andypugh

My eyesight has never been very special but now I am suffering from short-arm-syndrome as well and have varifocals so really, I am on a loser.

It might be worth getting some welding glasses. They would be useful for other close-up work too. Maybe get them in safety-glasses style to kill two birds with one stone.

I am still in denial about my eyesight.

Rings of MDF were cut for me to assemble into a brake drum pattern.

Router or laser?

I recall that the ThrustSSC project used CNC-machined MDF profiles for the mound for their carbon fibre shell.

The other factor often ignored, especially when youth is behind us, is how our eyes work at that particular focal length.

That's a good point. I can barely see well enough to TIG any more.

I found that getting a new mask with a bigger window and variable shade helped a lot. I really can't say why that was, but there is something about a bigger field of view that helps.

As you know, welding is not my greatest skill but this lot would embarrass a pigeon! I should have asked a friend to do it but it really annoys me that I can't seem to get the hang of it!

I would disagree with you,if you were wrong :-)

I suspect that you are watching the slag and not the weld pool underneath, but I am not a trained welder either.

I wonder if it is worth looking for a night-school course or similar?

Perhaps it is worth doing some experiments with scrap to get a feel for what each process variable does. I think that your welds above are what you get when you have the arc-gap too big and move the rod too fast. But as I say, I am not that much better than you.

WW1 Vehicles can go and mix with the public..

And the Public are going to love that in the traffic jams into Brighton next weekend :-)

Oldfield and Schofield lathe

A manufacturer strangely absent from http://www.lathes.co.uk

How strange.

I wonder if there might have been a clip on the prong to keep the drain plug captive in the sump?

Roy's Pewter spinning!

Off-topic, but when I made a lid for a ceremonial drinking vessel I found:

http://www.pewtersheet.co.uk/ who sell pre-cut circles.

Do you realise that as a consequence of your activities there will be slightly deranged people having a quiet go at this in dusty sheds all over the world!

Many of the perfectly normal people I know do this :-)

The type that was used was the 'Whittle Belt' made up from leather and steel.

Which led me to:

http://www.fiennes.co.uk/Parts/Catalogue/G/GK/GKB010

I wish there was a picture to be sure, it seems remarkably cheap.

It is interesting to me to compare the Daimler rad, with cast side cheeks and multiple tie-bars with the brass radiator on our 1916 Dennis, which is barely held together at all.

https://picasaweb.google.com/108164504656404380542/Jez11114?noredirect=1#6125867264164481682

That radiator is sheets of brass soft-soldered together. The photo shows what we found chasing a leak. We removed the outer plate that the mounting trunnion was riveted to. The rusty mess is the backing plate for the trunnion rivets. It wasn't doing much...

So, where the Daimler has castings and tie-bars the Dennis has a top and bottom tank made of brass sheet and then then a box (made of 4 sheets) joining them but not soldered to the core (probably wise).

No wonder we spend so much of our time chasing leaks. That photo was the result of an investigation based on "Hang on, there shouldn't even be water in that part of the rad, let alone leaks"

<Jealous of competently designed radiaiators>

These are lovely, but what the heck are they?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-carbide-headlight-radiator-pair-model-T-A-ford-brass-era-vintage-hot-rod-/391049851274?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

Two little honeycomb air to gas(?) intercoolers.

Is it slightly possible they were a very ineffective cabin heater?

Adjacent to where I picked it up from were some crates of other parts.

I found the Jerry can and bracket the other weekend.

The can is marked WD and 1952, so was probably original to the vehicle.

I have no idea if it is fuel-tight but it looks to be in decent condition.

I will fix the holes in the water tank as it would appear it is otherwise complete.

There is often a felt pad (or layer of Scotch-brite material on modern ones) to keep carbide powder out of the outlet pipe and/or to diffuse the water. Yours seems to have a metal baffle for that purpose, or the pad might be missing.

Caving ones need this more than vehicle ones, if your vehicle generator is upside-down you have other worries.

The spinning looks recoverable. Trimming the fractured edge then straightening with a backing stick ought to help.

I can't work out how the guy in

It seems like the starting blank was bigger than necessary, which leaves more OD to shrink.

Thanks Andy,

 

I think that confirms how it is meant to work. The top half is a water tank, and the filler is meant to have a pressure relief valve (this is missing).

Typically there is no pressure relief valve, just a hole. (as far as I know). The Miller generator I have for the Ner-a-Car has no filler cap so I can't compare, but the caving generator worked very well indeed with just a hole. I think that the gas pressure is low, just the head of water + the surface tension through the needle valve.

eBay has rather a lot of NOS burner tips listed, and occasionally you see complete burner holder assemblies.

I don't know if this was originally meant for automotive use and it needs a little work to make the water tank leak free. I have little experience of acetylene generators so this could be quite fun to sort out.

I am a caver, I know lots about Acetylene generators. But they are really rather simple.

I have two caving generators, both of which exhibit different approaches to venting the water tank.

The classic "Premier Malham" generator has a small vent hole in the filler cap, if the acetylene pressure gets high enough then it bubbles back through the needle valve and gets wasted out through the vent hole. But in doing so it stops the water flow, so is self-limiting.

The other (Russian) one has a tube from the carbide chamber to the top of the water chamber. This is less wasteful of gas, but does mean that the acetylene pressure is rather less consistent.

Google says that there is one in Munich museum, and Kayak says that an Easyjet return is £95. :-)

Only tried metal spinning once and made nothing but scrap.

I think I have acetylene generators in my future. Those will be moderately expensive scrap.

I know that this isn't a military vehicle, but many pre-war vehicles have separate bowl-type headlights, and the methods here are fairly generally applicable.

http://bodgesoc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/headlights.html

Further to mention of UBAS steels herewith is an advertisement for same from the 1925 Commercial Motor show catalogue.

A web search leads to Graces Guide which says that they were eventually bought by Duport in 1973.

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Duport

If anyone was local to Dudley Port they could wander round to see if there is any stock left rusting in a hedge.

Most of the spinning videos on YouTube are for domed shapes but this one is for a pot shape and it's about the size you require.

Also this one, with more conventional equipment.

When I was at school I'm sure we were taught that you rubbed aluminium all over with soap then heat it up until the soap goes black,

Yes, and that probably works too. But I don't own any soap :-)

I know that this might sound like (and be) a completely dumb question, but is there any chance of spinning a curved end onto a tube instead of spinning a flat disc into a deep cup shape?

They make gas cylinders that way. But I can see it being tricky to do it as a spinning operation as you are trying to compress the metal into a smaller volume.

All in one go, though I did experiment with an extra annealing for the super-difficult lip.

Having said that, I would rather expect to have to anneal a brass part a few times if making your bearing cover.

At least Brass is fairly easy to judge the temperature of, it gets red before it melts.

I found that with aluminium a green marker pen worked well as a temperature gauge. Scribble all over it, then heat from the other side until the colour disappears.