What did you do today? 2023

Fitted 2 of 4 of the Weld-On Jack Legs on the trailer.

I have to admit that I was a bit out of practice on my vertical uphill with the arc welder, as can be seen from the copious amounts of grinding dust, I had to gouge back several portions of the root and reweld before I was truly happy with the job, but got there in the end.

Just as well I got the practice in there, as there's a lot less weld area available fitting this one, I think I want to do a weld along the bottom of the mounting plate too before I'm really happy with it...

But will wait for daylight and the other legs to be fitted so I can raise the whole thing up, welding in the overhead position is hard enough as it is without having to contend with access so tight I can barely get my hood underneath.

Probably going to want to inject some lanogard or waxoyl too once it's all done as the internal hot dip galvanising definitely burned off in places.

But this should make it a lot more secure for moving machines going forward, just need to sort the electrical issue that causes a fuse to blow in the truck every time I tow it now.

I never did the job a cheap bead roller was acquired for, and it was abandoned outside for several years. It resurfaced as part of my recent Grand Clear Up, so I decided it was time to make it usable.

I cleaned the worst of the grot, freed off and lubricated the shafts, and replaced the crappy hardware:

These are cheap for a reason: the slotted 10mm steel plate twists as soon as you apply some tension, and gets even more out of shape as you roll the workpiece through the machine. It needs to be a lot more rigid to do some real work.

Fortunately, The Grand Clear Up also provided some grotty angle iron that had been fence posts for about 50 years, and wasn't usable for anything important. A few minutes cutting and welding, with the ends clamped parallel, sorted the rigidity problem:

I ought to make a stand for it - some scrounged gate post, welded to a wheel is likely - but it does work clamped in the vice. A sliding fence for the workpiece will be easy to make, as are some tipping dies.

And a small 12v winch motor will save the need for another pair of hands to use the thing properly.

Visited my local garage to book the car's annual service and MoT, and came home with an old piece of heater hose as material for a short flexible coupling in the pipe leading forwards from the tank on my steam-lorry.

'

Otherwise I spent a few hours on the ariel-wire reels I'm making for the Mendip Cave Rescue organisation. Sixteen requested, enough material for a couple of production-spares.

The two side bars are 3/4" X 1/4" aluminium flat 180mm long. 'MCR' in 1/8" letters stamped on each, apart from owner-marking, gives alignment-mark for repeatability.

First operation: make a simple pair of sprung parallels for the milling-vice; using off-cuts of the stock bar, drilled and counter-bored to give the pockets for two small springs from the "Come-In-Handy Stores" .

After aligning the vice on the mill and building an end-stop from an angle-plate and parts from the clamp set, I was in for some good honest batch production. Face the ends, then drill 68-off 6mm holes! Drilled on the mill, lightly chamfered on the bench-drill.

Then it was time for tea!

Next instalment to come: countersink the holes, round off the corners, deburr and clean.

Then the spacers.... 34 of them with M6 co-axial holes, in half-inch al. alloy round.

Nice job for home anodising!

For those interested, the cartridge I found that looked like it did, didn't, After quite some more searching, I discovered 'tap magician', which not only had a cartridge that fits, but I knew it would as they had detailed engineering drawings of all the cartridges. Not only that, but when I called, they could tell me the tap it fitted and after a quick search I could see it was mine!

Iain

Watching the Coronation.

Afterwards, one of my tasks was to identify a thread of a hole which passes through a rod. I had to get out all my pitch gauges and put on a pair of loupes. 1/8" Whit is closest, but although a tap will easily go through the hole, the existing screw does appear to have been forced in.

It may be easier to replace the whole wretched thing.

I completed cleaning my house in preparation of a visit by two sisters and a brother in law tomorrow, they will be staying for several days. None of them know I am making four, one tenth scale models of my vintage car. But they will when they get here! My three sisters will each get one of the cars when they are finished, I will keep the fourth.

Mowed the front lawn, twice. The grass was too long to cut in one go with my battery mower. After that, I continued to remove weeds on my veg patch. I hope to plant out the quickly growing seedlings next week. Runner beans, courgettes, beetroot and red onions.

Hi, a little job today was putting the screw back into the moving jaw of my Record No. 75 vice which I took apart, cleaned up and painted. This wasn't as straight forward as one might think, as a washer, a fairly strong spring and another washer, all had to be compressed to enable a new pin to be put through the plain part of the screw.

