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New technology in Model Engineers Workshop
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| ady | 06/06/2011 12:22:57 |
| 612 forum posts 50 photos | We can still do stuff nowadays, but it's best done in secret. There are far too many busybodies and government/council stasi around nowadays, a natural progression in a society which acquires more money than sense. The more money a society has the more irritating-zero-wealth-creation-busybody-jobs a government generates. The difference between the UK and the Republic of Ireland is a real culture shock to anyone who visits, they can't afford useless busybodies and it's just like being back in the good old 1980s. The latest rule to reduce opportunities is banning joe public from entering to buy metal from scrapyards, a real blow in my case because of the huge range of choices which instantly disappeared. For anyone making a prototype bit of engineering this only serves to create yet another barrier. I wouldn't be in the least surprised to see a law making the licensing of lathes and other larger immobile power tools held in private hands appear at some point in the UK in the future. I recall reading about some British rocket building guys years ago who built a projectile for launching then visited the local cop shop to inquire about any problems with launching a projectile thousands of feet into the air. The advice given was there wasn't a law against it but could they go somewhere well away from where the public might get bashed on the head when it came down. Nowadays you'd create a major response from multiple government departments. Edited By ady on 06/06/2011 12:37:18 |
| Steve Garnett | 06/06/2011 12:57:50 |
| 837 forum posts 27 photos | Posted by ady on 06/06/2011 12:22:57: I recall reading about some British rocket building guys years ago who built a projectile for launching then visited the local cop shop to inquire about any problems with launching a projectile thousands of feet into the air. The advice given was there wasn't a law against it but could they go somewhere well away from where the public might get bashed on the head when it came down. Nowadays you'd create a major response from multiple government departments. Not if you did it properly, you wouldn't. Just join the UKRA and follow the rules, which are pretty sensible. |
| ady | 06/06/2011 13:06:15 |
| 612 forum posts 50 photos | ...and slap bang on the front page.....lol ============================ In addition to this great news, the council is working very hard to
ensure a number of issues raised by membership are resolved and a
couple of exciting project come to fruition this year.
and ================================ Eventually If the council don't get you first then the insurance liability costs will kill this kind of innovation off forever. |
| Terryd | 06/06/2011 14:07:32 |
 1946 forum posts 179 photos | Posted by ady on 06/06/2011 13:06:15: Eventually If the council don't get you first then the insurance liability costs will kill this kind of innovation off forever. Well if a rocket launched in this area misfired and set fire to MY home or car when it landed, I would certainly hope that the rocketeer had good liability insurance. T |
| Terryd | 06/06/2011 14:35:18 |
1946 forum posts 179 photos | Posted by Steve Garnett on 06/06/2011 10:05:46: Posted by Keith on 20/05/2011 13:31:41: I think that there may be a lot of truth in that. One of the things that has been noted in the past about the people who were truly innovative is that the vast majority of them had what could only be described as an 'unorthodox' education - in other words, they weren't at their formative stage shoved through a curriculum primarily intended to educate the masses, and one that only encourages certain types of rigid thought process. Hi Steve, I agree in part with your sentiment, When I entered teaching from an engineering background I took a course in 'Creative Design' at Loughborough university this course produced teachers who could encourage students to think laterally and literally be 'creative'. Many excellent courses in Engineering and Technology were developed by and for schools to encourage the sort of innovative creativity you are describing. We had a professional body called 'The Schools Council' which consisted of teachers, academics and industrialists who suggested and developed suitable ideas, projects and courses. To help fulfil these requirements. However in the 80's we had a Prime Minister who was anti industry in a big way, and an education minister in the form of Edwina Curry (I joke not). Mrs Curry said that education had to be reformed to get rid of unnecessary outdated content. As an example of this need for reform she was interviewed of Midlands Today when she said that she had visited a school where young students were being shown how to weld, And