What did you do today (2015)

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 21/02/2015 15:58:06:

I always thought 2CVs were to weird to be true

So are their drivers: 2CV cross (skip the first 2 1/2 minutes of the video)

That's what they do just down the road from me!

Russell.

[JAParticipant @ja]

Posted by Eric Cox on 21/02/2015 13:43:27:

"I found the Schlumpf Museum bitterly disappointing. It felt like a bored civil servant's idea of a museum."

The Schlumpf Museum wasn't built as a museum but to house the collection of cars belonging to two brothers and was never intended to be viewed by the public. Part of it was a memorial to their mother. I believe they made their fortune in textiles and channelled all the profits into the collection.

The brothers ran a cloth making business and were well known for paying their work force low wages. The workers, in the end, occupied the factory and found lots of Bugattis. This was in the mid 1970s. The brothers, I think they were Swiss, did a runner to Switzerland. It soon became apparent that not only had they been using the wage bill to buy Bugattis but also the taxes they should have been paying. The workers wanted to sell the cars but in the end the French government took them, probably as a tax deal, and open the French Motor Museum. They then did add further cars and motorcycles to the collection.

I have visited the place a few times but not within the last ten years. It struck me that the exhibits would never see the road again. However I may be wrong and the museum may now have an air of excitement that was sadly lacking.

JA

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Eric Cox on 21/02/2015 13:43:27:

I believe they made their fortune in textiles and channelled all the profits into the collection.

Yes, they went bankrupt as a result. The French government bought the collection from the receivers and opened it to the public, extending the collection since then.

Yes JA, if you expect a museum to be full of the flashy interactive displays that seem to be the norm now you will be disappointed. It is just a magnificent collection of exotic vehicles.

Russell.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 21/02/2015 15:58:06:

"to celebrate one of the greatest living myth of the car industry"

I always thought 2CVs were to weird to be true

Neil

Oh so true was in London some years back and needed to get to Hayling Island but had car problems my friend with whom I was staying wife said I could borrow her car so off I went in her 2CV to say the ride down the A3 was interesting would be an understatement !!!

H

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

Went off to a tool sale this morning and picked up a Reversing Switch for the ML7 $25 and a vernier height gauge.. need to make up a Carbide or HSS tip for it.

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

Russell.

Back in the sixties me and my mates used to go to the aptly named engine common in Yate to race Bangers and anything else we could lay our hands on.

We would all be locked up today for such behaviour. What no insurance, no helmets, bald tyres, no roll bars, yes crazy but just old cars and motor cycles.

Jesse

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

2CV's are weird, and their owners ? What ? I have several 2CV's and a ton of bits, and I am not weird at all.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> greatest living myth

I think some folks may have missed the irony of that expression… I think they meant 'legend'.

Neil

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Just been watching the videos of the 2CV cross and the 4×4 s. Reminded me why I first got a lathe – to build a 4 wheel drive 2CV, it's not difficult to modify a standard gearbox and another one as a final-drive unit. Built a twin-engine one instead, easy to reverse the diff gear on the rear engine. The hassle to get registered and insurance was too much and just reverted to a standard pick-up. Still got the lathe.

[Anonymous]

I have never screwcut a square thread, so in a rare opportunity to get into the workshop, I thought I'd give it a go this evening. I ground up a tool from some 5/16" square HSS and set to on a length of miscellaneous steel bar from the offcuts bin. Here's my first attempt at an 8 tpi square thread:

It looks satisfactory to me, so I can now go ahead and make the brake shafts for my traction engines, and screwcut some silver steel to make some taps to make the nuts for same.

Andrew

[capnahabParticipant @capnahab]

Looks very nice Andrew. Have you got a link to 'making your own taps ' ?.

[FatgadgiParticipant @fatgadgi]

Andrew – that's a crisp piece of screw cutting. Very nice indeed !!

Cheers – Will

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

First thread I ever screwcut was the square brake one on the Fowler. Make the tap a long one with plenty of taper, mine was a bit too short and steep even though I screwcut most of the internal thread first.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Just developed a funny cramp in the neck from shaking my head in disbelief at the profligate "sport" that is F1.

