour extra as a result, that's far better than him losing his nerve and scrapping many thousands of £££ and many 10s of hours of work-piece by the finishing cut going wrong.

I knew the gentleman concerned as one of a pair of retired senior engineers, reprising their bench skills of long before by working a gentle 2 or 3 days a week on some of the stranger or fiddlier bits of metalwork involved in our employers' business of sub-contract electronics for MoD and other Government establishments - including occasionally the UKAEA.