What Did you do Today 2022

[Chris MateParticipant @chrismate31303]

Ok, so today I completed the 2nd shoulder of the train rail.

To my surprise the 12mm carbide cutter run through the rail like butter compared to the facemill brazed carbide cutter. The brazed carbide cutter added toolpressure resulting in cutting without adjusting depth up tp 5 reversals before it stop cutting, like sparkout on a grinder.

The 12mm cutter cut freely and no cutting on 1st reversal, that was a surprise.

Due to the uneveness of the rail head underside I nswitch to a different holding method. I set up a 45 Degree "jig" with vive and everything you see in photo. I then add a chain pulling the rail towards this and in vice closed with a round HSS bar tool. The vice stay clamped to this the whole time.

I tighten the two fasters pinned down to bed like a tent, and do the adjustment with feelers and checking it with a test dial indicator.

So I think I can go further with this rail….

See photo:
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Edited By Chris Mate on 28/11/2022 18:09:44

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Bought at a boot sale for $2. Triple epoxy coated paint.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

The steeple-keeper at one of the towers where I ring mentioned he thought the clapper on the tenor was a bit loose after removing the muffles for Rememberance Sunday.

On investigation, none of the fasteners were loose, but there was about 8mm of vertical play, so we dropped the clapper assembly out the bottom.

After heating to break the loctite, I undid the M20 locknut and pin to reveal this unexpected result:

That's a 1" diameter, 20mm bore tufnol sleeve, floating in a 33mm hole. Neither are damaged, in fact the original machining marks are still visible. There's about 1mm side clearance in the clevis, and no trace anywhere of missing material. So where is it, and how did it get there?

I machined a connecting sleeve out of a chunk of delrin,

and reassembled everything ready to refit before practice on Friday.

except for the bell, all of these parts are about 16 years old and shouldn't be showing any signs of wear. We checked the other seven bells, and they're all fine. So I'm mystified: how did this happen?

[IRTParticipant @irt]

The lathe holder cabinet did start as a plank of ash and length of angle iron. It was fun do do a bit of TIG welding and woodwork again, but I am looking forward to getting rid of the dust and getting the lathe going again. Deliberately sized to limit how many I can buy in the future. Thanks for comments.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Nicholas –

Very odd indeed!

Is that the clapper itself or some other component? I'll read it as the former for this.

I'm assuming the pin and nut generously overhang the Tufnol bush (only 2.7mm wall) so rule out the original liner sliding out over one end of that. Anyway, you'd probably have found that unless there are lots of places for things to hide in.

The condition of the machined surfaces suggests they were not acting as accidental bearing surfaces on a loose sleeve until the machining marks "filed" it away.

All I can think of is that the sleeve, whose wall is only 4mm thick, had somehow loosened over time, and suddenly broke into several relatively large pieces that dropped into nooks and crannies not obvious. If it had worn away we might expect patches of distinct dust and small fragments on various areas of the bell frame and surrounding floor.

When though? During ringing? Wouldn't that give a sudden shock or lurch, or mistime the round as it happened?

Or – tenor bell… heavy. So would the sheer mass of metal on the move tend to smooth out the collapse?

What was the sleeve material?

I'm thinking the sleeve eventually broke into pieces during ringing, perhaps over some time; and those left the scene gradually, "gently" letting the clapper come to rest on the bearing bush itself. It did not have far to fall, 8mm at most but probably in irregular steps.

Or would that full 8mm radial play have given some very strange "big-end gone" clanks and clonks audible between the real chimes as the bell is raised? I am surprised it had not cracked the thin-walled Tufnol bush, even if that was one of the SRBF grades.

Intriguing…..

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Here's the assembly ready to fit:

Although that's a terrible photo, it does show my confusion: there's no way big chunks could get out, and there are no traces anywhere on the clapper, or on the surrounding bell, frame or floor. Because of that, I have no idea what material was originally used. The play wasn't discernible when ringing the bell – I'd rung it down just before the fault was mentioned – although there is another room between the belfry and ringing chamber, which does damp out any extra noises. At <500kg, it's not a particularly heavy bell.

