What did you do today? (2014)

[StevoParticipant @stevo]

Anyone seen this?

[John McNamaraParticipant @johnmcnamara74883]

HI All

Thinking of Trevithick's work on steam as Stevo posted above

I am nearly finished reading this **LINK**

"The Lunar Men" Is a good read on early invention particularly Bolton and Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Charles came later, and other men who were members of the lunar society a group of renaissance men who met once a month and discussed the natural philosophies in the late 17 hundreds.

Very enjoyable and enlightening.

Regards
John

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Sat down and did me VAT.

Good news is I got some to come back, not much but it all helps.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hi Clive,

I had loads of problems with hairline cracks reappearing at joints on two wooden boarded walls. B&Q do an own brand (Diall) flexible filler in a tube, and it's excellent (as is their brush cleaner, much better than white spirit).

End of plug…

Neil

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

That's all sorted now as we had to cut back the plaster to the thermal blocks and put in mesh and then re-plaster. Strange that all the houses built one after the other all have the same cracks appearing in the same place, on the wall in the hall way and a big crack straight up and own half way up the stairs. My only thought is that the houses were dried out using de-humidifiers when built and this rapid drying set up stresses in the walls and the thermal blocks are unable to take that sort of stress. All I can say is that wall I did , my wife says is fine! 1 brownie point.

Today there was an article about the Asian Wasp threat, I am afraid a lot of these articles outline the threat but give no detail at all apart from, dont mess with them and that several people in France have died of Anaphalactic shock after being stung by them.

Clive

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Helped a friend save his electric razor.

A moulded plastic part, that kept the 'U' shaped spring in place, had broken thus allowing the moving blade to flop about.

After much thinking, the shaver had its innards removed, then careful measuring then a 2mm hole drilled in either side in appropriate places.

A piece of 2mm galvanised horticultural wire was then inserted to hold spring in its correct position, reassembled and voila!

It actually worked, much to our joint surprise.

Totally forgot to take photos.

It is so satisfying when something like this works out.

Geoff – That ongoing saga of mine has reached a satisfactory conclusion.

[Bob PerkinsParticipant @bobperkins67044]

Time has been a bit short in the workshop recently due to some DIY. This is coming to an end now and I'm managing to escape for a bit. Spent the evening on my Stuart 10V. I have it to the stage where I can start to fit it together and run it in.

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yP5g1AD0ENQ

Edited By Bob Perkins on 06/05/2014 20:19:37

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

I just made the time honoured mistake of slipping whilst fileing on the lathe. Right thumb black with nail torn right down the middle and away to the left…omg it hurt and bled a lot! Be rate though!

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Spent the afternoon and evening doing the ceilings, they are textured ceilings which makes the covering a bit harder. Stair well was the hardest bit getting right up into the top corner. Now I have to make good what the 2 boys did on Monday! Next big job is wall paper, again this will be up in the stair well.

Fizzy, I hope it does not swell up, you will soon realize why we have an opposing thumb when you need to grip something. Hope it gets better soon.

Clive

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Sod the wallpapering and painting.

Hitler started out life as an interior decorator and look where that got him.

[“Bill Hancox”Participant @billhancox]

Fizzy

For the injury I suggest a liberal application of this followed by a generous measure of hot navy rum and honey (from Clive"s Hives) for the pain.

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

honestly….woh it swelled up. wifey has given me some glitter nailvarnish so i can at least make a protective layer over it…not sure the board of directors will like it though!

[“Bill Hancox”Participant @billhancox]

I few weeks ago I upgraded to Windows 8.1. I have spent numerous hours finding and upgrading drivers and resetting preferences for my software and sign plotter. This has been an immense undertaking considering the number of graphics, photo and video programs that I have installed. The sign plotter attempt alone took 6-7 hours. I gave up at 3:30 AM. Today I realized that I should have been communicating with the design software, not the plotter. So… all is sorted out. While recalibrating my plotter, adjusting speed and knife pressure, and test cutting, the dimension of the cutting knife caught my eye. These knives are very small and made of solid tungsten carbide. Members who work on extremely small scale things such as clocks and the occasional newt brass eye may be interested in these as a cutting tool. They would require some work up including fabricating a holder. The knives last for quite a long time when used on rolled adhesive vinyl sheet. They do wear out rather quickly when cutting the reflective sheeting such as Scotchlite, which contains powdered glass and metalized polyesters. Many sign shops do not send these out for re-sharpening and may have a few kicking about. This is a US business that sells new small cutters and provides a sharpening service: **LINK**

Here is a photo of two of my knives.

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Woo(censored)hoo!

I have finished organising my drawers, and it has been well worthwhile seeing the end result.

That old saying KISS certainly proved just how truthful it is, as I found out doing the last few.

Why oh why do I always look for the most complicated/involved way of doing anything? I don't want to think about how long this sage has gone on for.

