What Did You Do Today 2021

Hi, today I managed to flatten the up-turn of the tread of my step-up and fold the downward, but I had to anneal it four times in all, three times to flatten it and one to complete the fold.

It took about eight minutes to get it to about 700 C with my big propane torch each time.

It was then cleaned and fitted and is now ready for use.

Regards Nick.

Now student is up and running done a bit on the wallaby cyl head today

My waterproofing of the garage goes slowly.

After curing three more small roof leaks, it turned out that the raised concrete sill of the door had detached from the concrete slab underneath.

Putting in a proper gutter had helped a lot, but water was still getting in.

Yesterday, after discussing with my brother, I lifted it then drilled a row of shallow holes with a 1" masonry bit, following up with a smaller hole, plug and an outdoor rated screw left 3/4" proud. Meanwhile he brought over some left over postcrete which I used as readymix to create a new sill.

Fingers crossed.

Today I managed to move an old bench my dad is emotionally attached to (I'm tempted to physically attach him to it, but that's another story... ). I had to add long 3x2 extensions to three of the legs to make up for rot and an uneven floor.

Tomorrow a run to the tip with several bags of rotting wood, rust and general purpose 'yuk'. Thank heaven for PU coated reinforced gloves!

Hi Neil, talking about door sills takes me back to 1982 when I moved into a fairly old house and after being there for a while, I had to look at why the floor just inside the front door was a bit springy, turned out the ends of the joists were rotten just behind the sill. The sill was fair well worn and the water bar had rusted badly letting the rain in. The sill, which is more of a step, was a concreate cast and really wasn't repairable, so after cutting back and replacing the joist, I set to and made a plywood mould and fitted in a stainless steel water bar, the step had a slight slop downward away from the bar and a rounded corner on the outside, plus a semi-circular groove on the underside to prevent water running back on to the brickwork it sat on. I mixed up some sand and cement and a load of those small stone chippings that you get in paving slabs and cast it into my mould with a bit of some inch square mesh for reinforcing which I tack weld to the water bar, might have been a bit overkill, but it turn out and fitted just fine and although I might be blowing my own Trumpet, it really did look like a proper job.

Regards Nick.

The Shoutathon returned after giving it a miss last year. I wasn't aware for years when working in the office but every year the local comprehensive school, sorry, College now, set off on a 6 mile charity walk which takes them though our village. Blissfully unaware I had taken the last dry day of the year off to do some gardening. All 1500-2000 of the little darlings take a break for half an hour just outside my house to practice shouting it seems. they were lucky with the weather with a breeze after several still days but tomorrow brings all day rain.

A very pleasant lunch out with a couple I have know for years but had not seen for the last 3, even 4, I think!

Then back to carry on persuading my 1947-born ML7 to accept an early-pattern QC thread-cutting gearbox - I had bought both some years apart, from different sellers.

This with help from respondents via e-post to my appeal recently on here for information. I soon found that Mydord had changed the gearbox design significantly quite early on, and the information from the fellow forum users was for the later pattern. Still, their help gave me a start and as well as the mechanical work I've now bought a manual covering both, from lathes.co, and ordered the appropriate top-end driving-pinion from Myford.

I had feared they would not have them, but the gentleman was very helpful and between us we identified the right part number and my bank-card number. I demurred at the cost of a leadscrew though - I don't want to take the fateful step of cutting the existing if at some point all else fails. My thought now is to buy a length of appropriate stock ACME bar and make the short one necessary; keeping the original and associated swapped parts carefully as reversion-spares.

That pinion is very particular, a tiny 12T thing. The later box of cogs uses a more robust 24T wheel, already in my collection, but of course that doubles all the pitches selected on the controls.

So I created an 'Excel' spreadsheet of possible Imperial threads and close-match metric ones with the 12T, 24T and other change-wheels up to the maximum I found would fit - 50T - as driver "pinion". The early gearbox quadrant holds two wheel-pairs on fixed centres giving a high and low range, somewhat limiting it. Nevertheless it still offers all the threads I am likely to want to cut.

It's suprising what is theoretically possible by screw-cutting to say, two-thirds depth then correcting by finishing with a die. For most the cumulative error is sensibly low for less than perhaps 10 turns - e.g. studs, tie-bars, piston-rod ends and the like. I based the table on the 24T wheel and its effects on the machine's settings, then used a Tracy Tools thread-chart to identify all the useable settings for BSW/F, Pipe, Brass and ME, and ISO-M Coarse.

The later QC and quadrant are fully-slotted for an auxiliary change-wheel train hence a vast range of potential threads including accurate metric and BA. It might be possible to extend my quadrant's securing slot just enough to allow a 63T driver - if the spreadsheet shows this will give closer M-series threads than using the 32T wheel.

Hi Nick, these photos may be of interest.

The new sill:

Waterproofing - a sort of cement resin mixture - add water and mix to a thick creamy consistency. You need to mist it a few times as it sets. Really just belt and braces, I'm fairly confident the base of this wall doesn't really leak, but hard to go back once insulation, plasterboard, skirting (and possibly floor) are in place.

The trusty B&D Hammer drill was rescued from a skip, clogged with gypsum dust, it has done sterling service for donkeys years. Unlike battery drills that seem to have a puny and rapidly wearing out hammer action, the hammer on is as good as new, just as well when drilling 1" holes through walls, even of breeze block.

Hi Neil, that looks a good job, as for the cement resin, I don't think there was anything like that when I did my door step and even if there was, it probably would have been out of my budget range in them days, what with a young family and all. I think I used a bit of silicon sealer where needed, which I was allowed to have from work ( they were good like that, if you asked for reasonable requests)

Regards Nick.