My photo of the bushes is slightly staged, as they're barely longer than the clapper is wide. There's maybe 1.5mm of side clearance for the clapper in the clevis, which is pretty typical of new installations; these things hardly need tight tolerances as they used to be made by blacksmiths.

The plan is to refit the clapper, ring through Christmas and inspect it a couple of times in the early new year. And I've got to clear up the big pile of swarf from making a 33mm diameter bush from a 75mm piece of stock.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I see what you mean: the joint resting on the vice.

Is this a system that swings the clapper against a stationary bell rather than overturning the bell?

The sleeve can only have worn down over the years to something like dust then, fine enough to pass through a tiny gap; and probably dispersed by draughts.

The original sleeve might have been hardwood, such as lignum vita; but is there a reason it used a thin-walled bearing bush and an extra sleeve also with a very thin wall? I'd have thought it would have had a single bush of 8.5mm wall, that fills the annulus.

That this particular sleeve wore away but the others have survived, suggests it may have been a very slightly loose fit, so it was not long before it tried to act as a bearing. Is the tenor bell used a lot more often than its companions, so extra wear-and-tear?

'

As an aside I was in the village of Alston one weekend a few years ago, and heard the church bells there start on the Sunday morning. The first few notes seemed a bit hesitant then it set off…. playing a melody rather than changes. In fact I recognised it as hymm tune, though I forget what. Back home I did a little research to find the peal had been converted to a carillon because the tower was found no longer strong enough to take the stresses of conventional ringing by rotating the bells. I told a friend who is the tower captain at Priddy, in Somerset and well over 300 miles from Alston, and she didn't believe me! I've heard there is a similarly converted peal in a church in Cornwall. Do you know of these, or others?

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

My guess is that a bush was never fitted in the first place, and it's taken 15 years for anyone to notice!

The number of times I've reassembled stuff only to find a few spare parts left over…

Dave

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 30/11/2022 10:19:22:

………Is this a system that swings the clapper against a stationary bell rather than overturning the bell?……..

…….That this particular sleeve wore away but the others have survived, suggests it may have been a very slightly loose fit, so it was not long before it tried to act as a bearing. Is the tenor bell used a lot more often than its companions, so extra wear-and-tear?

'

As a ringer myself, that looks like a standard clapper for 'full circle' English church bell ringing. The Tenor bell is not normally rung any more than the others in the tower. The church clock might use the Tenor bell, but if so, it would strike it with a separate hammer when the bell is 'down', i.e. hanging down safely, rather than being propped upside down as they are when ready for normal English ringing.

I suspect that this Tenor clapper joint was assembled by the apprentice, who forgot the sleeve. If the sleeve had broken up during ringing, you wouldn't have felt, or heard much difference while ringing. When ringing the bell up, the clapper might have sounded more 'loose' or might have double bounced on the lip of the bell, but only if you are near enough to the bell to hear it.

[Neil AParticipant @neila]

My thoughts are the same as SOD and John Doe 2, there should be a sleeve that was never fitted. Mistakes do happen, most engineers would regard bell hanging as a bit "agricultural" in nature, but this is a bit excessive!

You might like to check this website for a bit of information.

https://witneyandwoodstock.odg.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tbc04_clapper_bush_wear.pdf

I think your Delrin is probably as good as should have been originally fitted to reduce the shock load. I think that if I was curious enough I would drop one of the other clappers just to see what that one looked like. You could of course contact the last firm that overhauled the bells and ask, what might be for them, an embarrassing question.

I think I would wait for the warmer weather before checking, it can get really cold up in the bell chamber and handling cold metal and laying under a bell frame that is too close to the floor is no fun what so ever, done it too many times.

