What did you do today? (2013)

Well, as if that wasnt enough, the very next day 5th of July, JS sneaks in and gets this crate loaded into his van. Loading was very interesting to to see..with a 'feeler gauge' to spare at the top!:

Couldn't wait to get it home before opening the case, so out came the crowbar...:

Yet another lathe..

Before you could say anything else...van door closed and off he went...no tea, no coffee...no £1.00...Anyone want a mobile machinist?...49.9mm round bar stock turned while u wait

Ketan at ARC.

It's 54mm thru hole you cretin..............

Loading into the Donald was fine, just loads of bystanders with negative waves Moriarty.

At least 15mm clearance, what's the problem ?

Edited By John Stevenson on 06/07/2013 23:21:48

JohnS,

Where in hecks name are you putting all of them?

When I collected those ME mags, I couldn't see much of the floor all those years ago.

You done a DIY Tardis or what?

Geoff - About to repeat the taxi service on what looks to be the hottest day so far, but thank goodness for aircon!

More a case of what I've been doing this weekend:

Friday: Working, but got a call from the local gliding club to ask if I could fly the second tug to launch the grid; so I went and did 3 tows in the Pawnee

Saturday: Went up to a gliding club near Corby to fly their tug, a Wilga, with a 260hp nine cylinder radial and a wobbly prop, did 6 tows

Sunday: Duty tug pilot at the local gliding club; did 8 tows in a Robin

And now for the engineering bit. Sunday afternoon I drove down to a small town near Colchester to pick up some tooling for a Britan repetition lathe, that I won on Ebay last weekend. Here's the tooling, looks good so far:

There's some duplication, but I can always sell on what I don't need.

Andrew

Half a jug of Pims..........

Been to Northampton model engineers open day. 3 hours of fun. By eck they get a lot of paying customers, i hope we can acheive those kinds of numbers when we get our track down.

Bri

Finished off putting wheels on what was to be the heavier end of the stand of a cheap bandsaw I bought last year, so lifting the lighter end by 2" brings them into use. Then assembled the rest of the thing and tried it for the first time. Surprised to find that it cuts square, out of the box. Then watched the tennis final. The boy done good!

Andy

Was going to unload me new lathe out of the Donald but it was a bit hot and then Gert offered to take me on a pub crawl. Her on her disabled buggy, me crawling.

No contest.

Even got her to buy me a nice apple crumble - yummy.

On Sunday had a very enjoyable day at Kingsbury Water Park all the modifications done over the last month worked well my first run of the day saw me adding 6mph to the speed of the flash steamer.

The most amazing was on that run when the prop jumped now and again the speed was increasing no slowing down as in the past.

If timed later its speed would have been greater it just kept accelerating.

The next run was not that good and did 119mph the valve seat had worn thin with recutting the seat so many times.

The valve springs being normalised at a more controlled temperature had placed a greater load on the valve seat and that had damaged the cast iron valve guide under it an easy fix.

A question the cast iron guide has been good over the years but would a bronze guide be suitable bearing in mind the high temperature steam.

The speed the steamer achieved was 129.33mph with two laps over 130mph if no major breakdowns occur there could be another few mph added to that next time out.

Paul

Start of the first lap

.

Astonishing !!

Well done, Sir.

MichaelG.

.

Edit:  I wonder if Macor would be of any use for the vave seat.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 08/07/2013 07:34:39

Yesterday finalized the method of lifting the chucks using newly installed 'crane' system.

The 30° temp in the carport just about fried me, boiled is a better description, but job done.

My original post and My Photos added to.

Geoff - Recovering from yesterday.

On Friday I finished fitting the X and Y scales and display unit of a DRO system I bought on a trip to China the week before. Paid peanuts for it but quite appropriately the operation manual seems to have been written by a drunken monkey using an online translator. The Chinglish is utterly and totally incomprehensible, even once you know exactly how it works. Take a look – it’s absolutely outstanding!

**LINK**

I'll fit the Z scale when a colleague brings it back with him next week - the original one supplied wasn't really long enough. Then finish routing and securing the cables and fit an end stop on the Y axis to protect the scale. So far the setup seems to work nicely. The features on many current DROs seem to be very similar in content and operation, so I've found that operation manuals from the likes of Easson which are freely available from official channels are 95% right. I'm pleased to discover that the firmware messages are actually much more comprehensible than the manual illustrations suggest, so they seem to have improved on that front since the manual was “written”.

I'm also cobbling up a nearly new Grundfoss CH pump for use as a coolant pump and trying to copper up for a power feed on the X slide. The latter may need to wait a few weeks then...

Muzzer

Hmmmm, looks (I hesitate to says reads) like the monkey was on something rather stronger than alcohol.......

Andrew

Some pics I meant to include in the original post:

Edited By Muzzer on 11/07/2013 05:26:16

After last weekends runs now making a redesigned valve seat and guide to hopefully cure the problem on that second run.

I had a look at **LINK** but wonder if it could withstand the constant hammering that the valve seat gets I compare it to an impact wrench more so now that it has stronger valve springs.

I have a treat next month and was notified of motorbike Northern Speed Trials at Elvington.

Might have to get some leathers but as I said to my Sister it would have to be a big cow to get a hide to cover me now.

The straight-line bike record attempts and the Model Tethered Hydroplane meetings are very similar in the enthusiasm and camaraderie of the competitors and helpers.

Paul

Perhaps you need hardened valve seats, but I'm sure that would chew through valves very quickly, I suppose that valve bounce is the big problem. Ian S C

I got out the table saw and made up a stack of edge mouldings for tiles for a house I am working on.

I also went to a Medical Centre and fixed their computers.

Noticed some water on the floor of the w/c and quickly tracked this down to the cold water feed to the cistern seeping water at the cistern connection. A little judicious application of wrench failed to fix it so decided to remove cistern. When I put this in a few years ago I fitted a ball type shut-off valve in the line to cater for just this situation. The ***!!*** shut-off valve lets water through!!! Off to spare bedroom - and move heaps of "stuff" ( mostly the stored property of kids) - to get at stop cock. Are these shut-off valves always this useless or am I just unlucky?

Norman

Norman

After experiencing similar problems (with similar expletives) I have found that ball type shut off valves respond well to periodic operation to keep the seat and ball clean. Once a year I go round the house with a screwdriver and just turn them all and check they work. Whether I do anything about duff ones or just note it for the future depends on its location and my state of mind at the time.

Jim