What did you do Today 2018

Hi Journeyman, glad there is an easy solution to your condensate drain problem, just needs doing, not the weather at this time to mess around with your boiler, definitely a job for warmer times.

Dave W

Yawn.

Went out to the workshop today, 25C inside, 35C outside, clear blue skies. Same as the day before. And the day before that. And......

To TG--well yippee for you

Mick

35C (95F) and about 95 per cent humidity in the shed today. Productivity levels very low. Nice to sit (and sweat) and look at what I'm going to do, one of these fine days though.

I've just come indoors after walking dog etc. It felt nice and mild, checked the thermometer and it's the dizzy level of + 0.1 cen. Just brings home what it has been like.

British Gas installed loads of boilers around 2007-2010 with the stupid design of condensate drain that was placed directly through the wall to dump its contents into the waste water pipe from the Kitchen via a Tee Piece. I always thought this was stupid because it was obvious to me that the very low flow rate from the condensate line would allow the contents of the pipe to freeze building up layers of ice until the pipe became blocked. This is exactly what ours did in the severe winter frosts of 2010 (- 18Celsius recorded at Woodford Cheshire just a mile down the road from my place).

At the time I did't know what the problem was and called out an engineer who told me what the problem was and that hundreds of people in our area were suffering the same problem.

I contacted B.G. regarding this and, despite it being in my opinion, a system not fit for purpose they wanted £200 to re route the pipe inside the house to join the drain at one of the available spare entry points on the connector under the kitchen sink.

They no longer fit them with external drains as a result of so many calls during the winter of 2010, which as far as I am concerned is evidence of the system not being fit for purpose but I am Bu**ered if I am going to pay them to put it right. When I can be bothered I will re-route the pipe into the internal side of the drain system for the kitchen.

Edited By Bob Rodgerson on 03/03/2018 11:34:48

Edited By Bob Rodgerson on 03/03/2018 11:35:24

Bob, have a look at the Worcester Bosch Condensate Sure device I mentioned in an earlier post. Can apparently be fitted to any boiler and may solve the problem without major re-plumbing.

John

Bob, there’s no mystic art involved it’s just a simple pipe work job to connect with any wastepipe contained within the walls of the house, mine is connected to a basin wastepipe in our downstairs toilet which coincidentally houses our condensing boiler as well, the basin waste is then connected to a 4 inch internal soil pipe. Not so easy if your boiler is mounted in the attic which seems to be a fashionable place to locate them now.

Dave W

The traction engine meeting arranged for today, near Reading, was cancelled due to the snow. So I had a spare day.

I started by finish boring the second smokebox to fit the boiler:

And the smokeboxes in situ; they're a light tap fit on the boilers so no bolts are needed to keep them as shown:

Rather than use proper rivets to fix the smokebox to the boiler and to the front ring I am going to use threaded bolts with a rounded head. So I knocked out a number of these, at different lengths as required:

Once I am sure I have enough of each length I'll make a form tool and set the Britan up for facing the head to length and rounding it to mimic a rivet. Here's one of them being reduced from 3/8" to 1/4" prior to threading:

And lastly I set up the first of the perch brackets on the lathe and rough drilled the central hole:

I am happy to state that no 3-jaw chucks were used, or abused, in the making of these parts.

I now need to fettle some 3D printed production parts for work, while I listen to "Sounds of the 70s" on the TV.

Andrew

Andrew

Its getting out of hand when you have to use axle stands for model engineering projects . That said it looks like you have a nice set of twins when its all finished.

Martin W

Possibly, but I'm not sure I'd trust them with a real car. I have had a glider trailer on them, one in each corner. But the trailer was empty at the time.

Now that the smokeboxes are in place the engines are beginning to look big. And that's without the tender on the back. I may have to order a larger kitchen.

Andrew

Went to my local B & Q ( usual disclaimer ) & got some MDF offcut, 2 x 900 mm pieces of 21 x 10 pine plus 4 corner brackets for the base assembly for my Vertical cross engine, then picked up two granddaughters from school.

