What did you do today? 2023

Mid-day yesterday the thought occured that I needed more room in my workshop (fancy name for garage). Where I have all my tools, many many tools, 1933 Austin Seven, and ancillaries for another A7, etc, etc. I moved most of the not-needed-at-the-moment tools into the cupboard under the stairs. A lot of the stuff that was in t-c-u-t-s, I moved to the utility room, somehow it all went in. I then moved the A7 bits into the lounge (why lounge? I've never lounged there). I could then start to dismantle the large wooden shelving that held the A7 bits and some of the tools. Today I will remove all the wooden shelving and replace it with narrower steel shelving that the n-n-a-t-m tools used to live on. The A7 bits can then go back onto the steel shelving, and maybe the tools too. I then need to make a work bench for carrying out repairs/casting on. If all this comes off, I will gain an extra eight to ten inches extra width in the workshop. A lot of work for a small gain in space. But I have three A7s to work on (one at a time), and one of them will require a full restoration/rebuild. We could be talking two to three years. As well as the workshop mods I am also working hard on the garden, and my four A7 model cars.

There is an old saying about getting a quart into a pint pot. I feel like I'm filling an egg cup, with a negg in it.

Bit of useless info. An apron (what you wear in the kitchen) used to be called a napron. It makes one wonder how many othe words have lost or gained a N. Or should that be an N?

That weed also sounds a lot like Japanese Knotweed. If it is you have a problem, not from seeds but from the root system spreading underground. You really need to identify it without delay.

Ooh. Thankyou.

I'll try to retrieve one of those I cut down.

If it does prove Japanese Knotweed I really don't know where to go from there because I was in effect trespassing in a derelict garden whose owner has died, and I do not know his relatives or where they they live.

I've just examined what Wikipedia tells me about it. At first reading it does not seem to be Knotweed but the plant is also easily mis-identified among several other species including at least one (Himalayan Balsam) also considered an invasive pest.

I have a friend who is a professional horticulturalist, owning a wholesale plant nursery, and may be able to help me although he lives nearly 70 miles away.

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If it is this Hogweed it could make life even harder for the family. Not only is the garden becoming impenetrable, but the entire back of the house is a luxurious ivy and vine thicket right to chimney-top level. The birds love it, even pigeons roost and possibly nest in it, but is hiding the state of the building, where a few visible patches suggest needing a lot of re-pointing and other work.

IF you are happy with phone apps, there are a few which will identify plants using the phone camera. I use Seek by iNaturalist, in partnership with National Geographic. It's free, and does quite a good job.

Rob

Edit - some Pathclear-type weedkiller sprayed over the fence in the dead of night might help - "They just mysteriously died during the drought, Guv!"

Edited By Grindstone Cowboy on 27/06/2023 12:08:51

Don’t know anything about the other stuff but ,if it is JK, spraying glyphosate on it is worse than useless. It’s a major industrial process to get rid of it. Luckily for you it sounds as though it is your neighbour’s estate who would be responsible for the cost.

If it is KnotWeed, then the sooner it's dealt with the better. this suggests contacting council if you can't contact owners, as it is the owners responsibility to keep it off your property. The council should be able to find out who owns it (if they can be bothered)

I made a stupid mistake, twice!

The item is 400mm length of steel-conduit, turned down to 16.9mm diameter so that collars can be clamped to it. (It's a mandrel, the idea is it will position a pair of wooden discs turned to fit inside a length of 4" diameter PVC drain pipe so the pipe end can be machined smooth and true between centres.)

Having successfully turned the steel pipe to size and made four fitting collars with grub-screws, I officiously decided to mill a shallow flat along the pipe for the grub-screws to grip. My milling vice has a jaw with a small V in it, which I judged adequate to hold the pipe. Wrong! The helical cutter pulled the pipe out of the V and gouged deep into the pipe before I noticed. Thinking I'd forgotten to tighten the vice, I reset the job and tried again. Far worse, because this time I ploughed on regardless, fully confident all must be well. It wasn't.

Lesson learned, practice what you preach. I know full well that solid work-holding and paying attention are important. And over-confidence is akin to foolishness.

What really hurt is it took less than a minute to file a perfectly good flat on the pipe with it held in a bench vice.

Another painful lesson, don't use a powerful milling machine for silly little jobs just because you happen to have one!

Having made a mess of a simple job, I'm thinking of starting a YouTube channel called BaldiHacks specialising in videos full of unconscious workshop goofs and sins. Certain to gather millions of loyal followers all innocently imitating my every blunder! Bound to become a highly paid influencer!

Dave

I put up a vent pipe for my 3D printer. Used 40mm flexible pond hose (surprisingly cheap!) and 40mm kitchen pipe with clamps and joiners 3D printed! About 3.5m of flexible pipe left over so may make a junction box and use the remainder for fume extraction for other things (soldering, anodising, small brazing work where air won't be too hot for the pipe).

Neil

Phew! I sent photos and description of the triffid to a friend who is a professional horticulturalist, who identified it as probably a Figwort, but not Japanese Knotweed.

Anyway, a stage in the last several day's work, completed yesterday; one Bench, Assembly and its Ramp, Special to Purpose:

The ramp under-frame, of aluminium-alloy channel, uses the remains of my disastrously over-ambitious attempt to build my Hindley wagon at 6-inch scale. A while ago. Ummm... last Century

Yet to be made was the post holding the trailer-winch, readily removable so not in the way for using the bench.

