What did you do today? 2023

That all looks a very fruitful future for Sheffield, then. Good news indeed!

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I completed the straining part of my steam-wagon's water-tank strainer.

Using Vee-blocks for support; and the end-fitting's own spanner-flats with a square and spacers as crude "indexing", drilling lots of little perforations in a 5-in length of 15mm copper plumbing pipe, actually went quite well.

The milling-machine would have been overkill although it does accommodate a 'Vertex'-clone dividing head and has a DRO. Unfortunately its quill has been incurably very stiff ever since I bought the machine several years ago, putting delicate drilling out of the question.

The Meddings bench-drill probably runs fast enough for tiny drills (which may need a pin-chuck) but I doubted my applying sufficient feed sensitivity.

So I used the BCA jig-borer for its ability to use little drills, though a properly-balanced quill rather than screw feed would have been nice! Such a task would be enhanced by a simple spin-indexer sized for the BCA, perhaps to hold my EW lathe chucks or ER collets.

Especially when drilling so many 1mm dia holes, all 552 of them.

.....

Then after tea...

A little more work on that strainer, followed by coming to grief with an Alibre tutorial.

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Oh naughty words... I've just remembered I do have a very simple, compact indexer, somewhere; using a gear as a dividing-plate! It carries an ordinary drill-chuck, but that's not insuperable. Will have to investigate.....

Very prompt service from Metals4U: a batch of aluminium extrusions I ordered on Monday, arrived this afternoon.

This as I've somehow volunteered to make 16 "Heyphone" ariel reels for the Mendip Cave Rescue. Each reel consists of two strips held apart by two cylindrical spacers, a bit like those seaside crab-bothering line reels.

16-off reels so 32 each side-bars and spacers...

Then started setting up the workshop for the batch work.

= Depth-stop on the ML7 spindle, for facing and centre-drilling the spacers.

= Drilling-vice on the Progress bench-drill for depth-drilling the spacers then threading them, using a tapping-head for the spacers. Why not drill to depth on the lathe? Using the bench-drill is easier and quicker. I may replace the vice with a 3-jaw chuck on a base-plate.

= Fence with end-stop on the milling-machine table for making the bars - though I may use the smaller Meddings bench drill for their screw-holes, after drilling the first on the mill to use as a setting-gauge.

'

The photo below is my "drawing" and Estelle says her hand-span there is 7 inches, so for the racehorse breeders among you, 1-3/4 Hand long. I took the picture at the end of a cave-rescue practice I'd attended, on the surface only, as ex-officio observer and photographer.

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The 'Heyphone' is somewhere between Ultra Low Frequency radio and induction-telephone, capable of two-way communication through a significant depth of rock between two ariels that are just long wire dipoles laid along the ground or cave floor between earth-plates, with the instrument connected at mid-point. The electronics live in a dedicated "Pelicase" - a rugged, waterproof plastic carrying-box. The ariels on their reels fit in a small kit-bag.

re above: cited a photo but didn't attach it!

Spent half the morning on that ex-MEW Alibre exercise (scribing-block), finishing the parts as best I could.

Otherwise, completed the first-off of the ariel reels as in the photo above. It is for "Inspection Department" approval prior to making the rest of the 16 they need, and partly to assess my workshop arrangements and methods for the task.

Examining the photograph closely reveals the reel has two sections, the lower much narrower than the upper, but I'm assured that's not necessary.

I started to prepare the vegetable plot ready to plant out the seeds I've been growing in my conservatory. Runner beans, courgettes, red onions (I seem to have developed an adverse reaction to other onions), abd beetroot. The seed I potted up a few weeks back is really growing well. The beans are nearly 6 inches tall, and the courgettes about 3. I managed about three hours of weeding before I had to stop.

Continuing the gardening theme: notwithstanding that there is work to be done in the workshop, I trimmed more of my 9 ft conifer hedge. It isn't getting any easier as I get older and more arthritic!

But, why are badgers (I think) digging up my potato patch?

Got hold of an Angle Plate cleaned and repainted, plus a 85mm/45degree(100mm) Sine Vice which I cleaned, repainted and replaced knobs with bolts & split washers to tighten angle down properly its good condition.
I also got hold of a RongFu RF-115 bandsaw which throw blades=Found main pulley loose plus other pully bush ok, but it had a 10mm forward/backward play=I am going to restore this one so completely disassemble it, will have some parts sand blasted and repainted soon, to replace all bearings

Edited By Chris Mate on 01/05/2023 23:09:22

Maybe because Badgers are rather partial to worms amongst other things?

Certainly dig up my garden and no spuds there!

Edited By V8Eng on 01/05/2023 23:41:13

A friend told me that she couldn't plant bulbs (no, not electric light bulbs, that would be silly) in her garden because badgers were very partial to them. Are potatoes bulbs?

The badgers in my garden dig chunks out of the lawn, but not too much in the flower or veg beds. The deer on the other hand, prefer the roses.

Snapped the arm of my favourite wire-framed reading/workshop glasses across the eye.

