What did you do Today 2018

John: "On metric lathe cross-slides, I've always understood that the dial is calibrated in diameter as standard, so..."

On my Emco Compact-8 lathes, the cross slide is in cut depth, not diameter.

In my mis-spent youth, the "inch" lathes could be either diam or depth, mainly depth. Probably the same with metric lathes - we both have a small pool of metric lathes to work from - especially me - one manufacturer.

JohnS.

So why can't we have a decimal week? We could get a whole 3 extra days !!!! and surely we should standardise the month.

regards Martin

Yes, if we moved Earth out to a 400-day orbit, only a few people would find it colder, and we could have 4 Quarters of 10 x 10 day weeks. Months are obviously dodgy, irrational, variable and old hat, so we should Monxit.

Cool, why don't we have a referrendum about it?

:0)

The Romans used an 8 day week, so it must have been a bit of a dislocation throughout the Empire when they moved to the 7 day week when Christianity was adopted as the official religion.

Regards,

Richard

Johnnie Frenchman tried that during the Revolution - also a decimal clock I think. Doesn't seem to have caught on; only 3 weeks in a month.

Not engineering-related, more planning...

Just finishing off my kitchen tiling today, and I'm two-thirds of a tile short.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

I tried to be a bit clever and save some time...........

I always use a metal tin for my oil blacking. I was in a bit of a rush yesterday and thought I'd save some time by putting the oil in a plastic ice cream tub, (would make it a bit easier to tip the oil back in to the container).

I'm sure you know whats coming.

Yes, the part, A disc about 2" dia and 3/8" thick), went in hot and melted to the bottom of the the container. I was totally unaware of any problem until I tried to lift the part out, ( I use a magnet), up came the part with the container and the oil poured out. On the patio!!

The wife is not happy.........

Jim

My now quite old (late 1960's/early 1970's) German made Weiler lathe, graduated in imperial for the English market, the cross slide is in cut depth. So when reducing a diameter I just measure it, subtract the measurement I'm looking for, divide the result by two, and that's what I have left to dial in to remove the excess. OK, so it adds a quick bit of basic maths to the job, but no big deal. You just have to go with what you have. A calculator helps the little grey cells so no worries.

Chris

Foolscap paper size actually predates the invention of America...

Managed to fit the motor / countershaft assembly to one of my M type lathes after the move from Wales.

That 70 year old, half horse Higgs motor is a bear of a thing. Very heavy, very big, unbalanced, and not a symmetrical surface or hand hold on it. An absolute pain in the hacienda to conjure into position when you're on your Tod. What we used to call "a right trusser". Shifting the lathe body onto the stand was a doddle in comparison.

Does anyone have a grasp of the total weight of a standard M Type, plus cast iron stand plus the motor and countershaft? Felt like a block of flats when I tried to shift the whole issue; I fitted some heavy duty castors which solved the problem, but without them I'd be lumbered. Or lumbagoed, one of the three.

Eug

Edited By Eugene on 05/02/2018 23:58:46

Don't think this has been mentioned - pardon if it has -

Go look at your 300mm long trusty hacksaw blade - see how it classifies the number of teeth...

Even the European blades come marked 300mm xxTPI.

Joe

I only want a 10 day week if the extra days are at the weekend! And nobody has mentioned 72 points (I think) to the inch for font sizing - still used on all computers

Lionel

When I was at grammar school they decided that there was not enough time to fit the curriculum in a 5 day week .

The solution was to introduce a 6 day week. That meant that the first week of a term started on Monday; the second started on Tuesday ;the third on Wednesday & so on. That was hard enough to get one's head round as it was always a job to remember what day homework had to be in.( lots of detention !!) Worse still if one was off sick & lost count of what day of the week it was. If one returned on PE day without any kit then one had to swim in the nude if it was a swimming lesson.( the school had its own indoor pool) After a while so many missed it that the rule was that no one wore swimming trunks ( it was a boys school before you all get excited ).

No one thought much about it then, but we had about 40 borders & every Saturday morning the headmaster insisted on swimming lessons & would strip off & jump in with them. I just wonder what the reaction to that would be in the current climate.

Yes, Limpet - 72 points to the inch is right. The British-American points system was something I had to learn when I started designing newspaper pages in 1960. I won't confuse you with ems and nuts. In rifle and pistol shooting, bullet weights are still given in grains (7,000 to the lb), and shotgun bores (gauge to Americans) are the number of lead balls to the lb that will just fit down the barrel. Hence, the classic 12-bore barrel diameter is 0.729 inches. I'm full of information that is useless to most folks!

Sam: when I was at grammar school we used to have to go to school on Saturday mornings, but got Thursday afternoons off. I can only think it was because so many dads were shopkeepers, and Thursday was early closing day in our town.

And going back to paper sizes, I can recall an artist friend having to acquire some Double Elephant paper for a project - just looked it up, and it's 26.5 by 40 inches.

Edited By Mike on 06/02/2018 08:36:22

Edited By Mike on 06/02/2018 08:58:24

Edited By Mike on 06/02/2018 08:59:43

Now you need to find an imperial tile, You can only get metric ones in preferred sizes and 0.7 tile will be too big and 0.5 tile will be too small.

Another victim of the falling down club... yesterday my wife was in Leicester and tripped on one of the bands they use to bundle newspapers etc. Having broken her left wrist last autumn she twisted to land on her shoulder instead, and broke her arm just below it.

Neil

Oh dear, my sympathies to your wife Neil.

A few years ago we had a pesky mouse plague here in Oz. I would mow in decreasing circles until a solid mass of mice were concentrated into a 1m circle and then send them to where mice go where they meet again.

My problem was a smarty pants little mouse that ran around all the mousetraps and chewed my magazines so I took drastic action.

Loaded the trusty .22 with ratshot, fitted and zeroed an expensive laser sight and waited for the little **** to show up.

It ran down the outside stairs, I ran after it.

Trip, busted arm and dislocated shoulder. 2 months in a sling.

Mouse got away.

* Danny M *

Reminds of the mate who worked on Concorde parts at Filton.

He swore blind that he had seen a drawing that said a required size was "52mm +- 3 thou."