SHED MATTERS 2

[Tizer]

Mick, Stanley went to Keele University the previous week to lecture US students and he probably suffered from being out of his usual routine and diet and having to sit down for too much of the time. It was also the hottest days of the year which wouldn't have helped. He's been suffering back pain since his return home.

EDIT: Here's a photo that Stanley will enjoy when he's next on OG!

[micktoon]

Hi David, thanks for letting me know. If you can please let Stanley know we are asking after him and wish him a speedy recovery. Please feel free to send me private message with more detail.
Thank you , Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

No need Mick, I am improved enough this morning to have ditched the heavy duty codeine and just taken two aspirins. It's an old war wound in my back that flares up occasionally. Too much heavy duty lifting in my youth! In fact I went in the shed this morning and got the tackle to adjust my computer chair, so there's hope for the old lad yet! But be sure I will be careful.....
I'll be quiet for a while but no cause for undue concern, I am back on eating again (lost half a stone which is handy!) Best medicine would be a visit from you lot......
Love to all.

[David Whipp]

Good to see you pounding the keyboard Stanley.

Is it a block and tackle you are using on your chair?!

[PanBiker]

I'll get Stanley some eye candy tomorrow, it's the start of Whitby Steam Festival. I had a walk up the steps to the Abbey last night and the big field on the clifftop is filling up nicely with all manner of traction engines and steam driven fair rides. We will be spending some time up there tomorrow when it all kicks off.

[Stanley]

That'll be nice Ian.... I had to go in the shed again yesterday to get the tackle to lower my chair another two inches. It's the same muscle I tore with the machine vise slip a few months ago..... Steady improvement, I am taking it easier and everything else is back on track. I am a much happier bunny! Thanks for all the kindness.....

[Stanley]

Evidence of progress if not actual shed work. I wanted to play music yesterday and the engines on the sideboard were obstructing access to the player so very carefully I carried Debs and Sarah into the shed (they are a fair weight!). All is well, I enjoyed the music...... Improvement continues!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley, you better delete the post about carrying engines to the shed with a bad back before nurse Sarah sees it Glad to hear you are on the mend but just take your time recovering no rushing.
I am looking after my friends dog soo as it's sunny and a blue sky am heading off to a local country show today. Hope your back is feeling better again.
Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

Slow Mick, still too much pain! Concentrate on visiting to take the engines away! Improvement continues but it's slow.....

[Stanley]

I'm looking at the shed..... I cleared the decks first thing this morning by shifting Debs and Sarah into longer term storage in the front room. I'm not promising anything but I'm improving and can feel the pull from behind that door!

[Magnu420]

hi stanley great you on the mend again
do you know where i can get some square threaded bar made,been to a few local engineering firms
and they wouldnt entertain me,either they say its not do-able or need special roller boxes or die heads
the screw is for a cross slide and dia is 3/8" x 8 tpi square thread (not a acme as some of these firms say )
and about 12" long
ive seen a few online firms but they wanting silly money (£50..£70...£160 )

forgot to insert picture doh

[Stanley]

I'm surprised you think that is a 'silly' price! Start to finish there is at least three hours work in it and it's a one off. I'm also surprised that it appears to be RH thread. They are usually left hand. To do the best job you also need a special tap to make the lead nut, otherwise that can be a very ticklish job if threaded on the lathe.

[Stanley]

You may remember a few months ago I had a major search for my 14" Gilbow tin snips and failed miserably. Having plenty of time on my hands and feeling better I had another search yesterday in the most unlikely places I could think of and drew a complete blank. I bit the bullet and ordered a new pair yesterday. Almost £50! But you have to pay for the best. What's the betting the old ones will turn up as soon as the new ones arrive.....

[Stanley]

I've had a good morning. When I was having my second search for the Gilbows I found this 2lb Stanley Ball Peen hammer at the back of a tool chest on the floor. As you can see it's been there for a while and is dirty and rusty. Now we all have favourite tools and for years this was my favourite hammer. I had made a new handle for it out of an old hickory picking stick and always said I could hit harder with this than a 5lb lump hammer, and more accurately. When you are doing heavy maintenance on HGVs there are occasions when you need a good hammer!