of course this was ridiculously outdated as all welding was done by machine or robot. She knew that because she had seen it in the nearby Austin Rover plant on a visit. And these comment were by the person who made the decisions! So we got the National Curriculum which we all worked hard to implement but it was changed year on year, huge amounts of work and course development dumped at each change, until the Labour government gave us a breather. The old courses which encouraged knowledge, experience, innovation and creativity were abolished by Ms Curry as was the 'Quango' we called 'The Schools Council', thus removing professional guidance and leaving Curriculum development in the hands of the bureaucrats and 'Inspectors' who wouldn't recognise creativity if it were stuffed up their backside and ignited. I could have cried in the late 80s and early 90s as the machinery and equipment was torn out of engineering and wood technology workshops and sold to dealers for a song. The workshops were than turned into 'Blue Peter' technology rooms staffed by poorly trained teachers. I retired from education a while ago , frustrated by the fact that we were no longer educating young people, but merely getting them 'qualified' with boatloads of GCSEs etc. This is how schools are judged. It matters not whether the students understand or remember what they have learned or whether they are better people, well rounded and educated (in the best sense of the word) or not. I am not optimistic either as the present generation of teachers have been trained to teach to these parameters and the National Curriculum which is generally acknowledged as a failed and expensive exercise. T Edited By Terryd on 06/06/2011 14:42:04 |
| John McNamara | 06/06/2011 14:38:36 |
 1377 forum posts 133 photos | Hi All Just an addendum to the earlier post today post re casting the end plates for the Epoxy Worden; being impatient I decided to accelerate the final cure and placed the parts in an oven at 80 degrees C for two hours. Curing in an oven also produces a slightly stronger casting. I was impatient to see just what sort of fit will be obtained for the main Y axis guides, and did not want to wait for a week for full cure. As the attached photo shows I used a reamer; a nice rather old and slightly blunt reamer, that has I have used before for a similar fit; as are many of my tools a find at a local market. I know if used carefully by hand it will not create an oversize hole, it cuts a couple of tenths under. And the spiral flutes give a good finish. I would not care to try an adjustable reamer here the straight flutes sometimes dig in and you are never quite sure what final finish you are going to get. If I did not have a reamer of the correct size I would have made up a D bit or a lap. Having reamed the hole, when dry the shaft slides in and out with a small push. With a smear of oil it is very close to perfect, a touch tight, I will let it wear itself in. Cheers John Carefully hand reamed:  Just a tiny amount of material removed:  A light push fit:  Edited By John McNamara on 06/06/2011 14:43:26 |
| Mike Crawshaw 1 | 06/06/2011 16:15:44 |
| 6 forum posts | Hi John,
As one of the many readers following your exploits I would like to thank you for an informative and entertaining thread.
Although it is highly unlikely that I will ever implement any of the processes you described I have really enjoyed thinking about the possibilities.
Thanks,
Mike |
| Steve Garnett | 06/06/2011 18:37:17 |
| 837 forum posts 27 photos | I do like these dual-purpose threads - especially this one, as John rather well illustrates at least one of the other points rather well - I'm pretty sure that the modern education system isn't really responsible for any of what he's illustrated! Posted by Terryd on 06/06/2011 14:35:18: I am not optimistic either as the present generation of teachers have been trained to teach to these parameters and the National Curriculum which is generally acknowledged as a failed and expensive exercise. As I've been discovering recently, most of the problems are with what they haven't been trained to do. If you ask them how to develop any new curricula from scratch, they often don't have the faintest idea of how to go about it. They seem to be curiously deficient in their understanding of the basic philosophy involved - usually to the extent of not even realising that there is one! Unfortunately, it's going to take a sea-change in enlightenment, and at least a generation after that before we get back to where we were in the 60's. My recollection is that it was the early 70's where a lot of the 'new ideas' were introduced into teacher training, and I'm afraid it's been downhill all the way since then. |
| KWIL | 06/06/2011 18:55:49 |
| 3681 forum posts 70 photos | I agree with Steve, in the 60s when I was developing my industrial and scientific skills, we were taught to think about it, question why and why not. Now they just do not know and as Steve says they do not even know they do not know! |
