Member postings for JA

I had a four hour long Christmas once, flying between Los Angeles and Aukland. Not much to say except I did not think much of United Airways staff.

At 19 I had Christmas in hospital recovering from a nasty complex appendix removal. As many will remember they were pretty brutal places with large wards. The ward I was in had about 40 beds and as you got better you were moved further away from the nurses' office. The dead were wheeled out every morning. Just before Christmas, and after various choirs had sung to us, a lot of patients disappeared just leaving about ten of us for the day.

Some recent Christmases I have been alone which is great since I don't have to be polite to nasty family members.

JA

Spiders are most welcome in the workshop although I do get concerned for wandering bumble bees.

If I lived in Australia it would be very different. They have many nasty beasts, one is the Red Back Spider. I am sure you will hear about it when Australia wakes up.

JA

The Bristol Bus Co. made, fitted, and used a wobble plate axial engine to their buses in the 1930s. It was a success but was dropped by new owners who prefered conventional engines. I don't know why this engine has a complex wavey thing when the optimum piston travel would be simple harmonic motion. A wobble plate would give this. I am sure the video explains all but I cannot waste the time.

When it comes to IC engines there is nothing new under the sun (rather like perpetual motion machines). I expect there is a patent for an IC engine fitted with a condenser to reduce the exhaust pressure.

JA

Very simple - If you think it is a scam, it is a scam. Delete it.

If it turns out not to be scam, BT will probably not take action against you, or what ever.

Some scam emails are worth keeping because they are so absurd. I had one from a collegue who was being held to ransom and needed money. The email said that he was being held by a hotel in Manila for unpaid bills and that he had just been attacked by Afghan herdsmen.

JA

Edited By JA on 01/07/2023 17:31:54

Bill

I ordered the milling machine through a local dealer in machine tools who would charge for the delivery. Therefore I collected it with a friend who had a medium sized van. The height of the van floor was about the same as the wooden table. We must have separated the mill from its pallet at the dealer. My friend kept the pallet as payment.

I wish I had taken more photos. It was about 18 years ago.

JA

The Red Kite is finally becoming a local bird. I suspect a pair is now nesting locally. It is a big change from watching for hours just outside Tragaron 58 years ago just to see one.

My complaint about the advert is lack of mention on feeding the local Sparrow Hawks. They frequently inspect my feeders and sometimes get fed.

JA

I lifted my milling machine by myself. I had a long think about the job and came to the following conclusions:

1. Get four friends to help to manually lift it on to the milling machine table. May be quick but expensive afterwards down the pub. Also if things go wrong you may lose a friend or two.
2. Hire a small crane or engine hoist thingy. You do not know what you are going, time is limited and you do not of the condition of the lifting straps. Also access was very limited.
3. Jack it up into place.

I chose the latter. I already had a very robust little wooden table on casters. The mill was slid out of the delivery van and onto the table. It was then bolted to the table. The milling machine table was put in position and bolted to the floor. The wooden table with mill was lifted using two wooden beams, two saw horses and 10mm studding, nuts and large diameter washers. The wooden table was strapped to the milling machine table for peace of mind. Eventually the mill was slid onto its table.

It took most of a day.

You need to plan everything very carefully before doing such a job. The one thing on your side is time. If you do not like the look of things you can stop and think.

A friend moved an old Colchester lathe out of his workshop (an old bomb shelter), up a flight of eight steps and 20 yards across his garden by himself. Next day he did the reverse with his new lathe. While not being a millwright he did work closely with them at work. When asked what he used the answer was knowledge, rollers, stakes, block and tackle and shear legs.

All the best with the move.

JA

Edited By JA on 27/06/2023 13:55:22

The sum is easy. Using the incompressible Bernoulli equation (the second simplest equation used in fluid dynamincs), I can say without doubt that the water will have a velocity of 944 ft/s (1036 km/hr).

All you have to be is the professor of a university and the press will believe you.

Bernoulli is only relevant for steady flow.

JA

Edited By JA on 24/06/2023 18:09:05

Edited By JA on 24/06/2023 18:15:23

Sorry for the double posting

I ordered two items of tooling from Cowells earlier in the week. I spoke directly to Colin on the phone.

Later my iPad told me it was trying to impersonate the Cowells website and the I should shut down my iPad and then log back onto it. I imagined someone had hacked the Cowells website.

It wasn’t me, gov.

JA

I ordered two items of tooling from Cowells earlier in the week. I spoke directly to Colin on the phone.

Later my iPad told me it was trying to impersonate the Cowells website and the I should shut down my iPad and then log back onto it. I imagined someone had hacked the Cowells website.

It wasn’t me, gov.

JA

Thanks. I wonder if my chief engineer would have accepted that.

There is experience, I think, on what happens to a nuclear reactor during or after the catastrophic implosion of a submarine hull. How many nuclear submarines did the Soviets lose.

JA

or, perhaps, does not happen, .....

Edited By JA on 23/06/2023 17:47:32

Reading the news reports there are a lot of persons saying they had serious doubts about the design of the vessel before it was first used. Some of these may just be being wise after the event but there is a very telling quote from James Cameron who has a working submersible:

"I thought it was a horrible idea. I wish I’d spoken up, but I assumed somebody was smarter than me, you know, because I never experimented with that technology, but it just sounded bad on its face".

I worked in an industry that had been dominated by the blame game, litigation and all the rest. Since the late 1960s under the industrial safety law in the UK one had to report anything you thought unsafe to your manager etc. who did very little. This fertilsed a "turn the blind eye" culture. So much so that the industry introduced a "no blame culture" and lesson learnt logs. Everyone, at all employment levels, was encouraged to report anything he/she thought unsafe from the use of a ladder to the design of a critical engine part. This included failures in service. Such reports were taken very seriously all the way up the company management structure with person making the report being kept in the loop. It worked very well, even James Cameron's comments would have been dealt in such a manner. I guess that all this does not apply to cowboys businesses. Why have cowboys got such a bad name.......

JA

I wondered where this velocity came from, perhaps the detonation velocity of a low powered high explosive.

Theorising about the gas dynamics of such a compression: It would be adiabatic at the start at least but I doubt if the air would remain a perfect gas for long.

All this is irrelevant, if the pressure difference between the outside and inside of you body is suddenly 6000 psi you are DEAD.

JA

Just read Hopper’s comments about American engineering - Agreed, from my own experience.

Edited By JA on 23/06/2023 13:28:22

Edited By JA on 23/06/2023 13:30:08

Lee, surely this is a new topic! If it becomes one I would happily contribute!!

JA

What controls are there, or can be put in place, to stop this happening all over again?

As I see it if someone has the money he can build anything without any real expertise, sell tickets to punters, who are always out there,and try to go down to the Titanic.

JA

Who is Ralph Lauren?

Do I want to know? Do I live in the same World?

JA

I am surprised that Elon Musk has not offered his submarine.

Apologies for the flippancy.

JA

It appears that the design of this thing was not even validated by a second party let alone properly tested. Under these circumstances it could not have been insured. Try that with your 5" gauge steam locomotive running on a public/club track.

Often people visit graves for good reason. I have an uncle who died during the Michael Offensive and I visit his battalion's plaque whenever I am passing. I know that battlefield tourism, almost as old as the battlefield, has included cemetery visits but this is hardly so for the Titanic. As for the citizen science justification........... It is just a tick on an extreme bucket list.

JA

Peter, do you live on a duck farm? I would happily share my workshop with some ducklings

As for fancy pigeons, I am trying to train the local cats to hunt. They are all afraid of anything that moves.

JA