Ten minutes later it was clean and tidy and I put it with my ready use hammers on the bench top.



That went so well that my mind went to another long term problem. This is an executive toy that belonged to my mate Robert and whenever I visited him at Masson I always had a go with it, it's an automatic stapler. One day it gave up the ghost and the next time I visited he gave it to me and it's been sat waiting for TLC for perhaps six months. If you look very carefully above the business end you'll see that the plastic bushes in the drive train have broken down and disintegrated. What it needs is a pair of fresh bushes!



Here's a close up of the problem and this is the good bush! The other has disintegrated.



The usual drill, some careful measuring, a fag packet drawing and some 1/2" brass stock.



Usual drill, hone the cutter and a bit of careful lathe work to make two bushes.



A fiddly bit of reassembly with tiny circlips.... I think you can see the bushes in place.



This was the test, was it working? Better than ever I think, the brass bushes guide the stroke far more positively.



The final job was to glue the cover in place as I had damaged the plastic lugs getting it to pieces, it was never designed to be opened.
So now I have a working executive toy! Very satisfying........ Lovely morning and no problems with pain although I can tell now that I have done enough......

[Stanley]

I have solved the Gilbow problem by throwing the thick end of £50 at it. The quality of the Record Gilbow pattern snips hasn't suffered over the years.....

[Stanley]

The spirit moved me and I went in the shed. One little job that has been hanging round for a while was the sharpening of a 1/2" milling cutter that had been butchered by someone in the past. I soon rescued it and added it to the stock.



I made this block for storing milling cutters many years ago and whenever I came across an old milling cutter I popped in the block. I went through it this morning and rescued the 1/2" cutters that deserved it. You've never seen such horrible objects as the shapes some of them had been butchered into. God knows how anyone got useful work out of them. Half of them had to be ground back flat and completely reformed.



Almost three hours later and I have rescued all the 1/2" cutters. I'll have a look at the others tomorrow. Definitely not time wasted.

[micktoon]

Good to see you back in the shed Stanley, looks like a very productive morning, imagine how much it would cost to buy all the cutter you rescued there
Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

Thanks Mick. What's even nicer is that there are some funny sizes in there. They could all be a life-saver!

[Stanley]

Today I wanted to finish rescuing the orphan milling cutters. There were one or two exceptions, some of them are such an esoteric shape that I can't imagine for what special purpose they were made. I shan't bother with them. Nearest the camera on the left is a strange conical cutter. Again I can't imagine a use and it would have to be a different setup to sharpen it so I'll leave that one. All the others can be rescued and will be useful. One thing that did puzzle me is that there are three diamond pointed drills/countersinks that are sharpened for counter clockwise running. I shall just sharpen them by hand on the grinder for normal cutting.



This three flute cutter looked as though it might present difficulties because it's Morse taper but luckily I had a parallel adapter that was exactly the right size for the fitting on the T&C grinder so it was dead easy.



10:00. Two hours of honest endeavour and my orphan cutters are in good fettle. Like yesterday, well worth the time and as Mick says, think what it would cost to buy them! The Clarkson T&C grinder was one of my best buys, I think it cost £600 but it has paid its rent many times over.....

[Magnu420]

I have solved the Gilbow problem by throwing the thick end of £50 at it. The quality of the Record Gilbow pattern snips hasn't suffered over the years.....

Hi stanley
You should of gone to that tool stall in colne market
He has a few gilbow tin snips between £5-£7

[Stanley]

Travel isn't easy for me. I bet his snips aren't as good as mine...... I shall soon have two pairs.... the old ones will turn up now! No pockets in a shroud and I'm easy in my mind now.
Later at 09:00. I've had an hour in the shed doing a little job that has been nagging me for a while.