Made a clean sweep today ,last time brush got stuck
in the chimney, managed to retrieve it without enlisting
the help of a 4 year old.
Handle fell of the vacuum cleaner haven't been in the
workshop since mid April had to venture out for emergency
repairs, everything where i left it , still can't find it though.

John

I also had fun a couple of years ago when I managed to unscrew the brush; fortunately the rods come with a drain plunger that did a good job of chasing the brush up. I still had to erect a scaffold to get up to pull the brush out, it couldn't be kind enough to pop out of the top.

My positive contribution of the day was to deliver my very-tall stepladder to Basingstoke &DMES were we are building a large workshop.

The ladder belonged to my Dad and must be 30 years old, and hasn't been used for 20 years since his death despite a few attempts at using it to pick fruit. I have had it cluttering up my garden for a decade. Only goes to show don't throw anything away.

Forecast rain turned out to be brilliant sunshine as EDMES gave rides on two live steam engines on our part complete track in support of the model railway guys we share premises with who were having their open day. This enables us to get in a second public running over our agreed monthly day at the Priory. Also had a couple of membership enquiries.

Despite the difficulty in using club facilities for most of the year most of the members of both of my clubs have about 90% full price renewal. Hopefully a little gentle persuasion will get some of the remainder to contribute.

Been a busy few days a week ago my adopted speed family took me to Santa Pod for the European Nationals and witnessed a hydrogen peroxide steam rocket bike doing mind blowing speeds.

Then at Elvington and saw how strong composite motorcycle rear wheels are.

Jack Frost a regular 250mph rider that did 269mph at an earlier meeting had a tyre blowout at about 250mph.

With skilful riding he kept the bike upright just riding on the composite wheel rim.

He has a very bruised backside with crushed discs.

This Saturday and Sunday Melbourne Raceway was my next port of call.

It was a pleasure to see very young lads and lasses riding small machines they are so enthusiastic.

One of the paramedics his lad was having a go it's a big family event as I said to one Mother is your lass going to be a future Beccy Ellis the current fastest UK woman at 264mph.

Mums reply Beccy will have to retire sometime.

When home had my old banger on stands ready to check over for MOT time then another session making the 5 litre fuel tank for my flash steam project.

What did I do today?

Well - I made the first hole into the bed of my Sieg SX2. Knowing the part is 8mm thick I drilled down to 7.5mm - not taking into consideration that I milled the part 3mm out before...

I suppose it will not be the last hole, and I am proud it happened only after more than 2 years....

Didi I do something useful? well - not today. Yesterday I made a tailstock die holder, and I am happy (or lucky?) the MT2 cone I turned fitts really well. The knurling - well, not nice, I know that myself. When I learned to work with a lathe we had hand held knurling pliers, they worked really well and didn't create any pressure to the toolpost. Looked up and down the internet, searched also in German, obviously no longer manufactured.

Spent the day in the workshop finally finding space on the bench still a few bits to find homes for I am sure that some will get moved but most is now in it;s final resting place. Also placed some of the power sockets still some more to do. The last job was to clear a space for the new machines arriving tomorrow.

So glad that the new workshop is very near sorted and I will be able to make wood and metal chips but only after the dust and chip extractor is set up for the woodworking side

You could easily make this style of knurler, I did and it works well.https://www.google.com/search?q=hand+made+scissors+knurler&sxsrf=AOaemvLEB-6rKa2KU335WMdv54PsBnAr9g:1632249154790&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=k9io-Qtn1d7kmM%252C2lEwJiGckNlaMM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT5EXErYHC0vgcE1uYdHzk5EpwKlg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn77j42ZDzAhUEbc0KHb4BC_oQ9QF6BAgJEAE#imgrc=k9io-Qtn1d7kmM

I've never posted a link so I hope it works well. If it offends some how please delete.

Spent this afternoon taking delivery of my new machines the first took three of us to move it from roadside to shed the second took five of us. All that is needed now is to set them up so tomorrow i will be getting the stands sorted ready for the big lift of both machines. This evening sat and started to read the instructions for the DRO

Mark,

nobody is offended, thanks for the hints. Writing this you can see I could use the address you posted. There is a more elegant way to do it, using one word in your text for the link. Just select a word in your text and the go into the link symbol tab or use control k. The selected word will be written as display text in the pop-up window. Just put your address into the field called URL and press ok. So I can inform you about the Kettering steam rally without showing all the address details. And yes, I will go there on the weekend...

Hmmm....

Ordered a length of ACME rod to make a short leadscrew for my ML7, now I have fitted it with a screw-cutting gearbox. (Early type with the lead-screw ending just inside the gear-box, more or less below the bull-wheel.) At the price I thought I was buying the thread-rolling machine as well.

Started investigating likely prices for hefty machine-tools - part of helping a friend clear her late husband's workshop.

Didn't go swimming, or more accurately, molesting a patch of shallow sea-water, as the tide would have been too low and a cold Westerly breeze had arrived.

So having finally obtained the proverbial disc, corrected a gauge problem on the workshop's overhead hoist I completed last year. The cross-beam is basically a six-foot gauge bogie, and though it runs well along most of the track, a slight taper in the shed walls had forced one end of the rails fractionally under-gauge.

Spent a couple of days getting the machines onto their stands securing them and then cleaning.

I chose machines that are slightly larger than what I plan to make but they will allow me to grow with them. I wonder how clean they will stay, I do have a habit of cleaning down the workshop at the end of each day which helps make the following day a pleasure to work in

I have a vice now to fit on the mill and still need to tram the head to the table but little steps I will get there

Nice new toys but I would have left a bit more room between them. You need easy access to the change wheels and to the right hand mill X handle.

John