Keep up the good work. To often for church members, it's up in the tower, it's out of sight and out of mind! Only the ringers know what goes on there.

Neil

P.S. Nigel you might find this website interesting.

https://dove.cccbr.org.uk

Edited By Neil A on 30/11/2022 12:25:19

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Neil, thank you for the link as it gives me plenty of confidence in my that ought to be good enough and I can do it right now repair. There's nothing tricky about any of the engineering once you get past fitting the frame into the building.

Somebody forgetting to fit a needed bush would explain why there are no traces of it, and if this had been a very recent installation would be easier to accept. That would still imply require lousy quality control. But I find it hard to believe that there is no damage to either the tufnol bush, clapper hole, pin or clevis from probably 20kg of clapper clonking around on/in them for 16 years! The reported play would have been just as obvious every other time the muffles were used too.

If it were still possible to speak to the installers about this, we would even if that were to acquire the 'correct' part.

Having seen the results of neglect, wishful thinking or inadequate repairs means not spending 5 minutes checking this a couple of times over the next few months isn't acceptable. Now we know about it, we can't justify potentially damaging a 500 kg, 130year old bell. Access is good and there's room to at least kneel under the bell, and I've done far harder jobs in much worse conditions. Dismantling a good part just to have a look is something I'm much less comfortable with.

As the tenor of a light-to-medium eight, it's rung every time the bells are. There isn't a clock, and that would strike the outside of the bell with a hammer.

This is now a ground floor ring, so the congregation and vicar can at least see us, even if what we're actually doing takes some explanation. As for keeping it up, I'm out every night of the week learning the stuff I should have done before I stopped in 1991. This repair used material I'd bought for another job, so they'll replace that and the time will cost my round at the post-practice 'theory session'

[Neil AParticipant @neila]

Tufnol is quite a resilient material, but as you say, 16 years of use without the outer sleeve should at least have shown some signs of wear or deformation. Perhaps there was one fitted originally and it has just completely disintegrated, we'll never know now.

At least it was caught and corrected before any real damage occurred.

Post-practice theory session? What ever could that be?

Neil

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

In my experience of being a steeple keeper as well as a tower captain; some clapper pivots in some towers are quite loose, and allow significant sideways movement.

Many ringers, however, are not engineers, so they may not realise that pivots are excessively loose.

Also, when full circle ringing; the sound of the clapper striking the bell is so loud ~ 110dBA; that clapper pivots and bad headstock bearings simply cannot be heard. It can be quite a shock to ring a bell with a silencer fitted, (for training new ringers – this holds the clapper and prevents it striking the bell, but the bell can still be rotated to learn the feel and balance and how to ring the bell).

With a silencer fitted, you can suddenly hear all the bearing groans and clunks when the bell rotates – but not those from the clapper pivot of course.

Secondly, even if a problem is known about, it is not always so easy to fix, unless one of your ringers has access to engineering facilities. The money has to be raised – some towers have a modest bell maintenance fund, but this is only filled by public donation – usually only from the ringers themselves – you cannot always just ring-up the PCC and invoice them to fix such issues.

For major work, a "faculty' has to be applied for via the PCC and the money raised from public donation. Then a bell hanger company has to be engaged, but there are only a few such companies in the country and they usually have very full books. (I led the project to augment Wendover tower from 6 to 8 bells and tune them, so I know how it all goes !)

A loose clapper pivot will not significantly damage a bell – but it will allow a wider depression to develop on the inside of the bell; instead of a single dent of about 50mm diameter where the clapper strikes the bell; an elongated depression, or a double dent can form.

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 01/12/2022 09:58:05

[Chris MateParticipant @chrismate31303]

A trap….
I completed my train rail V-Block groove, but then fall into a trap trying to make it deaper than the size of the mill cutter=12mm size, I made it 14mm.