| ady | 06/06/2011 20:11:24 |
| 612 forum posts 50 photos | My own theory is that British management is amongst the worst on the entire planet. After the destruction of our entire industrial base the present/next generation of amazingly incompetent British managers moved into unaffected areas such as education, healthcare, financial services and government jobs. 25 years later we have the biggest banking crisis in recent history, Education is going down the toilet, healthcare is crumbling and those Council/Government guys couldn't be trusted to run a decent sweetie shop. It's the youngsters I feel sorry for. They get to pay the price, and it's a very high price. And it gets worse. Germany, who hung grimly onto their industrial base during the bad times, is now the 2nd biggest exporter of goods in the world, 80 million Germans are exporting more than even 300 million Americans. German exports rise to all time high Only China exports more than the European nation. |
| Terryd | 06/06/2011 22:31:48 |
1946 forum posts 179 photos | Posted by Steve Garnett on 06/06/2011 18:37:17: I do like these dual-purpose threads - especially this one, as John rather well illustrates at least one of the other points rather well - I'm pretty sure that the modern education system isn't really responsible for any of what he's illustrated! Posted by Terryd on 06/06/2011 14:35:18: I am not optimistic either as the present generation of teachers have been trained to teach to these parameters and the National Curriculum which is generally acknowledged as a failed and expensive exercise. As I've been discovering recently, most of the problems are with what they haven't been trained to do. If you ask them how to develop any new curricula from scratch, they often don't have the faintest idea of how to go about it............................. Hi Steve, Given that teachers are now trained in about 2 terms of a post grad course with no previous experience, and much of that time is spent on so called 'teaching practice' (which bears no relation to the three terms I had to undertake before even being considered) it is a wonder they can be taught anything about the processes involved in education. They may have the academic knowledge from a first degree but that is like giving an engineering graduate a few weeks experience and then trusting him/her with a large project. It doesn't work. T |
| John Stevenson | 06/06/2011 23:54:04 |
 5068 forum posts 3 photos | All our crafts teachers came from industry via a training scheme, as soon as they came from teacher training colleges it all went downhill. |
| Terryd | 07/06/2011 08:07:35 |
1946 forum posts 179 photos | Posted by John Stevenson on 06/06/2011 23:54:04: All our crafts teachers came from industry via a training scheme, as soon as they came from teacher training colleges it all went downhill. Hi John, I came out of industry and was retrained at a TT college (Loughborough) one of the most highly regarded colleges in the country and had been training excellent teachers since 1927. Many of my colleagues were ex industry and many were college trained. All were very good or excellent teachers. Remember TT colleges were around long before the retraining of ex soldiers and craftsmen, who were also in fact retrained by these self same colleges. Our lecturers at Loughborough were renowned in their fields, several having written what became standard texts, for engineers and woodworkers alike, not just teachers. A good craftsman is not necessarily a good teacher. I have seen many such excellent people try to retrain and fail miserably in teaching, one burly ex toolroom man leaving in tears. Two of the worst teachers I have ever met were ex craftsmen, excellent at their craft but abysmal teachers and they were eventually sacked. I have come across many such cases almost as bad in my years as Head of Department. The problems came with Curriculum changes imposed by the government and more recently with the poor quality of teacher training of post grad students, many of whom do not have the basic knowledge to teach the subject. T |
| Terryd | 07/06/2011 08:16:03 |
1946 forum posts 179 photos | Hi John McNamara, I have searched for a while trying to find Megapoxy H over here in the UK as I would like to try the technology you have proposed. However, I cannot find a source and the nearest equivalent I can find locally is almost £30 sterling (46 Aud) for 1 litre. This seems a bit pricey. You did mention in one of your posts that you thought Megapoxy H is available in the UK. Do you remember the reference or the website where you saw it? Best regards Terry |
| John Haine | 07/06/2011 11:24:33 |
| 5563 forum posts 322 photos | Try a boat building materials supplier for West Systems epoxy - used to seal & reinforce wooden boats. |
