The sneering detractors

I was thinking to post here but now I am terrified someone might ask me what I have made recently

Don't worry, I go for months without any doing any "engineering" and then a burst of activity. I work when I feel well enough to do things!

As for photos, I still have not got the hang of putting them on the forum. I don't do smartphones, so lugging out my camera and then downloading to the PC is a bit of a pain. So if Andrew wants photographic proof then I am in trouble!

Andrew.

Edited By Andrew Tinsley on 23/05/2020 10:33:59

Here, I've mostly made a mess of things! Painful slow progress and not much in return. Several stalled projects and dead ends. Don't care though, Model Engineering caters for all tastes and it keeps me interested! Fantastic hobby, whether chewing metal, thinking about design, or following Bumblebees.

Don't always agree with forum engineering or opinions but the entertainment value is top notch! Keep it coming chaps.

Dave

I made a cup of tea this morning. Does that count?

Depends on the cup of tea …………..

Then they are the 'consequential' jobs -

I need to replace both tyres and tubes on my old Raleigh RSW bike. I have them cluttering up the living room because before I can replace them I need to fit a new drain valve on the compressor which is on order as we speak. after that I can install the wall hooks to suit the bike and get it off the floor in front of the shelves which means I can get a ladder near enough the shelves to raise the hooks holding the car top box to the ceiling to give me space on top of the shelves for storing the tools and materials that are cluttering up half of the bench so I can fit the horn-blocks to the frames on Big Tich. And Breathe!

Well I am proud to say that I have made quite a lot. The list ranges from piles of swarf, discarded items that just didn't turn out correctly, a complete mess in the shed and the obligatory unfinished projects. I have toyed with the idea of making a small stationary steam engine but that is about as far as it has got.

That said I do make bits and bobs for friends and family where the bits can't be sourced or are too expensive but model engineering it isn't. Does that matter to me, 'NO' because I have the satisfaction of solving a problem, the enjoyment of doing the task and developing my limited skills; when I was working many years ago, no engineering training etc, they used to call it 'Job Satisfaction' and that is all that matters. My shed has a notice on it that reads something like 'This may only be a shed to you but to me it's a SANCTUARY'.

Most contributors on this site are always willing to help when asked and for those few that deride/mock other members equipment, tools and/or efforts speaks more about them and their shortcomings. We all have had to start somewhere and ask for help or advice and that needs to be remembered.

Ramble over for now. Just enjoy what you are doing and the fun of learning new skills.

Martin

PS

Made my wife a cup of tea this morning and took it up to her in bed, hope to have earned a few brownie points to exchange for shed/sanctuary time.

Edited By Martin W on 23/05/2020 11:58:21

Andrew -

Thank you explaining it.

The photo doesn't reveal the general engine type but I know various forms of steam admission were fitted by different makers.

At least one Overtype wagon engine (Foden's?) had a complicated "three-way valve" allowing three different modes.

I have been trying against all odds for far too long to build a 4-inch scale Hindley wagon, unusually with an enclosed, inverted-vertical engine. My source material being no more than 100+ year old advertising photos and texts, one of the first things I discovered was that E.S. Hindley & Sons didn't like too much standardising, to the extent of noticeably different details between the photographed examples in the same trade-magazine review!

Indeed my first attempts at GA drawings came out all wonky because as I realised from further material some three years later, the reviewed lorry was not that photographed for the article. Despite being fully-broadside the picture I used for the scale-data wheelbase and wheel diameters, did not match the quoted dimensions.

I do not claim mine to be any more than a representative model, as true outwardly as possible to the spirit of the variegated examples that emerged in 1908 from the factory in Bourton (near Gillingham, in North Dorset). Indeed, to overcome some of the problems in the most efficient way, I need resort to some non-prototypical practice below the superstructure that will (I hope) hide it from any but the most determined rivet-counters. Still, do you know of many full-size Britannia- or King- class locos with copper boilers and brass tenders, as necessitated in miniature?

=

Why did I choose such a seemingly-hopeless task - and oft did think thus?

