Engineering Oddities

The other day I was reading an old (but not THAT old) engineering book, and for polishing cast iron it suggested using a walrus skin buff.

Google can't find any suppliers!

I wonder what other strange tips folks have come across over the years.

Neil

Also mentioed here

MichaelG.

Walruses get on better with woodworkers than metalworkers. Now we know why.

Neil

Here is an interesting visit to "The Grinding Museum" at Solingen.

MichaelG.

Whale oil is good for hardening and tempering

1.kill a whale

2.Squeeze out any oily bits

3.plunge metal rod into oil when cherry red

G'day.

While sperm whale oil is still preferred by watchmakers for oiling delicate bearings, I still use tallow for checking piston/liner fits in model sized engines. What makes it a bit different from the U.K. is that I hunt the (feral) pigs with a .444 Marlin lever action and the tallow is rendered from the fat. Nothing is wasted as my neighbour has a smoker.

Regards from the land of the kangaroo

Cu Later * Danny M *

Slightly off topic but not much. Have you not heard of razer strop fungus for putting and edge on your cut throat? Technically known as Piptoporus betulinus.

Martin

in the works her I was apprenticed, we had a foundry that used Loam (pronounced loom) moulding for the stators of large electric generators about 30 feet in diameter. In order to produce the sand mould in the foundry floor the circular design was swept by means of a shaped board on an arm around a centre post. There were either of two ingredients used to bind the sand together, spent hops or horse dung. I understand that the foundrymen preferred the horse dung!

I had some watch oil that was reputed to have been extracted form the jaws of a Porpoise! It certainly did not 'creep' like some oils do. Later I bought some synthetic oil that went every where and soon dried out from the bearing.

The Whale oil, while doing my apprenticeship we had a Whale oil bath and I used it to quench some HHS lathe tools I made and boy were they hard.

Clive

Lubricants for thread cutting listed in my much-prized set of BA taps and dies, by Fredk. Bates & Co, include:

for copper - milk, for bronze - rape oil, for tool steel - rape oil, lard, or whale oil, for stainless steel - turpentine and white lead . Paraffin was also recommended a lot.

Nowadays I just have a can of RIDGID Threading Oil for anything that needs a lubricant.

Phil

Hi,

Further to Robbo's observations Dad used to swear by "Neatsfoot Oil" for tapping out tough steel. Wikipedia tells us its made from rendering shin bones from cattle, is good for softening hard leather so may be useful for dressing walrus hide and that its also good for machining aluminium.

Modern versions also blend in rape and soya oil

Bob D

When I was an apprentice there was a lot of talk in the machine shop about ' nats cock ' I soon learnt that a Nats cock

was a thousand of an inch

G'day

The parlance of undocumented units is vast. Although they are not real units most people seem to get the gist of what one is trying to say, for example if one was told to take-off;

A tad

A smidgin

A knat's whisker

A poofteenth

A mickhair

A sh*tload

...etc

of material, then the intent to take of a little bit more has been communicated.

Down here (in the colonies) Neatsfoot Oil is still available for leather dressing a 'Sam Browne' belt etc. But you have to earn the right to wear such a belt to learn where to obtain the stuff.

C'est la vie

Regards from the land of the kangaroo

Cu Later * Danny M *

I'd forgotten about Neatsfoot oil. My wife uses it to soften leather when making handbags etc.

(Not for making the bondage gear more comfortable, though it would do for that!)

Available over the Internet - what isn't these days

Phil

Here's one from one of my old books: "Soldering Without Heat":- Brass filings 2 oz, steel filings 2 ox, fluoric acid 1/4 oz. Put the filings in the acid, and apply the solution to the parts to be soldered, after cleaning the parts in contact; then dress together. Keep the fluoric acid in lead or earthen vessels.

Ian S C

Hi.

I know that they are probably onomatopoeic, but can anyone come up with definitive photos of a Timping hammer and a Spelching hammer, terms used in the mid fifties in the Lancashire area?

Bob D

Bob,

I would guess that Timping is a dialect alternative to Tamping

Spelching has a woodworking definition, but I can't quite see the connection with hammers.

MichaelG.

I like the way they used to use wood (lignum vitae) for ships prop shafts bearings , powdered bone for case hardening steel, turds for tanning leather.etc. etc. Paying lip service to these old methods I regularly imbibe embalming fluid in the form of Scotlands finest and trust that unlike Freddy Mercury I WILL want to live for ever. ---- Rik

Investigating violin repairing, I was struck how hide glue appears to be so superior to synthetic adhesives.

Neil