| Terryd | 07/06/2011 12:10:27 |
1946 forum posts 179 photos | Posted by John Haine on 07/06/2011 11:24:33: Try a boat building materials supplier for West Systems epoxy - used to seal & reinforce wooden boats. Hi John, Thanks for the suggestion but it appears to be even more expensive than pouring epoxy from a builders supply house. Nowhere near the sort of price John McNamara quoted in Australia for his Megapoxy H, Best regards Terry |
| John McNamara | 07/06/2011 12:47:09 |
1377 forum posts 133 photos | Hi All Hi John Haine West system is used by some US machine builders. it is rather expensive. they specialise in boats. With the interest in boating in the UK there must be stiff competition for epoxy suppliers. A little research should find a competitive supplier. Hi Terryd Great to hear you are interested…..I found a list of distributors in Europe by doing a Google search for Megapoxy Then I found this page for Distributors. I believe Megapoxy was developed by Vivacity Engineering an Australian company. There are not that many kinds of epoxy on the market, many companies’ market similar products. I chose Megapoxy H because it was reasonably priced and the company was helpful when I made enquiries, I will stick with them in Australia. One litre packs of anything tend to be expensive. in OZ it is sold by the litre, not weight as many of the suppliers I Googled in the UK tonight showed on their price lists. The main thing is to get an epoxy that does not have added solvents. And has a reasonably slow setting time to give you time to place the mix. I tried the following four word Google search and came up with a number potential of contacts. Buy epoxy resin England With the membership behind MEW I guess there will be a number members who know local suppliers. Cheers John |
| John McNamara | 08/06/2011 16:50:25 |
1377 forum posts 133 photos | Hi All The mechanical design has almost been completed, all the motions and table locking now work properly. A good example where CAD excels being able to see how parts relate to each other before you build. I used the cam method for table rise and fall, clamped by the lever on the right and a substantial friction disk; you can see it on the right in the front view. The table angle is directly indicated. I would appreciate a little help; I do not have any plans for the Worden; in order for the many accessories that have been designed it would help if I knew the position and size of the arc and centre point locations and dimensions. I will amend the plan. That way the accessories should fit The position of the Motor, should it be movable laterally or rotatable? There is plenty of room to make it so. Will it make the machine more versatile? The drawings are all AutoCAD files. If any non commercial user would like them I will be pleased to oblige PM me if you would like a copy. Once the machine is tested I will produce a set of PDF drawings. Cheers John      |
| dcosta | 09/06/2011 14:45:38 |
| 496 forum posts 207 photos | Hello Terry.
“I have searched for a while trying to find Megapoxy H over here in the UK as I would like to try the technology you have proposed. However, I cannot find a source and the nearest equivalent I can find locally is almost £30 sterling (46 Aud) for 1 litre. This seems a bit pricey. “ Being curious about Megapoxy H (and possibly interested in trying it), I made a search for the product here in Portugal. I found a distributor and I was told the price for a 4 litre is around €80,20 (£70,82). Around £17,50 per litre. A little cheaper than in England.
However, suspecting of the existence here in Portugal of other makers offering similar products, I phoned to some telling I'm looking for some product to replace Megapoxy H (explaining the intended use) and Sika answered to me saying its product called Icosit KC 220 N has identical characteristics. I could find a price in some distributor here in Portugal and it goes at around €126,00 (£111,00) for a 5 litres can. Around £22,00 per litre.
Than, a simple search with Google showed the following address: http://www.epms-supplies.co.uk/p-Icosit-KC-330/10-%28179%29.aspx I don't know the price of this product in England but I think it may be an alternative deserving to be explored...
Best regards Dias Costa
Edited By Dias Costa on 09/06/2011 14:46:19 |
| John McNamara | 09/06/2011 15:38:56 |
1377 forum posts 133 photos | Hi Terry and Costa I found the following link. By Googling "Buy epoxy resin UK I do not know the company but the pricing looked a little more reasonable. If you decide to call them make sure the epoxy has no added solvents. Sifting through the pages there were a number of other company websites that quoted pricing for comparison. Cheers John Edited By John McNamara on 09/06/2011 15:44:15 Edited By John McNamara on 09/06/2011 15:46:42 |
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