What did you do today? (2014)

Congratulations Clive on your retirement.

I'm busy with my five year plan being almost half way though it getting all of my toys up together for a productive retirement. It's not that I'm wishing my life away but I believe you need to plan ahead and have a reason for getting out of bed after all those year of work! So keep up the good work and enjoy yourself!

Regards John

Sorry to hear about your loss John, and I'm with you as regards enjoying what you have Now, not at some point that may never arrive, life can throw some very unexpected 'googlies' at you!

3 years ago I had a minor 'op' to remove some bone from my right foot, what was a 15 minute procedure under general anaesthetic became a fraught exercise getting me out of respiratory arrest and well over a year recuperating from the aftermath!
My wife later remarked 'what on earth would I have done with all your stuff', she had a very valid point and have since been whittling away at all the clutter I'll doubtless never use!

My wife in that time has also developed serious health issues and I'm Very aware I could lose her in literally a heartbeat (or lack of), she's also lost a significant degree of sight, so it's making what I'm doing with my stuff even more crucial in case I pop off before she does (I have 'issues' too and I've not reached retirement yet!), And to ensure we spend more time doing what we like doing together instead of in separate parts of the house!

You only appreciate what you have now when you've lost it or come very close!

Good luck with your retirement and hope you enjoy many happy trouble free years of it!

John

Hi There

I wish I could afford to retire. But then I would be bored stupid. I might even have to talk to the wife!!!

I am busy setting up a decent workshop to do professional model making in the smaller scales, gauge O, possibly gauge 1 and 16mm narrow gauge. This will be a mix of one offs and batch production. I might also venture into steam engine kits from castings.

I hope this combined with writing books and articles will help me to survive for a long while.

The workshop has a Warco WM180 lathe, a Myford ML10 and a Taylor Hobson Engraver so far.

I also have all I need to do resin cast rolling stock including a vacuum pump to debubble (is that the correct term) the resin.

Next will be a small mill when I can afford it.

I think the secret of surviving is doing several projects at the same time to give several streams of income, as many as possible on autopilot, just fulfil the orders as they come in.

regards David

Edited By David Clark 1 on 04/02/2014 10:55:41

I thought I would have much more time to myself once retired but I hadn't understood that my wife would also be retired too and that her 'hobby' would be getting 'out and about' (Gardens, National Trust, English Heritage - the list grows as her mastery of Google improves!). So, I haven't full-time retired after all and my new part-time job is as a Chauffeur & Tour Guide

However, my life would be very grey without her - so I was sorry to hear of your loss John.

IanT

I'll reply to the post about EASA licencing in the 'Aircraft Discussion' thread rather than clutter up this thread!

Andrew

Hi Bog Standard

It is a matter of neccessity. I have to be able to earn a living.

I was in industry for many years so am used to working to deadlines.

It does not matter if I am a manufacturer or a model engineer.

As long as I am making something in the workshop I will be happy.

I enjoy the challenge of making something and figuring out how to machine it so it is as accurate as I can get it.

Anyway, a lot of the time I will probably be making patterns for resin casting, my son can do the actual casting under supervision. About time he did some work instead of playing computer games.

regards David

Back from a 'four seasons' week in Skye. Some fantastic night skies and my modest interest in astrophotography is in danger of becoming serious. I've made a resolution to make a stepper-motor controlled equatorial mount with the hope of improving on the pictures (all heavily cropped or downsampled to reduce size) in my 'astronomy' album.

There's a couple below as a taster

Neil

Jupiter & moons 1:1 cropped

Jupiter (just) showing an equatorial band. Resampled to double resolution and cropped but far lower exposure. I need to do better than this as image stacking doesn't make a noticeable improvement - hence the need for a tracking mount.

Finally, a bit of the new moon. this is where tracking and stacking should make a massive improvement. See the albums for a long exposure picture showing the dark part of the moon lit by earthlight and showing the seas surprisingly well.

Rik / all

Size of soft jaws A/F.. 30mm, It's actually ms not ally, didn't have any ally to suit, but is on my shopping list..

George.