Give me a few days to sort out photos and annotate them, then I will do a separate post with details of the various methods I used and tried, just in case there are others who want to go down my route.

All but one method worked well, with some taking ages to dry.

Geoff – Rooibos time, then a talking to myself.

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hi Geoff

Rooibos ??? – is this the stuff that Mma Ramotswe is always swilling?

As to tidying I'm slowly (v e r y slowly) getting through a clear – out of my filing system [study not workshop] . My practice seem to have been file it – and then keep filing it! In consequence I have loads of bulging files! The problem is the amount of documentation that needs to be shredded rather than just binned. I must get out of the " I might need it" or "It might come in useful one day" mindset.

Time for a cuppa methinks!

Norman

[norman valentineParticipant @normanvalentine78682]

I have been stripping the paint from a newly acquired vice. Tomorrow I will paint it and mount it on my bench.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> I have been stripping the paint from a newly acquired vice

Best use for rooibos, if you ask me

Neil

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by David Colwill on 02/05/2014 08:25:43:

Murray,

When I did my bridgeport clone I used 25mm ballscrews (the leadscrews were 32mm) and the ballnuts fitted straight in, I just had to tap a few holes. I drove the X and Y axis with 12nm steppers with mains steppermotor drivers from zapp automation (usual disclaimer). They drive the ballscrews 1:1 by toothed belt. I also did the Z axis by fitting a pulley directly onto the knee lift, in place of the existing handle but used a 2:1 reduction. The weight of the table eliminates any backlash. The machine has a DRO fitted and when you compare Mach 3 to the DRO there is very little error. I have limited the speed of the steppers to 3m / min on X and Y and 1m / min on Z. Going faster frightens me.

I didn't spend much time doing the conversion so it's a bit of a bodge but it has done some good work since and I'm glad I did it.

Good luck.

David

That's interesting David. Thanks for posting your experience. There seem to be any number of ways to do this but many of the stepper-based conversions seem to be massively overspecified, almost certainly due to lack of clarity about the loads and speeds required. When you look at the torque-speed and power-speed curves for steppers, the ratio has very little effect on the thrust you can get when the motor is flat out. The higher the pulley reduction, the greater the torque is geared up but almost equally the achievable torque is less due to the higher motor speed. It almost boils down to what rapids you want.

Very few of these systems have PSUs above 300W or so, which rather gives you a clue about the thrust x speed (= power) you can achieve. And given the finite spindle power that you have to begin with, there is a limit to what you can actually make use of in terms of X and Y feed.

I removed my 32mm Y-axis nut and it's 39.6mm OD which is particularly annoying, as the (25mm) metric ballscrew nuts are 40mm. Which leaves me with a problem – do I try to machine either the double ball nut or the yoke. Or do I make a new yoke up? I will probably machine the nut down. Mine's a Taiwanese BP clone with a mixture of metric and imperial dimensions which may explain the odd size.

I'm looking at using these closed loop stepper motor/drive combos **LINK** driving the X axis directly and the Y axis through a toothed belt so I can retain a handwheel. I know the purist CNCers will say you don't need manual operation but I'm sitting on the fence on that one.

Murray

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

NJH,

Rooibos (Red Bush) tea sans caffeine, from South Africa.

Neil,

Wash your mouth out with soap

Its a good brew, but an acquired taste.

Geoff – Home roast coffee time.

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

​Finished sorting contents in the five small multi-drawer units, two having 50 drawers with the others slightly less.

Just need to make a list of contents and then decide in what fashion to print in order to make it quick/easy to read.

Geoff – Relaxing with a cup of Earl Grey. Happy now Neil?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> Wash your mouth out with soap

Probably tastes better.

In my last job we our administrator had a sister who emigrated to SA. This was many years ago, before 'redbush' became trendy. For some reason several of the staff got hooked, and it led to the stuff getting confused with real teabags. Ugh!

Earl Grey!!!!

Have you ever drunk 'Bergasol' – it tastes exactly the same…

Tea, tea and more tea for me (coffee sends me to the loo…)

Being serious, I'm almost ready to move my temporary 'office' into the new space in my workshop. I've just ordered a wireless doorbell.

Neil – finding it surprisingly easy to get to grips with Windows 8(!)

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Neil

Earl Grey – with milk I would agree with you but with lemon wonderful!

Norman

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 09/05/2014 16:27:43:

Have you ever drunk 'Bergasol' – it tastes exactly the same…

I though that was a haversack ?

[NilochParticipant @niloch]

Went to the Ashmolean for the Cezanne and the Modern exhibition.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by Niloch on 09/05/2014 20:15:31:

Went to the Ashmolean for the Cezanne and the Modern exhibition.

A wonderful museum. I have to pop in every now and then for a Stradivari fix.

Rod

[Author]

Posts