Some of the assets of the former Lotus / Caterham F1 are being auctioned off on March 11. Nothing much in there for the likes of us unless you fancy an unobtainium-plated kevlar and platinum composite tool box, assuming you have a few quadrillion beer tokens spare. Presumably this is just the stuff that the liquidators weren't able to sell to trade buyers. Some poor suckers paid for all of this. And this was just one of the has-been also-ran teams.

I used to like F1.

Merry

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

Try club level racing as there's a smidgen of the old camaraderie left at that level. Not like it was in the fifties and sixties though.

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

Funny you should say that Muzzer. I had a look and came to the exact same conclusion!

[Anonymous]

Posted by capnahab on 22/02/2015 23:33:14:

Looks very nice Andrew. Have you got a link to 'making your own taps ' ?.

Not as such, but it should be simple enough, in theory at least.

I am planning to follow the advice in 'Machinery's Handbook' for square and Acme taps, ie, make a set of taps of increasing thread depth. I expect to make three taps, using the diameters quoted in MH, the last tap of course being the full diameter. I am going to aim for the taper to cover the first 8-10 thread pitches.

The order of service is screwcut the threads, add an approximate taper using the top slide and then mill the flutes. Then harden and temper and finally grind, and relieve, the cutting edges.

The nut will be in bronze; time will tell if three taps is sufficient.

Andrew

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

On sale from Thursday at Aldi for £5 – 10 piece speed hex key set. Possibly made from special Chinese bend alloy but otherwise an improvement over the traditional L-shaped Allen keys for whopping hex heads in and out quickly.

Edited By Muzzer on 23/02/2015 23:04:04

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

The alloy should be OK given it only has a kink in it so you won't be able to over tighten anyway.

Love to see anyone using these to get the crankcase covers off any modern Japanese motorcycle, might as well attack it with an ear bud.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Also at ALDI on Thursday they have boxes of HSS drill bits (yellow boxes) for £3.99. I have used these and for the price I find them very acceptable so much so I have been back since and bought several boxes as spares. The tips have been thinned so they will go through steel without the effort needed for unthinned.

These are so cheap that you could even regard them as disposable and chuck'em when blunt.

One tip though, when you leave the shop, open the package and check the points. A drill in one of my boxes had been badly mangled during manufacture. No problem exchanging the box for another I might add.

Rik

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

JS,

Would love to ask the 'engineer'/'designer' who thought that kink would work, to proove it.

Form over function appears to be the norm of late, as with the curved iPad sides and the angst that causes trying to get the connector plugged in.

'Our' Jony is brilliant, but form over function appears to have taken hold as the case with the iPad 3 on.

Geoff – Busy tidying the 'Office' so no Workshop time

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

JS – yeh, yeh, you'd want to use a proper Allen key to nip them up or crack them loose but I could imagine some situations where they'd be a useful for spinning fasteners in and out. With a 45 degree crank you wouldn't be able to apply any sort of torque. I walked into that one!

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

Finally finished off the pair of grinder rests to fit my new slow speed grinder…

As well as metal turning I do quite a bit of woodturning and so I needed to be able to double-up for swept back grinding woodturning tools with repeatability on both wheels. The table rests are not up to Harold Hall's spec but much better than the standard versions that came with the grinder and for small tools the close-fitting wrap-around table works well for me.

So far I'm very happy with both the grinder and the rests – rock solid and true.

Jon

Edited By Jon Gibbs on 24/02/2015 12:09:31

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I uploaded this photo today so I think it counts. Sprayed the colour onto the Cameron pump at the weekend and gave the Iwata Neo that I did a review for a while back a proper try out and very happy with it – low air use, little overspray and a nice spray pattern.

Thats as near as I will get to anything Loco as the colour is Phoenix's LSWR Loco Green which has a nice dull finish.

Edited By JasonB on 24/02/2015 12:26:57

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Jason, Where did you do the review please ?

[Author]

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