Thanks George

Rik

Having been a bit too quick to cut some brass angle into 20mm lengths the other day, I needed to reduce the width of it from 10mm to 8mm. As I mentioned on another thread, it would have been better to keep them on the parent metal for longer, as work holding small bits can be a pain. Several ways I could have done it but since I have some other milling work I need to do - I set up my 'Taig' milling head on the EW (where the tailstock normally sits) and used a small toolmakers clamp to hold the work in the vice. Once I'd set everything to depth the whole lot (16 sides) took less than 30 minutes.

It's not exactly a precision device but since I made the attachment last year (with an ex power-shower motor and some scrap aluminium block) and the whole lot only cost me about £100 (mostly for the Taig ER16 head itself) I'm very happy with it. It seems accurate enough for this kind of work and I'm starting too use it more and more. My EW is developing into a very useful small machining centre and best of all - I can use it in the warm.

I'm using a 5.5mm carbide end mill and I think it will be running at about 3500 rpm (motor runs at 2,880). This is a good deal faster than the EW headstock can manage and it's cutting the required 2mm off in one pass. Nothing remarkable but it was quick and convenient. To turn the work over (or to set the next piece) I just eased the TM clamp, so everything stayed set.

They are for some small fabrications (8 off) so there is still some work to do on them yet.

IanT.

Edited By IanT on 05/02/2014 16:55:50

We should have a competition - most uses for a toolmaker's clamp.

Neil

Not everyone likes them, see:

http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=98050

I could not manage without them.

Mike

What about who has the most rusty pair, these are teh ones I made a school and are just used for soldering, my brothers ones also get teh same treatment.

The one in the photo is a 2" Eclipse [No 410]. I have several and they get used a lot. I've made most of my larger ones myself and they are also very useful (when other means of holding things just won't work). I think Harold Hall did an article about how useful/versatile they are not too long ago?

I read the posts (in the link you provided Michael) and I suspect that at least one of the posters doesn't know how to 'set' the clamp properly. If you set the spacing too wide, the clamps only grip on their very ends/tips and they will not hold properly. The clamp has to be initially set to the same width as the work before clamping up.

Of course, it is also important to realise their limitations too. You cannot take just any cut with impunity and they will not replace a proper machine vice for heavier work. In this case it was fine and for smaller parts (and smaller cuts) they are very useful.

IanT

Finally fitted a tumbler reverse to my Chester DB10G lathe.

Note the main drive pulley has been removed.

Before

After

I think this lathe is based on the Sieg C6 so it may interest C6 owners.

Les.

Following a breakdown on a machine where we needed to take some voltage readings from inside a guarded area while the equipment was in automatic mode we retired for a coffee. Refreshed by the coffee I had a great idea that if the display of a multimeter could be removed and a bluetooth connection made to transfer the readings to the display this would be much safer than other methods, with a bit more discussion we thought a phone app could be used to display and even log the data. When I got back to my office a google search found that Fluke had taken my idea and made just such a meter and you could even buy them from RS ! That is quick work.

Mike

I cut my first internal keyway in the bore of a multi size pully, the drive for my wood turning bowl lathe, after getting help on a thread posted only a day ago!

It is now on the new (old) motor, a single phase one, so should be knocking out wooden bowls soon.

Thanks to the guys who helped on this.

regards

John

Following on from my mould picture I did indeed make a second mould for 1 oz lead heads.

Followed on by casting some. Here is a picture of the results from my first run.

They look pretty good and now just need a lick of paint or some powder coating.

Regards Clive

A lot of handle twiddling today. I've been cutting the final drive gears for my traction engines. I finished one last night and did the other three today. With 72 teeth that's 216 up and downs for the knee and table of the mill today, as the gears are too big to fit under the arbor for conventional gear cutting. Here's a picture of one of the LH final drive gears, with winding drum, being cut:

And here are the four gears finished, OD is 14.8":

And finally a pair of the gears in place:

Apart from the bevel gears on the governors I think that's all the gears for the traction engines finished. Although I do have two more final drive gears to cut, as I'm doing a pair for a friend who is building the same engine as me.

Regards,

Andrew

i spent most of saturday dismantling then painting then re-assembling my 5"g LBSCR wagon to go behind my 5"g terrier STEPNEY. 130 x 10BA fixings and nuts. very fiddly! (not a kit and all scratch built and the 10BA fixings threaded from brass flat head rivets). im always very impressed with anything JasonB and Andrew J do! makes my humble efforts seem very insignificant by comparison!

cheers,

julian