I was going to build a Foden C-type, and I like the look of them; but they be common creatures! Then I was inspired as a Dorset resident by an article about the Gillingham' trades and industries, in the historical-magazine Dorset Year Book 1977, illustrated by a photograph of a locally-owned Hindley steam-wagon dressed for Gllingham Carnival c.1908-1910.

Various Hindley plant-engines exist in preservation but no model-engineers and few preservation-engineers seemed to have heard of the Hindley wagon, whose three classes are all extinct, until Richard 'Turbo' Vincent built a full-size replica to commission. Appropriately his engineering works are not far from Gillingham, too.

That rarity further inspired me.

Though I believe mine would have been first in model form had I managed to build it years ago, I know definitely on one finished example also to 4-inch scale. There is another, possibly - I do not know if actually a second vehicle or the same under new ownership.

'

There was incidentally a ' Mendip ' Steam-wagon built by C.W.Harris, in Chewton Mendip. I do know from vehicle registration records and contemporary photos that Harris' bought a Hindley, and the Mendip looks so like the Hindley I suspect pirating despite Hindley having patented its distinctive boiler. Harris later built motor-cars, Mendip-badged - I don't know if any survive.

The patent boiler has a cylindrical (can be rectangular) firebox with a high top, to obviate water-level problems on steep hills; but a very similar pattern was used on the Shay locomotives and a French-made Portable Engine.

(Hindley also took out a rather cheeky patent on a wagon-wheel design. None of the steam-wagons photographed had that pattern, but mine does. So there!)

I know this is not really a competition but I could console myself by claiming mine unique by badging it ' Mendip ', and the Mendip Hills themselves mean very much to me.... Nah, that's cheating! I bain't be Dorset-born but I be Dorset-bred (since 7) and I am staying loyal to E.S. Hindley & Sons of Dorset, not their copy-cats in Somerset.

And if mine is not exactly true to the last rivet... tough!.

Andrew, I find Lingua Latina occasionibus omnibus Henricus Barbus scripsit (Latin for All occasions by Henry Beard) valuable for social occasions.

I'm currently looking for a bumper sticker that says SI HOC ADFIXUM IN OBICE LEGERE POTES, ET LIBERALITER EDUCATUS ET NIMIS PROPINQUUS ADES. (If you can read this bumper sticker, you are both very well educated and much too close).

George B.

Georgengineer.

Thanks for the translation. It was all Greek to me!

(Actually knew it was Latin, but SO long ago that had forgotten almost all that I had learned.)

With the tendency for tailgating, I like the "If you can read this you are too close" stickers. The trouble is that usually the text is so small as to encourage getting dangerously close to read it!

Now that is probably another red herring running!

Howard

Something has been nagging me about Bob Stevenson’s choice of expression

... It seemed familiar, but not

Then, I suddenly realised that sneering detractors must be the anti-matter equivalent of strange attractors

**LINK**

https://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/attractors.html

Thus ... their evil can be balanced, if we witter on harmlessly in the usual chaotic way

MichaelG.

I have often had the same thought, Howard.

They could be a bit larger (in my case much larger).

ATB,

Daniel.

Cheers Michael for that suggestion.

I had also thought it an odd choice of title that must have had some hidden meaning.

ATB,

Daniel

Careful you could end upon the receiving end of Ira Via...

(OK I had to get Google translate to help me with 'Ira'...)

This has come a long way from 'The Carpers' and I think that is a good thing.

And I may have started somethnig with the Latin - congratulations to all of you who can do it.

And to add to this day of wonder: I was talking to an acquaintance in front of a (sadly closed) pub and out of nowhere a blue tit alighted on my shoulder. - a real gem of a day!

Cheers all, am about to watch Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant'.

Keep mangling metal,

Mike

At the end of the day this is supposed to be fun....

I thought it was an LP, from a long time ago. I could play it but I do not have a turntable.

JA

.

If you haven’t seen the film ... try to

MichaelG.

Have just seen the film - not what I anticipated but still fun.

And keep mangling metal!

Mike

Say that to myself every time i chuck another lump of metal in the bin..........