What did you do today? 2023

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

As it hasn't rained for a few days it was decided by senior management that the French windows need repainting. Set about scraping off the obviously flaking paint, only to find lots of rotten wood. Next stop the DIY shop for wood harder and loads of body filler. I'll whittle up some pieces of hardwood to fill any gaps that I can make rectangular. The doors are quite narrow, so if I replace them with Upvc there would be not a lot of glass left.

Edited By duncan webster on 29/05/2023 15:21:08

[Peter SpinkParticipant @peterspink21088]

After 25+ years of twiddling the x – axis handle on my Sharp mill, completed a project to build a power feed.

Utilised a stepper motor and controller from an abandoned job and incorporated an electromagnetic clutch to allow manual feed.

Covers are 3d printed.

Controller is old school – made with discrete gates before Arduino appeared on the scene!

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 28/05/2023 12:01:17:

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 28/05/2023 00:00:14:

 

Seems to me that most practical men don't know how much accidents cost. Not being personally responsible makes it easy to be gung-ho about H&S. Very different when you carry the can and know fatalities cost a couple of million each. Life changing injuries are even more expensive. That's just the money, the impact of accidents on people and their families is often off-the-scale.

Dave

HSE legislation also puts board members in the dock – which is a constant threat of jail time just to keep people sharp.
 

Edited By Steve Withnell on 30/05/2023 10:47:19

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

I started the restoration of a 6 cylinder BTH magneto. Got the points and advance/retard all freed off and working. Plan is to drive it off a small electric motor as a demonstrator set.

I realised I don't know if the magneto is driven at the same rpm as the engine – the gearing in the mag looks like 6:1 so it should be. ChatGPT says it should be the same – but chatGPT makes stuff up.

Any experienced views?

Edited By Steve Withnell on 30/05/2023 10:51:02

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Hi Steve

Not sure if it applies to all BTH magneto's but certainly the twin cylinder ones fitted to old British bikes, the armature must not be withdrawn without a keeper fitted to the body otherwise the magnetism will be lost. There used to be details on the Brightspark magneto website, which is full of usefull information. Who will also remagnetise it if it's too late!

Beautifully made mag's have had a couple of bikes in the past fitted with them, always seemed a cut above the prince of darkness's ones!. If you make a demonstration rig it may well interfere with everyones telly and make them cross, you may ask how I know……..

Dave

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Got my Acorntools shaper project running for the first time today and spent a happy half hour watching it swish back and forth as the feed ratchet clicked away. Mesmerising, and it makes a change from cleaning and painting, which is all I seem to have done for the past few weeks.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

So you don't want to refurish mine too Dave?

Regards,

IanT

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

I went to a vintage weekend earlier in the year and brought a number of things like a pot of cap head bolts and a pot of odd springs. I had already done the cap head bolts and put them into plastic draw unit divided into their respected sizes.

The only thing I kept putting off was sorting the springs which cost me £2.00 for the tub, so todays job was to sit and do these and took most of the afternoon. This just so happened lead to clearing some draws which was very convenient as I al waiting for a order of quite a few BA nuts and bolts.

I had also purchased from the local charity shop two plastic containers one of which is pressed into use to store the springs.

Any bets the first time I will need a spring I will not have it.

[DiogenesIIParticipant @diogenesii]

Posted by Steve Withnell on 30/05/2023 10:50:45:

I started the restoration of a 6 cylinder BTH magneto. Got the points and advance/retard all freed off and working. Plan is to drive it off a small electric motor as a demonstrator set.

I realised I don't know if the magneto is driven at the same rpm as the engine – the gearing in the mag looks like 6:1 so it should be. ChatGPT says it should be the same – but chatGPT makes stuff up.

Any experienced views?

Edited By Steve Withnell on 30/05/2023 10:51:02

Could be driven off a camshaft at half engine speed?

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Almost definitely off the camshaft.

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

Posted by DiogenesII on 30/05/2023 18:52:09:

I realised I don't know if the magneto is driven at the same rpm as the engine – the gearing in the mag looks like 6:1 so it should be. ChatGPT says it should be the same – but chatGPT makes stuff up.

Any experienced views?

Edited By Steve Withnell on 30/05/2023 10:51:02

Could be driven off a camshaft at half engine speed?

So then the mag would be geared up 12:1 to get 6 sparks per rev. I'll check the gearing! Thank you.

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

Posted by Dave Wootton on 30/05/2023 16:49:40:

Hi Steve

Not sure if it applies to all BTH magneto's but certainly the twin cylinder ones fitted to old British bikes, the armature must not be withdrawn without a keeper fitted to the body otherwise the magnetism will be lost. There used to be details on the Brightspark magneto website, which is full of usefull information. Who will also remagnetise it if it's too late!

Thanks Dave. I've only had the points assembly apart so far and when I turn it over I can feel a 'lumpy' resistance – which I'm optimistically thinking is magnetic, not something broken…

I'll take a look at the Bright spark website and see what they are about.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

But if it is a 6 cylinder four stroke, you only want six sparks per two revolutions.

[John ATTLEEParticipant @johnattlee20632]

On a Meteor / Merlin the rotor turns at, I think, 3 times camshaft speed. I suspect that this is in order to give enough energy for the coil. The points camshaft and rotor arm are geared to rotate at camshaft speed. I don't know if this is relevant without a pic of the mag in question.

John

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If the magneto produces a spark for every revolution of the crankshaft, on a four stroke engine, the second spark occurs during the exhaust portion of the cycle, and should not ignite anything.