Managed to scarf in a piece of thin brass strip with hard solder (I was rather waiting for everything to instantaneously vanish in the flame) and then drilled the 1.4mm pivot-hole on the Warco Major, before spending a jolly quarter of an hour filing it to shape peering at progress through a magnifying glass at intervals.

A successful outcome.

Hi, and Muntjacs are apparently the only animal that eat Bluebells, which there used to be a good bed of them at the back of mine a few years ago, but have now all gone.

Regards Nick.

My excitement was to do with a dripping tap. One of the single pillar kitchen taps with quarter turn.

Wasn't too bad and we are selling the house, so wasn't worried. then it turned from a drip to a trickle and looked like getting worse. Of course I have no idea what tap it is and the Franke picture which looked like it has a totally different cartridge.

I have found one on the interweb which may be right, but it was going to take a while to come (bank holiday), so I took a short term hammer approach and gunged up the cartridge with araldite. Stopped the drip. We have no hot water in the kitchen mind, but that's why kettles (and more to the point dishwashers) were invented.

I know you mustn't let araldite near food and will run plenty of water through before use once the replaced.

My fear is that the only one I've found online won't fit and I will have to change the tap - something that requires a double jointed contortionist with fingers of steel.

Iain

We have a 25 year old Franke tap that started dripping a couple of years ago, I paid mega money for the proper cartridges only to discover that they were no different to the cheap as chips ones from the high street plumbing merchants.

You may find that a piece of grit has become stuck between the two ceramic plates. If you work through it carefully you can dismantle the cartridge, give it a clean, reassemble and all is well. I think I found the method on an interweb video.

If the worst has happened and one of the ceramic plates has cracked, buy the cheapest tap you can find, swap over the ceramic plate and all should be well - the plates all seem to be the same.

If doing a DIY and replacing the whole tap be sure to check the operation of the replacement - 1/4 or 1/2 turn and clockwise or anti-clockwise operation. The are all different and I have a number of unwanted spares to prove it!

Best of luck

Pero

Hi, Pero.

It looks like it's not the plates, but the fit of the ceramic part of the cartridge in the metal container. I first gunged up the throat of the ceramic bit with the araldite. Which didn't work - I could even blow air through after I took it out. I then added a thin layer covering the edge of the metal bit and that then blocked properly.

Thanks for the advice on the operational direction. I hope I don't need it!

Iain

Those ceramic inserts are a nightmare. Our kitchen tap went a while ago so I removed the cartridge and popped along to the builders merchants to buy a replacement - or so I thought! I showed him my cartridge and the chap behind the counter brought out a board with about 40 different cartridges plugged into holes - "Does it look like any of those?" In short - no it didn't. Apparently there is no standard and every manufacturer makes them differently. Beware the splines - I though I'd found the perfect one and fitted it only to find that the tap handle wouldn't fit - wrong number of splines on the spindle and it was too long. I wound up using the ceramic bits of a new one with the brass bits of the original which worked for a while. Remember when a tap washer cost a couple of pence - that's progress for you!

Sandy

Mine has 20 splines, but most seem to have 28. The Franke Tap which looks similar (and may be the same one) has a cartridge with 28 splines. Progress, perhaps.

And don't get me started on why they have to discontinue a perfectly good pair of shoes that fits me (I struggle) after a few years.

Iain

I've just done my bathroom sink taps. It wasn't at all obvious how to get the handles off so I could remove the shroud to get at the brass bit, so when we had a plumber round to fit a gas fire I asked him. 'You can't', it's a new taps job. After many weeks of prevarication I decided there was little to lose by having a go. Turns out you can unscrew the shroud with the handles in place far enough to get a thin spanner in, then it's easy easy. I fitted new tap tops complete, less than £10 the pair, not worth messing. Must have taken me all of 20 minutes to gain lots of brownie points.

Has anyone tried using the ceramic washers in a steam regulator?

One reason I held off on the drip fix was that I wasn't sure if the drip was from hot or cold. There wasn't enough flow for the water to still be hot. All right with that, but the handles were held on by a grub screw underneath. I could undo the hot one, but the cold one was stripped.

I was psyching myself up to ask this question on the forum, 'how to I get a stripped grub screw out which is upside down with about 2 inches (5cm!) clearance from the surface and a hard surface a couple of inches behind it?'.

Didn't fancy that at all. In some ways the increased flow was a blessing. At least I could concentrate on the one which I could get at!

Iain

Fitted a 100 tooth hostaform gear to the lead crew on my Seig sc3 mini lathe. Arrive this morning and fitted in less then an hour.

Just needed a key way cutting and the boss removing, bore luckily was spot on, bought from the Bearing Shop with only the tooth count and module known.

Don’t know why they are not shown as spares in the UK, as they seem readily available in the states.

Rear cover fitted without any mods although some say they had to mod their cover when the fitted the gear.

Auto feed is now much better. 

Edited By Ian Hewson on 02/05/2023 17:34:48