Member postings for JA

Dave

Slugs - I am sorry, Dave, the SI system is no better. I would like to have 4.45 Newtons of potatoes, please.

No system can cope with the person in the street's measurement or understanding of weight and the basic problem it brings.

JA

Slugs were being abandoned when I was at college. All the Slug was was a cheap laugh.

Edited By JA on 06/03/2023 17:29:21

Jelly

You seem to vaguely know what you want. One system of working would be:

1. Write a specification to cover as much as possible
2. See what others have done. Try to understand their failures and successes. This means talking to people (and not being swept along by their enthusiasm), getting and understanding design details including drawings and so on.
3. Note your capabilities (CADs, workshop tooling etc).
4. Start designing. Take note of everything required (materials and tools). Work out how you are going to make items, what castings to buy etc.
5. Review your progress and, if necessary, return to any of the above steps.

At some point you will stop, fed-up with the above. It may be after a few days but could be months. Ideally you will know what you are going to do including what is needed (tools, material etc).

I suspect I may have answered a different question.

JA

Had a quick look at the front cover of the video.

I have to ask what "officially" means.

An experimental AEG electric locomotive got to 130mph in 1903. At the time it was well reported and some British railway companies took a great deal of interest. Of course it was German and not steam.

Mini rant over.

JA

I strongly believe fits and tolerences have a place in model engineering but I am at a loss to understand their relevance to the Imperial -v- Metric arguement.

Perhaps they are being used just to spice up this ancient, pre-deluvian, arguement.

JA

Paul's question was a good one.

However most of the postings have moved to the old Imperial - v-Metric discussion. This is an arguement I do not understand (and I am old).

JA

And you could machine cordite with it since it could be quickly replaced without spending too much money if the stuff caught fire.

JA

There is a difference between production and industry.

Jelly's initial posting is of a power station that produced electricity. The photograph is of either a large lab or millwrights' workshop.

I am not re-posting what I wrote in a recent thread but industry used plenty of Myfords, some may have even be used for production.

One other comment that has nothing to do with this topic: I doubt if anyone is going to tell you why they were machining cordite.

JA

As said, almost all designs and available castings are old. Fixings are dominated by BA (OK, they are Metric but that is not relevant) because they are readily available.

If you want to spend some time take an old design (of anything) and try to convert it completely to Metric as a paper exercise. In theory good looking small metric nuts and screws are available in the UK. I have found two suppliers: One has a lead time of over a month and their nuts and screws look OK although they are stainless steel, the other imports from Germany and I have waited about a year for my small order which is yet to arrive (just to take a look ay their quality). Ordering from Germany was far quicker. As for Metric rivets, make your own, I have only found one supplier and the rivets are stainless steel.

This will change very slowly. It costs money to change and the market is declining (for fixings, castings, designs and major hardware).

There is nothing wrong with either Imperial or Metric. It is far better to be in the workshop than having a fake arguement.

JA

Like Mike and others I use a little Thor mallet. You do not need much force for tapping down work in a vice and a dead-blow mallet transmits more than you think.

My observation is that people buy a dead-blow mallet because thay want one, not because they need one.

JA

Very early in my working life I had to remove masking tape, including the glue residue, from the glass fronts of manometer boards. Xylene worked very quickly. It appears that you can still buy Xylene thinners.

I have yet to have cancer.

JA

One other comment on non-hobby use of Myford lathes. They were cheap enough to be modified for one off uses. Like Noel, a collegue at work bought an S7 from a local engineering company who had modified the tail stock end of the bed to take a second head stock. One much modified lathe that worked well.

Obviously model engineers have always modified lathes.

JA

Edited By JA on 25/02/2023 15:37:59

The Myford ML7 and Super 7 lathes were very popular laboratory and tool room light lathes. The father of a school friend, when I was about 8, had a ML7 (if my memory serves me well). Then secondary school had one which I tried to use without instruction (no one knew anything about lathes). One of the labs at Derby Tech had a S7 instrumented to measure cutting forces. At university I spent a vacation using an S7 in the instrument room. After then I did not see Myford lathes in such places, except for a long bed Myford at a clock maker in Holland, until volunteering at my old company's archives (the attached workshop had a big Dean, Smith and Grace lathe and an S7).

A friend who worked at the CEGB Berkeley Labs tells me their instrument room had about 5 S7s.

Strangely I never saw Boxfords in such places. Perhaps it was easier to sell to schools.

Dell - You are going to have fun with that lot but some time try to be mischivous and made somthing. Just keep us informed.

JA

Noel - I know what you are saying but I do not think your comment reads correctly. The hobby model engineer was offered and could buy all the bits you mention but Myford probably considered them as "industrial" etc items. I ordered my "Big Bore" Myford with an induction hardened bed.

Edited By JA on 25/02/2023 12:44:53

I never saw a compressed air gun during my apprenticeship or on the shop floor of the place I spent my last 30 years of working life. I have never used one and do not have a compressor.

At work the main use of clean shop air appeared to be for purging boxes containing electrics/electronics in bad atmospheres (ignition sources in fuel laiden air).

JA

He has a 30in Dean, Smith and Grace. And he makes bits for watches with it.

JA

I have just looked at his past postings. He has, or had, an ML10.

Edited By JA on 18/02/2023 18:50:56

I think the first large scale production of Hydrogen, for filling baloons over 220 years, was by passing steam though a bundle of red hot Iron rods. This reaction may be exothermic and does not directly need a carbon based fuel. If Aluminium is used instead of Iron it would certainly be exothermic. Both metals are very energy expensive.

JA

Everything said about base lines is true and helpful. Of course it breaks the rules of physics.

However it can be remarkably successful. You, as an investor, buy shares in the company and then the company disappears. Scammers don't need computers.

Just a thought, if governments invest in controlled fusion research are they being scammed? It is very difficult to know.

JA

Edited By JA on 17/02/2023 18:44:16

Edited By JA on 17/02/2023 18:52:54

Dell

I have and use both types of collets. As you say the old Myford type are for set sizes while the ER 25 are more versatile. The Myford type does have the advantage of being able to hold short lengths of bar.

I prefer the ER type since I suspect the Myford type suffers from wear. I think the latter is no longer being made.

I am sorry that your posting has been hijacked by a Dewhurst/NVR debate. It is to be expected.

JA

Dell

It looks great. I thought about one when replacing my first lathe (a pre-war myford) many years ago. In the end I went with a refurbished S7.

You now have to do something positive with it, not just produce swarf.

JA

It has to be remembered that some spectators are real idiots.

I remember, when I was much younger, sitting on the grass bank 100 yards down track from Creg-ny-Baa with bikes passing within 3 feet of my legs. I noticed last year, watching on TV, that the whole area was roped off.

It was so much better when I was young.

JA

Enough said.

Edited By JA on 10/02/2023 14:48:06

It looks like a very fine engine but was in the wrong place. Better would have been in a "good" museum in the north of England.

I hope it goes to a good home and, I feel, that it should go back to where it belongs, the other side of the Channel.

JA