Howard

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Hopper on 31/05/2023 09:24:57:

But if it is a 6 cylinder four stroke, you only want six sparks per two revolutions.

So the camshaft goes at half engine speed, the mag goes at 6 times camshaft speed, 6 sparks every 2 crankshaft revolutions and everyone is happy.

Edited By duncan webster on 31/05/2023 14:43:33

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The cumulation of several Days What I Did Things on…

Photo 1:

Left: Dial Gauge Holder, Top-slide, Myford ML7 and Harrison L5.

Machined from an off-cut of some sort of engineering plastic (probably reinforced Nylon), it temporarily replaces the QCTP block. It places the gauge probe horizontally on the centre-height, used one way up on the Myford and the other way up on the Harrison.

The appropriate hole fits loosely round the tool-post stud on its lathe. On the Myford, the shorter web is downwards and registers against the top-slide end.The Gauge is held by its mounting-lug screwed to the side by the appropriate of 5 tapped holes, and steadied by its body resting on the plastic.

I machine the bulk on the manual Drummond shaper.:

Right: One of the Reels, Cave-radio Ariel-Wire; made for Mendip Cave Rescue. Size approx. 180 X 95 mm outside. I greased the stainless-steel screws and the countersinks with "Vaseline" to give some protection from corrosion, bearing in mind that in use one pair of reels could be lying in a wet pasture and the other hauled through a wet cave! MCR wanted 16. I made "production spares" and ended up with 18 complete reels!

Photo 2: Part of the batch-production line: using the tapping-head for the Ariel Reels' cross-bars. I spotted the tapping-holes on the lathe but drilled them to depth on the bench-drill. The 3-jaw chuck is on a Myford nose-piece registered and screwed into a plate with central spigot, made to be concentric with the BCA Jig-borer table.

(When I make a jig or fixture I try to consider future possible uses.)

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by duncan webster on 29/05/2023 15:20:16:

As it hasn't rained for a few days it was decided by senior management that the French windows need repainting. Set about scraping off the obviously flaking paint, only to find lots of rotten wood. Next stop the DIY shop for wood harder and loads of body filler. I'll whittle up some pieces of hardwood to fill any gaps that I can make rectangular. The doors are quite narrow, so if I replace them with Upvc there would be not a lot of glass left.

Edited By duncan webster on 29/05/2023 15:21:08

All rot dug out and holes filled, undercoat applied. Painting in direct sun isn't easy, it dries too quickly. Fortunately my standards are quite low, I'm into the 'slosh it on and spread it out with a hairy stick' school of art.

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Drilled two 5mm holes with a 25 L/D ratio in a piece of ground 100MnCrW4, then opened the top 80mm out to 5.9mm and reamed to 6mm…

.

Only to immediately cut into pieces on the bandsaw, and mill matched flats onto the cut face.

.

And start making some features…

.

All being well, tomorrow evening I will end up with something which looks a bit more like this, and can start worrying about hardening the components.

I am wondering how best to make the angled face and features… Going to have to play about with work-holding to see what's most secure.

Once that's done, I will need to bash out two more, which will hopefully be easy once the approach is all worked out.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, not so much as what I did, but what I received in this mornings post. Photo shows a 500mm length of M6 Nylon threaded rod on the tube it came in, I guess the supplier didn't gamble on it going missing.

Regards Nick.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Finally put it together today but I have to say its a stretch too far for my skills, I will do a larger one next or I may dig out the wallaby!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Jelly –

I am intrigued. What is it?

…

Quiet afternoon at the club, helping tend the gardens. We reckon we do more gardening than engineering there, but gave ourselves a few laps of the track with a battery-electric loco as a break.

Back home I resumed making the boiler plumbing for the steam wagon. I posed a question elsewhere recently, about loose steam-cones in injectors. Errr…. I mis-identified the end.

Discovered tonight after being so careful not to lose the loose steam-cone, that actually it was the delivery-cone that was loose and is now lost.

SO What Will I Do Tomorrow?

Guess.

The cone could fallen out anywhere over the last week, in the workshop or out on the patio where I assemble the vehicle, so it could have been swept up and put in the rubbish, swept into the "garden", rolled under the garden-tool box, fallen into any of the many parallel-universes within the workshop…..

Unless I am extremely lucky and find it I am looking at trying to obtain a replacement cone or buying a new injector of the same vertical pattern (but I forget from whom I bought it and when), or replacing it with a horizontal one I do have but which will need new pipes making.

[Sonic EscapeParticipant @sonicescape38234]

Today I burned a multimeter. I found a nice 3-phase motor for a chop saw projects that I'm working on and I wanted to test it with the lathe's VFD. The EMI was so severe that the multimeter switched from VAC to mA DC!

An this was the result inside:

Until now it was my favorite multimeter, but now it disappointed me.

[DiogenesIIParticipant @diogenesii]

..depression & suicide.. ..the future of AI..?

[Tim HooperParticipant @timhooper66498]

Modified Ohlsson and Rice .23

Over the last few weeks I've been using a 1940's O&R 23 sparkie to gain machining experience.

I've turned up a new prop driver (complete with inset magnet) to trigger an electronic ignition unit.

I've milled up some transverse bars to act as beam mounts.

There's a turned aluminium fuel tank to replace the leaking, plastic original.

At the back, I've fabbed up a simple sort of variable carb – connected to a throttle servo.

Hanging off the side is a milled exhaust stub that leads to an expansion chamber (complete with internal baffles)

Yup, it runs. Yup, it flies my Murg vintage model – just. Power is marginal, but that's not the point. It works.

Tim

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