​George.

At EDMES club night Dr Brian Neale from SMEE digital group demonstrated their collaborative build of a wire EDM. Impressive speed of cut and precision too. Although 250 miles from the SMEE HQ in London he is able to participate in their activities by fortnightly video conferences.

AJ, nice to see a lathe with scratches and dings in the paintwork. I find it rather sad when some of us care more for the paintwork on the tools than the parts which we could make with them.
BobH

Quite, it was less than perfect paintwise when I got it. My lathe is a tool - I use it for making parts. I clean it down and oil regularly, but I don't worry about appearance. It might get a clean once a year, or after turning a lot of cast iron.

Similarly I keep my car serviced and MOT'd, but I don't spend every Sunday morning washing it.

Andrew

Now for some more examples of using a less than pristine lathe.

This morning is best not mentioned. This afternoon I've been machining the chimney base castings for my traction engines. First the flange was faced, turned to diameter and bored to size:

In view of the limited clamping I kept cuts to a maximum of 30 thou DOC and a feed of 6 thou per rev. Spindle speed was 260rpm for about 290fpm on the outer diameter. The other end of the bore was tapered in a rare outing for the 3-jaw SC chuck. Must be the first time in probably 6 months:

The holes for the exhaust pipe and blower were then drilled. This was all done by eye; there are no details on the drawings. The holes aren't even shown, let alone dimensioned. I consulted some pictures of full size SCC Burrells before deciding what to do:

Finally I've hand ground a form tool and set the Britan up to make the rounded head on the "rivet" bolts previously machined:

I'll mull them over for a while before doing the whole batch. Not least because I'm otherwise occupied tomorrow as afternoon tug pilot.

Andrew

I was turning some cast iron, actually a 10kg weight lifting weight. I had it on a tapered mandrel and was turning the central bush parallel so I can flip it over, hold it in a chuck and put an ACME thread on the inside bore. All this to make some stands for SWMBO's pottery tea cup selling stall at a local craft fare.

I needed a left hand tool to cut the part and I realised that I hadn't got one mounted on any of the QC tool holders. I found the tool and swapped out a little used RH tool. I was having awful problems turning this Oriental cast iron. The cutting forces were enormous and were even causing the top slide on the Hardinge HLV to rotate on the cross slide (had a large overhang on the tool, since the weight is 10.5" dia on an 11" swing lathe). I even took the top slide off and cleaned all the oil off the mounting faces to help. I was despairing and thinking that I'd got a bit of cast iron with severe chills.

Then I looked at the tool and thought "it seems a little high...". Some moron had removed a 12mm tool, replaced it with a 20mm tool and not reset the centre height. I'd been trying to machine cast iron using the tool tather than the carbide insert. . Having reset the tool height, the Oriental cast iron machines very nicely!

While waiting for my old steel double garage to get replaced with a new purpose built workshop (luxury, I'm not ashamed) I'm giving my hobby 'quality' lathe and milling machine a work over.

With the milling machine exploded all over the bench I decided to disassemble and cleane the lathe compound slide and replaced the 3 oilers on it so they have the same sized balls (gotta look neat) and the balls actually seat home so grit doesn't fall in through them.

Things I noticed:

1. The tapered jib has a nicely finished side and a rough side. The rough side is the sliding surface that is against the dovetail :-\

2. I didn't understand what I was doing when I made the big t-nut for the quick change tool post. The way I did things the tool post is only held steady by the stud bearing on the compound slide - ie the stud screws all the way through the t-nut. I put a couple of pop marks in the bottom of the t-nut thread to stop the stud going all the way through but now the tool post just slides around because the top the t-nut flanges are not clamping properly so I need to shave .5mm off the top the nut. Which would be a job of minutes if the milling machine were together.

Spent a couple of hours catching up on my Vertical cross engine base.

George.

p.s. I have now posted the same amount as when the American war of independence constitution was declared

George.