The trap(Vertical Z1 access) is going back using the movements of table vertical or quil(Tilted Z2 acess)l is not straight forward anymore…

-I managed to get it corrected by milling it down in .02mm increments(with Magnifying glasses nr 4) till and I was lucky at last milling, feel no groove at all, it looks like you get with facemilling overlappings.

-I was more surpised than how I could trust the digital caliper I fitted to the quil travel, which movement accurately was needed here, not the vertical Z1 access.. Well I learned something here.

Note: I have to say if I scribe the trainrail, its definately harder, its just a mark hardly not like on normal steel, but the carbide cutter handled it well right through.

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Been making these for Christmas presents just one more wooden thing to make then I can get back to working on the Rob Roy.

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

Beautiful workmanship were they steam bent.

Frank

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Posted by bricky on 01/12/2022 16:30:41:

Beautiful workmanship were they steam bent.

Frank

No they are made from solid Oak and cut using the bandsaw lots of cutting and re-gluing back together to keep all the grain running through them

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Nomex Thread arrived in the post, so cracked on with a little bit of (Flame Retardant) sewing…

I dislike being backlit when welding, and a mating my shield with a hood solves that pretty well, whilst also giving good protection when in vertical and overhead positions.

3M used to sell one designed specifically to work with this unit, but it's now ancient and officially obsolescent, so I just made one from a cheap nomex hood and some press studs.

Being PAPR, it's not actually hot or stuffy in there with the hood down, which is a nice touch.

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Thanks to John Lisles' excellent translation of the XSY AT VFD manual, from this very site, my mill finally has a credible on/off, reverse and speed control for the vertical spindle

Next, I put the same at the other end of the ram for the horizontal motor, or maybe I will do the swivel arm conduit I have planned for those wires dribbling out the side.

So much to do and all of it fun

bestest, Robin

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Well, starting yesterday evening but going on to gone 3 a.m.