The only way I could think of doing it without spoiling the paintwork, was to clamp the bar that slides through the vice body, to the bench and use a piece of tube to push on the outside washer, which then had to be compressed by 40mm or so.

This of course, then covers over the hole that the new retaining pin has to go into. Not wanting to hack this piece of tube about, as once you cut a decent length of tube, you know you may well need it to stay the length it is for a more permanent job. so I found a short piece of tube the same size, and cut a slot on both sides, so the pin could be fitted.

Although I could compress the spring enough to get the pin in, I couldn't do both at the same time, and so I clamped a large piece of angle iron to the bench, with my old scissor jack placed between that and the other end of the tube, which left both hands free to put the pin in the hole with a long pair of nose pliers, and then tap it home with a pin punch and hammer.

The small dot punch on the pin, shows the position it had to go into the hole.

Just got to paint the base that the vice swivels on, and the job will be done.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 08/05/2023 18:22:24

Nice work, Nick!

Useful things these scissor jacks!

Howard

Went and collected some guttering for the workshop, this will serve two purposes one I will not get soaking when entering the workshop as the water runs off the roof and secondly it will enable me to have yet another waterbutt filled up for the summer.

So bar having any rain tomorrow that is one job for me to complete. This is the closest I have managed to get to the workshop recently as a lot of time spent gardening mostly the veg patch.

Soon be able to get some machines fired up and make some swarf

Yesterday we decided to delay taking down the church Union Flag 'cos it was raining. So today it was rainig harder.

Yesterday we decided to delay taking down the church Union Flag 'cos it was raining. So today it was rainig harder.

I trust you didn't leave it up overnight, extremely bad form according to a flag etiquette site I found. Unless it's floodlit, but then that comes with a carbon footprint issue.

Had to pull apart the prop shaft and housing on the boat to replace the cutless bearing. It was supposed to go out tomorrow, now I'm fighting corroded press fits and waiting for new parts.

Hi Howard, thanks, yes that scissor jack has done many jobs besides jacking up cars, it's a nice size one and quite a strong one, and it was with a second hand Bedford HA van that was just three years old when I bought it in 1975.

Regards Nick.

Fine restoration work, Nick!

I've one of those little 'Record' drill-vices that had been used in a grit-blaster, of all things. Not a scrap of paint on it but no abrasion damage to the jaws and screw. The flanged boss on the underside of the moving jaw had broken off, so I blind-drilled and tapped its stump to take a turned steel bush held on with a screw and washer.

I sprayed it with primer, then searched the rattle-tin rack in Halfords for what seemed a fair match to Record Blue - from memory rather than sample. The vice has seen lots of use since!

What did I do today?

A bit more Alibre practice, then I carried on with making these ariel-wire reels for the cave rescue team. The side bars are now finished, and I'm awaiting the go-ahead to complete the reels, after approval of the first-off.

Then a relaxing social evening at the model-engineering club.

Got my 3" Burrell out of winter storage fired it up all OK just a couple of small leaks, just managed to put it back in it's shed before the thunder storm arrived. All ready for weekend taking it to Kingsbury Saturday

H

Spurred on by the "Alibre - A first attempt thread", I have over the last day or two carried on with the CAD exercise that I set myself to model the suspension of a mythical sports/racing that only exists (and only will ever exist) in my mind's eye. Plans are afoot to tackle the front suspension, too, but I think I will have to reduce the width of the front wheels to make it "look" right.

I modelled the left hand rear corner first and then altered the upright for application to the right hand side, before assembling both corners and then amalgamating both into one straggly assembly. I have yet to determine the exact positions of the chassis mounting points.

Here's the picture so far:

Fasteners not included.

John

Edit:  grammar - as usual.

Edited By John Hinkley on 10/05/2023 10:52:42

John, here's my virtual mock up of a hotrod IRS using MGF hubs, brakes and wheel bearings. The flat components are to be laser cut to save time and effort and make better parts

The rest of the frame, using MGF front uprights and geometry

I do intend to build this at some point. It's a mock-up because various parts need to defined better. And the IRS has several degrees of camber gain, which need to be designed out...

I did nothing exciting as up post, just got wet several times trying to do jobs on the garden  .

Edited By Pete White on 10/05/2023 19:20:46