The Python soft jaws in my vise have done good service. It's quite amazing how long they have lasted. I was going to get a new set but then I thought I might get sauced if I spent money so I went into the treasure chest and found some aluminium strip that will do nicely.



Here's one of my bleeding obvious tips. But if you didn't know it...... Aluminium is a bugger to file because it pens up in the file teeth. Rub the file with chalk and it will almost completely stop it....



An hour later and four copper brake rivets and we have a far better set of soft jaws. Rather than manufacture something else to do I have come out and will have a read.....

[Stanley]

Sorry Kids. A succession of small household jobs kept me out of the shed yesterday. I shall try to do better this morning!

[Stanley]

I decided today was Dumore tool post grinder day..... As I put some of my antique Rosalex barrier cream on I reflected that there are at least two things I will never run out of, this and my Trefolex. The old tin has been going for well over thirty years and I have another in reserve....



'Compact' workshops have many advantages but even I am forced to admit that when it comes to something like the Dumore grinder, it can be a bit of a pain getting to it!



Once I had got the grinder out I set about getting set up. First job was to put a parallel bar in the chuck and set the diamond dresser up to true the stone.



Then I hit the first snag. It took me 30 minutes to find the adapter for the transformer plug! Being American, the Dumore runs on 110V AC. I found it eventually in plain view on a shelf.... I coupled everything up and gave the motor a whirl. It's a fearsome thing, the no load speed is 15,000rpm. All was well so I checked everything and set about dressing the stone. They say that into each life a little rain must fall and at this point I got a short sharp shower! The motor kicked up but blew the fuse in the plug and shorted the main trip out on the consumer unit. Everything was going so well.....



I am no electrician but I know enough about it to chase faults. I got the multimeter out and started investigating. Te grinder and the lead checked out OK. But the transformer has a dead short to earth. I tried isolating all the components and in the end came to the conclusion the short is in the sealed coils. God knows how that has happened, you'd think that they would be bullet proof as the coils are embedded in in cast insulation. However, no escaping the fact, my transformer is knackered and there is nothing I can do about it.

So, if anyone out there has a spare 240/110V transformer about their person, I am a customer! I'm not putting everything away, I shall hire one to get this job done but if necessary I'll throw some money at a new one. The grinder is worth the expense.

All right I'm an impatient old bugger. I've just found a transformer with next day delivery at a reasonable price so I've thrown some money at it. I'm old and my time is valuable! Besides, what if I'm wrong and I blew someone else's transformer! I'm betting on my diagnosis being correct.....

[chinatyke]

I've been putting off a job for a while but yesterday I decided to tackle it. All of the extractor vents in the kitchens below us in our apartment block go into a duct which leads up through the building and exit through the roof via a brick chimney with a flat concrete slab on top. This outlet vent is located on our roof terrace in a part which we have since semi-enclosed. I've been meaning to extend the vent so that it discharges the foul air above our enclosed bit. It required raising about 1 metre. I came up with the idea that I could use large diameter pipe with a cowl on top. I'm not set up to fabricate anything, nor do I have the skills to do it, so it was off to the shop to see what pipe sections they had in stock. On the way we passed a sheet metal fabrication workshop. We popped in and talked to the man. We asked if he could make a one-metre long, 250 mm diameter pipe with a conical cowl, all in aluminium. The answer was "Yes, 60rmb (£7 - the exchange rate is terrible since Brexit) - and I'll do it immediately." And he did! They have the tackle required and I suppose it is an easy job for them. Thought about you Stanley when he was cutting the sheet for the cowl with his snips. 30 minutes later we left with the fabrication. Easy and good, cemented in place and the job is finished and should out-live me.

[Stanley]

I like it China! Isn't it wonderful when you find a quick and effective solution to a problem. A good tinsmith is a joy to watch and their work is beautiful. I've never got into metal bashing and could never do what they do. Look up 'lobster back ventilators', you wouldn't believe the complexity of the shapes they have to cut to form the bend.
You must have had some interesting smells on that roof terrace......
The new transformer should be here this morning. We will find out if my diagnosis was correct....