What Did You Do Today 2021

After hauling a bunch of books around in plastics boxes for the last several years I've finally made progress in moving them to bookcases. The reason I feel I can brag here is because of the maths I used to compute the elliptical profile used. Elliptical all the way except at the tips where a constant radius of 50cm was used in order to make gluing a hardwood trim to the plywood shelves possible. The radius of curvature of an ellipse (and hence the point at which it reaches 50cm) needs the 1st and 2nd derivative of the curve and, in my case, a half day rediscovering what I was supposed to know after University. Anyway, here are the pictures ...

One more younger brother to construct and the last of my books will have been decanted!

An interesting take on bookshelves and well executed too. You are lucky to have so few books. I have run out of wall space for bookshelves and the books still keep piling up.

Andrew.

Very nice work, but like Andrew, ran out of shelf space years ago ! Boxes, cupboards , wardrobes, all full of books ! Ah well, best wishes. Noel.

Nice work! Elliptical shelves, practical and artistic !

I think that all the books in our house have rabbit genes. they seem to breed like them!

Howard

Very elegant Colin. Pity to cover it with books really.

Rod

Oops, double post

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 30/10/2021 20:27:10

Colin

That's a brilliant piece of design. I also think it's a shame to put books on it. Blimey, high ceilings in your place, wouldn't want to change a light bulb.

Edited By Buffer on 30/10/2021 21:01:27

I had a similar problem to some of the posters above.

About 7,000 paperbacks mouldering in a garage (mainly sci-fi / fantasy). I lost about 1000 with decomposition, rot and the like. I've ended up scanning two thirds of the remainder into my PC - almost exactly 4000 - with the others (books I could never see me reading again) into charity shops.

It's taken me a little over 10 years to do it.

What's slightly depressing is that kindle unlimited feeds my trashy reading requirements so I rarely go back to my now online collection.

Of course it does NOT look anything like as good as Colin's rather marvellous collection.

Iain

As many know I am a speed record enthusiast and follow various branhes of attempts,

Friday I was taken my adopted speed family to see a collection of Brough Superiours , Vincents and other classic bikes.

All run and ridden another reason to be here was to pick up an old sprint motorcycle it used to belong to a man who helped me rebuild my record breaking Triumph at Elvington in 1971.

Saturday a trip to Melbourne drag racing the BBC were there for a new TV program.

Talking to a man I only know through Straightliners facebook and mentioned Woodbridge record attempts he knows a ME forum member that ran very fast there Pete Rimmer.

Next week going to Coniston Speed Week to see records broken on water should be an interesting time.

Mondays attempts are delayed till Tueday onwards wind and high water the reason.

I am only able to do all this because of the kindness of friends.

As many know I am a speed record enthusiast and follow various branhes of attempts,

Friday I was taken my adopted speed family to see a collection of Brough Superiours , Vincents and other classic bikes.

All run and ridden another reason to be here was to pick up an old sprint motorcycle it used to belong to a man who helped me rebuild my record breaking Triumph at Elvington in 1971.

Saturday a trip to Melbourne drag racing the BBC were there for a new TV program.

Talking to a man I only know through Straightliners facebook and mentioned Woodbridge record attempts he knows a ME forum member that ran very fast there Pete Rimmer.

Next week going to Coniston Speed Week to see records broken on water should be an interesting time.

Mondays attempts are delayed till Tueday onwards wind and high water the reason.

I am only able to do all this because of the kindness of friends.

Collected a hacksawing-machine from the workshop of a late club-member, and delivered it to its buyer.

It is gratifying to have completed a sale for a fair price on behalf of the widow, and within the same society.

Excellent!

But what if you are given books for Christmas? You'll have to make another one.

Neil

Finally got round to trial cutting a pinion using g-code generated by Gearotic.

Here's the pinion sitting on top of the ER40 fixture I held a piece of 25mm FC steel in to profile out the shape on the end. Then parted off a thin slice to "release" the shape.

The fixture is a Stevenson's ER40 collet block with two 10 x 4mm slots cut on opposite sides to allow it to be clamped on the mill table.

Tough steel, used an 8mm dia 3-flute carbide mill which made short work of it, chips coming off blue.

Edited By John Haine on 07/11/2021 12:28:37

What a good idea!

Dave

I have been using my little punch press lately punching 1mm holes in 0.5mm brass sheet. Had to make new punch and die and having quite a few now decided to have a dedicated stand with storage as at the moment it’s just screwed to a piece of wood.

25 years ago I made an adapter for my Wanner grease-gun so I could grease the quill on my Fobco Star drill-press. My son has just got himself a Fobco Star, and asked if I could make him a copy of my adapter - here it is (the fitted one is the new one, the old one is stripped down alongside) :

Walking down to the remembrance service it was sad to see hikers and families pouring out of cars for a walk, even a neighbour with a chainsaw, all oblivious to the meaning of the church bells . Maybe next year we could close the village access roads in the morning, The hoo-ha that would generate might make a few people feel guilty.

Had a classic OOOOPs moment.

I was making split-brasses for my steam-wagon's two big-ends, the first time I've attempted making bearings in that way, and after some experimenting with the first pair had produced three bushes, still soldered together, and was chamfering the rims of their bores. I'd set out to make spares, and the first pair are serviceable enough for that.

By now of course, everything - lathe, tools, me - was clarted in gun-metal granules but I carried on and when I found the bronze a bit unexpectedly resistant I assumed the usual - worn boring-tool insert, wrong insert for the metal anyway, slightly off-height, perhaps wrong angle of attack.

Anyway this operation was not critical and using the edge of an HSS lathe tool as a scraper on the bush removed from the lathe removed the raised burr. I'd also turned a mild-steel plug-gauge and found this quite an effective finishing burnisher, rotated by hand.

Happy with the finished bushes, I started to brush the lathe down, and what should appear from under the swarf on the bed?

Only the tiny boring-bar insert!

Goodness knows when it had fallen out, but the heap of swarf on the boring bar hid the fact that I'd been chamfering the bushes with the edge of the holder itself....

.... Ooops.

Does everyone have to go to church to pay their respects now? The chainsaw may have been intrusive and a bit thoughtless but I don't think you have to subscribe to organised religion to be respectful.

I was in a car dealership at the time, and the dealership turned up the volume on the TV to show the cenotaph, and everyone stood round in quiet respect for the silence before quietly resuming their work.

I always go clay pigeon shooting every Sunday, Remembrance Sunday is no exception but we always cease shooting before 11 o’clock and then observe two minutes silence and stand with our heads bowed. As an ex-Serviceman I feel that is respectful, there are some in this world would have us refrain from doing any activities on Remembrance Sunday, there is one resident of our village complains every year about the fact that we shoot on this particular day. Dave W