What did you do today? (2013)

My single cylinder wobbler as you probably know only goes the one way, so am making a crash box so I can have reverse direction, simple job made harder by using a handy piece of stainless shaft, trying to drill 1.5mm holes in it, Probably wasnt so flippin handy after all.

Andy

As part of my fix it, fit it, sell it or bin it program in the workshop I have finally got round to repairing the casting and refitting my Ainjest high speed threading unit, after my wobbly with it. I've also fitted a new bar for the trip stop, as the original bar supplied was for a 25" between centres lathe, not the 40" model. It all seems to work, and more importantly trip, as it should. If anything it seems slightly easier to get the half nut engaged than it used to be, even at 10tpi and 540rpm. That might be because I've filed some of the trip parts to give a little more clearance when engaging the over centre lock. I'm looking forward to some experiments in high speed threading. Here's the unit fitted on the right hand side of the lathe saddle:

As expected most of the standard bolts in the unit were metric, but bizarrely one custom bolt was 5/16" BSW. Fortunately I've got quite a good range of taps and dies.

Regards,

Andrew

After freezing parts of my anatomy on the gliding airfield today (for my annual refresher course, wherein one makes an idiot of oneself in front of an instructor) I cleaned out the coolant tank and replaced the pump on my Bridgeport. I've only had the replacement pump on the shelf for three years, so it still counts as an current project.

The original Bridgeport pump failed with a shorted winding, so I bought a secondhand Bridgeport pump on Ebay. Then that failed with a shorted winding. The new pump is indeed new and is generic, not a Bridgeport part. I will be interested to see how it performs. If this one fails I'll have to assume that there's something wrong in the electrics of the Bridgeport. Generally three phase induction motors are pretty bomb proof electrically, so to lose two of them may be regarded as carelessness rather than misfortune.

The new pump takes about twice the current, and hence is twice the power, of the old Bridgeport pump. I wonder if the original was a little underpowered?

Regards,

Andrew

Most things on Bridgeports are underpowered.

One week and two days before this POS Bridgeport of mine gets dragged off screaming to be shipped to India to make more crap.

Very fitting.

This weekend,
Well

It was my youngest sons 23rd wedding aniversary and meal etc; held at my house this weekend, so no chance of being in my workshop... Still got body's in variouse rooms BUT as haveing my boiler delivered Mon I have slave labour after they get over all the Vino, food and champers consumed.

Should be interesting as it is copper Mig welded, 5" g B1 so big.. all bushes bronze, and silver soldered in, will post pics if anyone interested,

John
Most Brigeports were designed for light school (could be wrong) use, ergo the teacher standing over the pupil pos; max 6mins (he has about 30 in the class) then saying now turn it off and go sit down. Bob

Last night I finished plumbing the injector on my Simplex.. now to make the whistle then strip it down and reassemble steam tight for its maiden test.

Today I shall be rewriting my CV as I'm being laid off !!

Hi Derek
Hope all goes well with you not a pleasant thing to happen. As far as the maiden test is concerned we have a micro brewery near us and the landlord and his wife first owned it plus the pub, but they retired like most of us old kodgers, but.. well the son took over and made a beer called Maidens Voyage, well we immediately called it maidens water (his surname is Stone) work out the connentations of that. must say a nice session beer. Well we all were close to being barred until he worked out that would be about 70% of his lunchtime profit gone.

Derek I think all of us wish you good luck and hope everything comes together again for you .
and please keep us posted.

Bob.

Bob,

Please post the pictures of your MIG welded copper lump.

I thought that it was a Tig welded one From Steam Technology via Hotcoals that was due last summer? or is it another boiler??

Commiserations Derek,

I hope something worthwhile for you turns up soon, and teh Simplex gives you plenty to keep busy.

Neil

I reached the point where I could prevaricate no longer. I placed the eccentrics onto the axle and pressed the little end journals into the cranks. The process left me in admiration of the 70 year old bench vise handed down to me by father, and more importantantly with an axle that rotates freely! Still a long way to go, but this was a big moment for me.

Mike

Steamed a 3 1/2" Brit!

Mark P.

Burned, bruised and bleeding!

Spent most of today cleaning and renewing the seals on the vapouriser for my wife's LPG Zafira. I've done it before on an Astra and a Vectra. Vectra is an easy, 10-minute job to remove. Astra is abit tight. The Zafira is so crammed in allow the best party of an hour juast to get it out! I had to remove a lot of wiring and conncetors to get at it and it was still advanced yoga combied iwth left-handed blind spannerwork to get it out.

Finally got it all back together - and the solenoid wasn't switching the gas in

Turned out I'd bent a pin in the connector trying to fit the wrong plug when working blind. But I think I set a record for removing and refitting the second time around.

Praise be - it worked on the second changeover (the first one purges the air in the vapouriser).

Now I'm just licking my wounds from wrestling with a hot engine!

Neil

Ah Neil

That brings back a few memories!

Thanks to my aunt I had a succession of Austin Allegros which she sold to me at advantageous prices.

Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3. They all suffered from water pump problems and, due to growing family and general shortage of funds, DIY car maintenance was a necessity. I found, with practice, that I could change a pump in less than 20min during my lunch break. I should add that I HATE working on cars and am very glad that those days are past. I do sympathise with your situation- cars are even harder ( or maybe impossible?) to work on now!

Regards

Norman

Edited By NJH on 02/03/2013 19:18:20

Today I mostly cleared up the workshop,cleaned and lubed the lathe,cleaned and lubed the mill and drank tea.

Mark P.

Thanks to my aunt I had a succession of Austin Allegros which she sold to me at advantageous prices.

Had you done something to upset her, Norman?

My first car was a Marina - it cost me £30 and had no synchromesh on two of the gears. My landlord offered to buy it back off me because he felty guilty because it was such a wreck.

Neil

We took the grandchildren for a walk along the sands/gravel today. Not bad for the West of Scotland in March!

It has been a lovely day - I have worn just a t-shirt despite being outside almost the whole time.

About 9 degrees- apparently people in Calcutta have been wearing balaclavas and wrapping their children in multiple layers because it went down to an unprecedented 7 degrees!

Neil

Painted my boiler, removed all paint and repainted it, put a big scrape down the side of it so left it and came in for some much needed solvent free air. Just squoze the puss out of my front k9 abscess and now feel well pleased with myself! (its gross but its a nice feeling!). Dog at feet, beer in hand, happy days.

AAAARGH, today I have read this post just before going to bed .... now I'm going to have nightmares !