Just read this "beginners guide" and laughed a lot!

hi folks

I just stumbled across this webby page, hope the author doesn't mind me posting the URL, best laugh I've had for yonks!

http://andysmachines.weebly.com/on-buying-and-using-a-lathe.html

There was a whole series of these in Model Engineer from circa the 1950s.

I'm not sure who the author was (does anybody know) but he/she really had a sense of humour, and new the Model Engineering crowd down to a tee! I have always liked the roundnosed smooger - I seem to be able to grind up those without planning to!

(Andysmachines should have put proper attribution, but, almost nobody seems to do that anymore!)

Another JohnS.

Edited By John Alexander Stewart on 11/03/2012 15:32:10

Extremely funny and extremely true have met people like that and seen there lathes.

bob

Hi all,

Thank you Duncan; very funny, even my wife enjoyed it!

John; he does say that he did not originate it but does not know who did, which seems fair enough; plagiarism is KNOWINGLY passing off other's work as your own.

Andy

I particularly liked the sentence:

" External screw threads are really no different from normal turning marks, except that they are properly spaced out to fit in the nuts. "

It was by an author going by the name "Michael Oxley". Brilliantly funny stuff; Model Engineer would do well to reprint it like they are doing with the LBSC articles currently.

Andy - fair enough about the comment - I used to manage some open source code written at work that had (estimated) 1 million downloads, and it was amazing that the bugs in it managed into commercial (and other open source sw) and nobody bothered mentioning the original source, so maybe I'm a bit sensitive at the moment! (smile) I no longer am able to work on the software at work because it is "irrelevant".

Mind you, with some of the bugs, I'm kind of glad that proper attribution was not given!

Another JohnS.

To quote from the 'Home' page of the same lathe website:

"I did have a "Comment" section, but it started to fill up with spam from some Chinese shoe emporium, and I have got tired of deleting the junk. You are still welcome to get in touch..............."

Familiar?

Regards

Terry

that page is brilliant. I was looking for a reference to a "long stand" or "left handed space hook"- always a good thing to send a junior for when they've got on your nerves for long enough.

Like the tool for cutting internal and external threads at the same time!

Ian

Hi Ian

They store the tool for cutting internal and external threads at the same time with the the sky hooks, the left handed spanners and the long waits. Perhaps that is why you can't find them.

Or are they stored with the sparks for the grinder?

regards David

Don't forget the 'long weight' (at the stores window)

T

Terry

the best one was "the wrong size hole", as in oh heck!. That's not right! - you can see we need a bigger one- get a few spares whilst you're there and we'll try them for size!

Ian

As an apprentice our stores was run by this very large lady called Doris, found out later that any lady over the age of 45 and 14 stones is known as Doris round here.

Very frightening lady especially for someone so young and green, it was rumoured that she could kick start one of the Rolls Meteors in the Centeurian tank we used to work on.

So one day some guy on the shop floor sends his apprentice down for six foot of falopian tube.

That's when the fight started

John S.

John,

thats a real cracker (thrupple nut). I`m still laughing yet. Who won the fight ??

Alan

Another one, true. When I was a lad one of the boys was sent out for a pint of pigeons milk, and given sixpence. He came back an hour later, said ;- They had no pigeons milk, so I got an ice-cream but it started to melt, so I ate it. Red faces all round. BTW I do know that there is such a thing as pigeons milk.

Nobody has mentioned the left handed hammer!

Kwil You are getting yourself all confused, everyone knows there is no such thing as a left handed hammer, you are thinking of a left handed screwdriver, not to be mixed up with a glass hammer.

J

And the skirting ladder, the tartan paint and the metric adjustable.

Production managers when enquiring about a breakdown should be advised there is an anti matter leak from the plasma conduit or problems with the back pedaling floo floo valve, they go away happy and report the info to their boss

Mike

a lot of reminiscence going on here. Did anyone have to obtain a bevelled edged chalk line? I had a 'long weight' (at the stores window) whilst the store man was looking for it not realising he was actually having a cup of tea with the fitter who first sent me to get it!! Apprenticeships I suspect are different these days.

B

I have some old MEs with Michael Oxley articles. "Rebuilding a T.W.I.M.P." is a classic, worthy of a Goon-show script.

Neil

The "andysmachines" website is mine. As stated at the top of the page, I didn't know the origin of the article, but now John Stewart has identified the author, I'll be happy to add a proper attribution. But by putting it out on the Interweb, am I breaching the copyright of the author or the publication (Model Engineer, probably) where it first appeared?

Andy