Most of the timber is salvaged, some from pallets, the two lower longitudinals are cut from the workshop's original door-frame, the top members came are from a near neighbour who'd dismantled a large bunk-bed... wiv a nammer! (I thought that an appalling waste: could they not have sold it?)

I finished my Eccentrics today. 2.344" max OD, x 1.000" bore x 0.312" Throw. First operation was to part turn the OD, turn the Sheave diameter, and face in the 3Jaw. For the second Operation I made the Fixture shown. Note the 2 Sets of Holes in the Fixture Plate, one Set is offset by 0.312". The Fixture was bored on the Lathe Face Plate and then relocated to the second Set of Holes. The Eccentrics were bored while they were clamped with the qty 2 Clamps shown on the Fixture. The Fixture Plate was offset from the Face Plate with qty 2 Spacer Bars shown. After boring, the heavy Washer with the Adapter was used to clamp the Eccentric thru the Bore. This allowed machining the material off where the Set Screws will go. The Fixture Plate made machining the Eccentrics very easy.

while boring the Hole in the last Eccentric the ancient Lathe Belt gave up the Ghost. Time for a new Belt ($29.00 including postage).

I don't know what I was thinking, but I bored that last Eccentric oversize. Did my aerobic Exercise hack sawing a new Blank from 2-3/8" diameter Stock. Here are the finished Eccentrics mounted on their Axle.

The Humidity can be bad here. I find liberally oiling Parts keeps the Rust away. I make up disposable Oil Trays from Kitchen Aluminum Foil. And yes, that is a Juliet Chassis I am working on.

I spent the day at Chickerell Steam & Vintage Vehicle Rally. (Chickerell is just West of Weymouth.)

Our club, Weymouth & District, was there in force with its 16mm-scale, non-scenic railway layout in the model tent, its 7-1/4" gauge portable railway and several members running their miniature traction-engines.

Didn't see much of the Rally myself as when not helping on the portable railway I was exploring the model road steam avenue, with about 40 examples from perhaps 3" scale up to the 9" scale Mann Steam Wagon built by the event's initiator and main organiser.

As I am working on the farm boy I was looking at some of the fixings. I have taps and dies form most but when I came to the 2-56 which I did not have any and found that for a set of three taps was £60+ so had a rethink and changed all but the three hopper long bolts to BA then found I did not have any 8BA nuts and bolts as well as a bottoming tap.

Now ordered more nuts and bolts as well as a new tap

But before I found out about the tap I had to sort out all of my loose taps and dies which are not in boxed sets. Just need to add some labels so I can find what types I have.

Had a couple of hours in the workshop yesterday. Stripped, cleaned, reoiled my 4" & 5" Bernard 3 jaw chucks. Been meaning to do it for a while.

Finished my 60:1 dividing head I started as a basic plain indexing head 4 years ago. Better late than never.

Today we are off to Bridgnorth in the caravan for a few days.

regards

Changed the clutch in a Toyota Celica for a friend who was in a real bind.

As per every clutch change job ever, changing the clutch was the easy bit...

Unlike most clutch jobs, the hard part was releasing what might be a candidate for the "worst designed engine mount bracket ever" nearly 3 hours to get it out of the ridiculously tight gap and release the middle engine support after unbolting it in 10 seconds flat.

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There were also a number of bolts that could only be accessed using a 12" extension on a universal joint, on another 12" extension, on the impact gun... Not the best design for maintainability I have ever seen.

Really feeling it today at work.

Hi, changed my satellite dish for a new one so I could get the benefit of my new Freesat recordable box.

However, I haven't got the new cable into the house yet, so I've temporally fixed my old one in a different location on the same side of the house, but it's a bit lower down, but no drilling of holes was needed.

Don't use these 12" G clamps very often these days, but they are really useful sometimes.

Regards Nick.

Been tidying the workshop while I wait for the designers to process the hi-res versions of the p[ages of the next MEW.

I didn't find this in a drawer...

Are they still a thing? I remember setting one up in 2002 after a house move. I'd checked the direction with a compass, but I still needed an SWR meter to get a really good signal.

Hi Neil, the dish came with a satellite finder, I've never used one before, but I've never put a dish up before.

I did measure the angles the old dish was set at, and have put my new dish very close to the measurement I made, so hopefully, the new dish won't need to much adjustment. I took the old dish down without altering anything, and just clamp it to the wall as shown, and the signal strength remained the same and works just fine.

Regards Nick.

Finished a couple of parts for my neigbour's 1937 Rudge motorbike, the 1/4" threads had stripped from 2 of the original clutch plate securing screws and he wanted some 5/16" x 26TPI made as replacements, he only wanted me to part finish the threads so left .008" for him to take off with a die.
The ally block was for him to fit the stud into and clamp in the vice to hold it whilst using the die.

Emgee

Finished and delivered some lubricator pipe unions to the railway.

The non-return valve is a bought-out item with a 7/8"x14 UNF internal thread both ends. They wanted me to make the LG2 cone to be soldered onto 3/8" dia pipe, plus an adaptor threaded M20 x 1,5 to fit lubricator nuts. The adaptor was made from 1" AF hex EN1A.

So the end that takes the cone is the M20 fine, and t'other is 7/8 UNF to screw into the non-return valve. I made the cones with a 14° taper per side, and the female taper in the adaptor 15° per side, so that tightening the nut will compress the pointy end of the cone and improve the seal at the tip.

There were only 10 to do - carbon steel dies cut smoothly and well, and remained sharp by the finish.

I do this stuff as a volunteer simply because I enjoy the work.