Finished assembling the steam-wagon's smoke-box.

~~~~~

Became absorbed in a "driver's-eye"  railway video, Voss to Oslo.

This is not the right link but opens the general area:

The video lasts about three and a half hours, with some station and loop waits edited. Norway's railways are mostly single-track, even from Oslo to Trondheim and onto to Bodø.

It was made 4 years ago, it said, and on a rather gloomy and sad Autumn day. Plenty of snow and ice on the mountains but not as we ran down-hill from, I think, the Hardangervidda plateau.

Our train, from Bergen, stopped at few places past Voss: Gol, Drammen, one or two others nearer "Oslo S." I think 'S' means "Sentrum" ('Central' ). Some other stations look very closed and forlorn.

I was struck by there being more tunnels the further away from the big hills! None among the mountains, more numerous lower down the major valley to Drammen.

I was very impressed by the length and complexity of the tunnels between Drammen and Oslo – with cross-overs and even junctions inside them. Even a brightly-lit, busy station in one.

Signals stopped us in one tunnel, for a train approaching from one of the subterranean junctions. Our driver switched his main headlights off to help the other; but had also slowed us to a crawl far enough back to avoid needing stop completely. I wondered if that continual movement was to avoid alarming the passengers.

By then I was beginning to understand the signals' static and flashing greens as well as amber and red. The signal lamps seem smaller and less intense than on Britain's railways.

I expected we'd stop in Oslo S, and I could turn the computer off and go to bed.

Wrong! The title is [i]Voss to Oslo and Beyond. [/i]

"Beyond" was the depot – passing a parked Flamsbahnen train – and into the big servicing shed. The train would have been there for some while but the video was edited, because we soon moved on, to stop in a tunnel where we walked through the train to the other end cab, to take it back out to the sidings.

I won't give the rest away!

.

No shot of the driver and a "Tewsen Takk", (lit. "Thousand Thanks" ) which would have been nice. Possibly the driver himself (or herself) was the camera-operator, clipping it to the console. The view is central to the track and I don't know if the class used has a second cab seat.

This in a series made by a "Traincowgirl". I don't know if she was in the cab all that time. I would be very surprised she'd be allowed alight within a running-shed track fan. Yet we'd started "on the cushions" with a passenger's view of the passing snowy countryside, then walked with camera along the Voss platform to the cab. (Driver change?)

There are captions, no speech apart from hearing a short muffled conversation, probably driver and guard.

'

I couldn't help comparing their slender, simple electrical overheads supports, in this land of severe Winters, with those massively over-engineered versions near Bristol. The structures in the North of England are very similar to the Norwegian ones, and obviously work, so what is different about the railways in the SW English sub-tropics?

 

The attraction for me? Partly a love of Norway and Northern anyway; with memories of many caving expeditions to mid-Norway, well North of Trondheim. Voss holds a key road-junction for driving inland from Bergen.

 

@@@@

Then today?

A lovely Radio 4 programme, visiting the Taylor bell-foundy in Loughborogh.

It talked about the museum but nothing about opening times or visiting.

Casting: loam moulds, slow cooling develops a coarse grain for better tone. Tuning: helped by a "computer" I took as running a spectrum-analyser programme.

Also the casting in the 1880s, of the 17-ton tenor bell in St. Paul's Cathedral. That done, it took two traction-engines, fore-and-aft of a purpose-built trolley, 11 days to move it to London; and there Royal Engineers' expertise, blocks-and-tackle and lots of muscle to take it into the church and lift it into the tower. Then a string of repair bills for the damaged roads and bridges.

The oddest contract must have been a bell they made for the AC/DC rock band's tour, using in their Hell's Bells number.

'

This afternoon….

A little light CAD!

Cardboard Aided Design, that is.

A deflector from a food carton to experiment with aiming the air from the vent on my car's dashboard, to clear the side window in front of the external mirror. Presently it blows anywhere but.

Measuring all those compound curves and angles and plotting a development would be impossible. So cut, tape on, test, a card template for a thin sheet-plastic version.

I don't use the car every day so it may take a while.

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 08/12/2022 19:55:23

[Joseph Noci 1Participant @josephnoci1]

Built a pneumatic rivet queezer – I use 3.2mm semi-tubular aluminium rivets in the mnfr of Lion tracking collars here in Namibia. I have so far manually squeezed about 8000 rivets in the past 4 or 5 years…I am also changing collar strap material to a much tougher material ( biothane) as the Lions keep biting through the collars..Which mean new molds for the epoxy encapsulation of the electronics, etc..So while busy with it all, I made a pneumatic riveter – used some Festo products – a double acting cylinder, 80mm diameter piston, so adjustable restrictor valve to slow everything down to my speed, and a foot pedal. It works like a charm…

 

The two rings with rod holes allow exact setting of river squeeze length – photo below, right.

The rivet snap is removable as well. Also, the snap head is spring loaded, about 10mm of spring depression before the rivet starts squeezing – giving me time to line the snap pip up with the rivet tubular inlet.

 

 

Bunch of test rivets for length, snap profile testing, etc.

 

Previous collar material – A high strength belting, but not high enough..! Hand squozen rivets!

