What Did you do Today 2022

I like the idea of the arrows on the milling machine handle but only need one - an arrow on the block going away from the operator ie clockwise but tilted at an angle to the left 'inwards'. Some people get a bit confused about which is clockwise too.

I just marked them for me to understand as I will be the only one using this machine hopefully after a while they will become redundant as I get to understand the machine operating systems, and then they can be pealed off if needed as they are only from a Brother printing machine mainly designed for garden tags.

I have had some which have been in the garden for three years and none have faded they are as clear now as when I originally printer them well impressed

I will also use it to mark some of my plastic draws with sizes and what is in each one

Good idea. I did this a lot as a beginner and marked all my machines with arrows. A few years practice almost cured me but I still do it occasionally.

Must be a brain thing because I also confuse righty-tighty lefty-loosey when working upside down under a sink, and sometimes make parts perfect except they're a mirror image of what's needed.

I'm starting a club: MEWCLAR (Model Engineers Who Confuse Left And Right). Sympathisers should send cash to our President for Life, who happens to be me. This silly old duffer can be trusted to spend your money unwisely...

Dave

Dave I would like to join the club. I have a history of blunders but most recently I cut a beautiful righthand thread instead of a left hand one on a large lump of brass. 'Okay' I thought to myself, its only a significant amount of time and money. On the second attempt, determined not to make the same mistake I reversed everything and followed the guidance, measure twice, cut once, only to discover I'd only gone and produced yet another immaculate right handed one. It seemed to be a case of two wrongs making a right. I took a day off before the third attempt.

G.

The amount of times I have done that working under a digger trying to replace a hydraulic hose in the most tight space there is

I havn't done anything in the Workshop today, but after seeing that nice tidy workshop posted by Gerhard I think I know what I need to do this afternoon.

Mitering coving was my problem but now I seem to have it cracked, my first job involved a chimney breast which requires three pieces with the correct ends and the correct length, that was probably the peak of my learning curve and scrap production.

Mike

Hi, I've had many jobs like those in my working days, including having to get into spaces where you couldn't even get a cat, let alone swing one, but then have to weld something one could hardly reach, while looking into a mirror because you don't have direct sight of where the weld has to be and trying to keep your hood in the right place. Don't miss those jobs one bit.

Regards Nick.

Not as posh as yours Derek! I sometimes have left/right confusion, when I first put the DRO on my mill I did this and its still there!

Edited By Henry Brown on 28/01/2022 15:40:17

A friend had to climb into a tight corner to do some gas welding, he posted his mate to stand by and turn the bottles off if anything went wrong, I can’t remember what happened but the hoses finished up on fire and the mate panicked and legged it. Don had to extricate himself and turn the bottles off, he was not happy with the mate.

Mike

Brings new meaning to the word mate!

Well thanks for the flowers Pete, it is not that clean any more. First of all it is crammed with stuff as we had some garden furniture disaster. Claimed some chairs because of damage and they didn't pick up the damaged lot. Cannot bin them until case settled... also I am working to convert old drawers into a material storage...

Anything produced in the new workshop? Well I am working on a Lady Steph, made a lower column and the bloomin flutes are not in the middle. Ordered an edge finder.

Mike

Similar situation to your friends welding experience, must be nearly 40 years ago and soon after the BAE Hawk came into RAF service, there were problems with the trailing edges of compressor blades in the engines, this necessitated an NDT eddy current check at I think every 20 flying hours. This check was carried out with the engine in situ, this meant access was via the aircraft air intakes, if you look at a Hawk aircraft the intakes are very small, and quite long, it fell to the thinnest NDT team members to be fed up the intakes, rather like a pipe cleaner, and was best achieved with two people lifting and feeding the designated technician up the intake. Quite often we were required to carry out the checks not long after the aircraft had landed, jet engines get quite hot when operating and take a while to cool down so ok during the winter but not nice on a hot summers day. Once inside the intake you were laying half on your back and working with your arms fully outstretched over your head and feeding the eddy current probe through to the trailing edge of the second stage blades, and yes every blade on that disc had to be examined, all this in pitch darkness. Not a job for those who suffer from claustrophobia. You have to have complete faith on those who fed you into the intake because getting out was the reverse process and you couldn’t get out without assistance from those outside. My stature has changed greatly during the intervening years, my weight having gone from less than 10 stone to 15 stone so no chance of ever doing that procedure or any like it ever again, thankfully. Dave W

Nothing done on the Rob Roy but parts and metal arrived so I can proceed as well as fixings which I thought I would get into a small draw unit to they are all in one place this will save time hunting for where I put them.