Edited By Joseph Noci 1 on 19/12/2022 11:54:18

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Posted by Joseph Noci 1 on 19/12/2022 11:53:55:

… the Lions keep biting through the collars…

I had some trouble with dormice in the attic once but this is in another league

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Clearly need lion-proof collars then, your dormice do. Just shorter, narrower ones.

What did I do…. Oh, er. Not much.

Part way through improving a previous owner's attempts at insulating the loft. I need a couple of downlight protectors, once I'd found out from a friend in the building trade what sort of things they are called. No luck.

Actually, the main dealers' web-sites seem to indicate insulating lofts is everyone's favourite hobby at the moment as "out of stock" for anything and everything. However, I have blanketed the worst area, and discovered there is nothing special about the protectors that means you can't make or improvise them. As one electrical-supplies dealer told me!

These protectors, or guards, simply stop the light fittings above the ceiling being buried in insulation so don't need be anything fancy.

.

So back to engineering…..

Tried after a lapse of a few months probably, to resume teaching myself Solid Edge (Community) but I've lost it. The first instruction told me to select one of the primary settings – found the path to it but could not use it or return to find the next step. Still no explanation why that setting: Siemens does not define its own jargon.

I left the first part of the last exercise, the first component of a bearing assembly completed satisfactorily, but the next section seemed a big jump forwards, it overwhelmed me, and I left it at that.

This new attempt was a different one, a simplified micrometer, but I could not even start it.

It's just too much for me. Ah well. Life's too short to waste on what I now know won't really help my model-engineering .

I think I can still use TurboCAD in orthogonal-only mode for moderately complicated drawings, though I have not touched that for several months now. Otherwise, having destroyed my drawing-board, a sketch-pad and pencil; even just designing the next bit in my head and marking off metal from the existing metalwork.

.

This evening, l listened to an engaging programme of the sort you'd not find anywhere else but BBC Radio Four: an insight into the work of the shunter drivers and crane operators at Southampton Container Terminal.

Southampton… The programme was produced in Aberdeen!

What came over, and the presenter remarked on, was the evident skill, care and pride in their work, in their part in moving many millions of tons of goods a year by rail around the country.

One of the drivers said she prefers working at night, finding it easier to concentrate. She made the rather surprising comment that it's not coffee or sugar drinks that help her stay alert, but plenty of water.

This reminded me of somewhat similar advice at work several years ago. I still have the free water-bottle with valve cap, issued by the Occupational Health people.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Graham,

When a friend had their loft insulated the installers suggested he protect his downlights with clay flower pots. I did the work for him and they work a treat. I used a small grinder to cut a piece out of the lip to sit over the supply cable.

I have recently re-installed Solid Edge to see if I could get used to it. It's better than I thought. I have been so used to DesignSpark Mechanical I was finding it very hard work with SE. I still use DS for most of my designs as it is so easy to use, but I will persevere with SE. Not synchronus mode though, ordered only.

I am building 4, 1/10th scale models of my 1930 Austin Seven car. One for me and one for each of my sisters. I did most of the design work with DS and 3d printed the parts with my Ender3 fdm and Anycubic resin printers. The detail the resin printer produces is amazing. I am also designing the same parts in SE to see how I get on. I used SE to design and produce the STL for 3d printing the hand operated klaxon for the car.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

+1 on flower pots for down-lighters.

Looking at what is available for that actual purpose, they range from metal boxes, to plastic cages, or material hoods.

And they are all bl**** expensive !

Plain brown clay flower pots from B&Q are fire proof, have a hole in the bottom (top) for ventilation, and only cost £2.27 each !

Three notches cut in the rim with an angle grinder for the wire and the retaining clips, and you are done. Being a bit OCD, I just wish there was a neat way to cut out a neat, uniform hole in the bottom layer of insulation to go snuggly around each flower pot, rather than having to cut a rough triangle or square. You don't want the insulation to be held up like a tent over each light. Some sort of giant cookie cutter type thing would be good.

I spent a long time compiling a spread-sheet of various loft insulation suppliers and types, before discovering that Wickes sell the same stuff, (Knauff) at a much cheaper price. The local store manager told me they sell it at a loss to get customers into the store. On hearing that I bought 12 rolls and cleared out their shelf completely !

 

Happy Christmas to all !

PS, I also changed all the old down-lighters in our new house for these LED ones. There is no gap around the light which prevents all your expensive heat going up past the bulbs into the loft ! I actually put plaster around each one from above to make them a very snug fit, but still allowing the light to be removed if required. Very impressive lights, very bright. Oh, and no separate LED drivers required, just mains in, that's it.

.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 23/12/2022 13:55:33

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