I used the good old label machine I mentioned in earlier post.

Cut the two slots in each buffer beam for the main chassis frames to fit into using a 3/32nd" milling cutter very slow as did not want to have to wait if I broke it, there also was a little filing as the cutter left a half circle at the end so had to square that up so the frames fitted right into them. They fit very snug so a nice push fit into them. This is the first of many dry fits. I need to make some brackets so they can be riveted together but that will have to wait as other stuff need doing before they can be fixed in place.

Last week my car electric windows needed to be reset - which only happens if the battery has been disconnected, (it hasn't been). Then, Mrs Doe reported that she was repeatedly flashed as she drove home, (in my car), so I suspected the rear lights had gone out.

The lights were OK when I tested them, so this and the windows tell me that the car electrical system might have an intermittent connection somewhere, (the battery is new and measures healthily). As a start, I disconnected the battery, (to avoid setting fault codes), and then removed and replaced every fuse and relay in both fuse boxes, spraying the contacts with contact cleaner as I did so.

This might cure the problem, but if it hasn't, I will have eliminated part of the system.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 02/02/2022 17:53:08

Yesterday I cut the male dovetails on the shaper ram.The ram is 13" long and the cuts were just possible on the SX3 with little to spare.The female base for the ram needs a slot 11" * 1 1/2" in the centre to allow for the scotch crank to pass through and I have been chain drilling with a slot drill and hope to finish it tomorrow, it's tedious work.

Frank

Today (well yesterday) I made a 3x6 (or 75x150) fixture plate.

I was delighted to have the benefit of a DRO otherwise this would have been both messy and even more boring that it was. Here's one situation where a CNC would have been very nice. Just watching it whilst I had a cuppa.

The M6 tapped holes were all power tapped and that worked pleasingly well.

Finally, this was my first successful fly cutting operation. I shall do more! (also showed I need to tram my mill )

Iain

Not just today anyway I have managed to do some clean up on the horn blocks just need to machine the insides and the backs before cutting in half

Took a day off just to have a go at the buffers but as can be seen only one part complete when I realised that the carbide insert tip broke will try again tomorrow when I turn the insert to see if I can clean this up if not looks like a remake. Not sure how I managed to chip the insert as I can't remember hitting anything with it or going silly. I do like to know how it happened as I will have learnt not to do it again.

Spent much of today doing a great deal of not much then in the early evening finally decided to do a fair bit of much, to whit:

Milling flat one side of each of the raw cast-iron bars for the steam-wagon's grate. Then marking-out and drilling them for the tie-rods, to be cut from M6 Stainless-steel studding. For what they do on a hidden component, the spacers also needed could as easily and effectively be nuts and washers as anything specially turned.

'

The raw bars started as segments cut from a ventilated brake-disc scrounged from the scrap-bin of a garage where my car was having its tyres replaced.

Yesterday evening, by dint of sawing what I could by horizontal band-saw until I broke my only blade, then hack-sawing, I gained four pieces that when turned on their "sides" give me bars with short slots cast through them. Then, filthy from all that cast-irony, I retired for a shower, but could still smell and taste the dust afterwards.

'

The grate uses 3 of these "compound" bars as-are, with the 4th split lengthways to make the two short, narrow outer bars (the finished grate will be circular.) I will need remove some of the internal webs, partly for more air-flow but also, if left, they could easily trap clinker and ash.

I have done this on on one, by end-milling, but the resulting slot could not be more ragged if I filed them. This is probably due to trying to cut quite rough, perhaps slightly chilled, surfaces and sloping webs with a fairly small cutter. Whilst not important functionally (it's only a fire-grate and the original slots were also only to let air through the disc!) it pleaseth not the eye. So even though I am no rivet-counter, I might give it a tidying cut.