What did you do today?

[DennisCA]

Starting on a lathe mod. I need to find some suitable material, cloth backed neoprene would be good, or leather. Some more guarding I think for the saddle and a longer piece of fabric covering the ways.

[mattthemuppet]

silver brazed (soldered?) up 6 new band saw bands from the 2 larger bands I bought for cheap off Amazon, cut up a bunch of metal with the band saw and generally tinkered around in the shop

[Dan Krager]

DennishCA, did I post this before? If so, sorry. It's tedious to make, but it works quite well. Thin rubberized fabric glued to posterboard. I crease and fold the posterboard first and then laminate the fabric to it with 3M 77 spray adhesive (contact cement). Fold again and the accordion is rigid enough. I protect the underside folds contacting the oily ways with a plastic tape.
DanK

[DennisCA]

I thought about a baffle but I have such a limited capacity on my lathe that it would rob too much height and that's too precious for me to give up. A flat cover is the best compromise. Finding the material from an EU source is the difficult part. I have some neoprene but it's not reinforced so it tears easily.

[Tundra Twin Track]

I built some mounts from 2” Nylatron for my Dry Box on my Mountain Sled that are mounted with the LINQ quick attach system.The box will contain Basic First Aid and Overnight Survival Aids.

[Mike Burch]

Made one small screw.

It was to replace a missing screw on a Premier timpani (a British-made kettledrum, probably dating from the 1960s). I measured an identical remaining screw at 3.9mm x 0.8mm pitch, so that's what I replicated on my metric-only lathe, and yes, thank you, it works just fine. There's no strain on it—it is just keeping something else from working loose.

Standard M4 coarse has a 0.7mm pitch, and I was initially puzzled by the different pitch. But now I consider the probable age of the drum, I think the missing screw might have been a 5/32" x 32TPI. In metric-speak that is 3.97mm x 0.794mm pitch, fortuitously close enough to M4 x 0.8.

Is 5/32 x 32 a common thread? I can't find it on my usual thread charts, and Google is not being helpful.

[ATW]

DennisCA have you looked at BBQ grill mats? Saw a suggestion from I think Robin Renzetti and bought some at random off Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...0?ie=UTF8&th=1 I guess there are similar items available in Finland) to replace the way covers on my mill - six months in and they show no hint of damage/wear unlike the rubber/neoprene sheet they were replacing which had only lasted six months.

Although not as low profile, but they do sit pretty flat, on my lathe I've been using bellows from Arceurotrade (https://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catal...Moulded-Rubber) which have held up really well.

Andy

[Stepside]

Mike

5/32 = .15625 A #8 machine screw should be .164 and #8-32NC screws are quite common.

[Baz]

Made one small screw.

Is 5/32 x 32 a common thread? I can't find it on my usual thread charts, and Google is not being helpful.

Seriously ! you can ask such a question?
MECCANO

[Dan Dubeau]

I built some mounts from 2” Nylatron for my Dry Box on my Mountain Sled that are mounted with the LINQ quick attach system.The box will contain Basic First Aid and Overnight Survival Aids.

Those look great. Really tightens up the tail and makes it easier not fussing with straps. I got asked to make some tiedown plates for LINQ brackets a few years back for a friend of a friend and this is what I came up with. He liked the first batch, so he ordered 20 more. Looks like a pretty handy system. Too bad one has to own a BRP product to use them (yammy guy here ).

[Tim The Grim]

The Engineering student college seniors I have been machining parts for had no real knowledge of fractional socket head cap screws. There were valves and
other off the shelf items they wanted to use in assemblies that had threaded mounting holes. No one had familiarized them with the variety of screws available.
When I suggested the use of a flat head or a low head I got a blank look. Once I explained things, it initiated a design change and they opened up to a new world of fasteners.

So, YES it is possible to ask such a question.

I got one of the HF Doyle brand vises at Christmas. The anvil portion was a little small for my liking so I made a plate today to enlarge it…

[Tom S]

The Engineering student college seniors I have been machining parts for had no real knowledge of fractional socket head cap screws. There were valves and
other off the shelf items they wanted to use in assemblies that had threaded mounting holes. No one had familiarized them with the variety of screws available.
When I suggested the use of a flat head or a low head I got a blank look. Once I explained things, it initiated a design change and they opened up to a new world of fasteners.

That reminds me of a co-op (work experience) interview I went through about 15 years ago. My grades were just not good enough for me to get into a university level engineering program, so I enrolled into a community college engineering technology program with the thought to continue on to a university engineering program after college. I found that I loved the program and found that the teaching was a great combination of the more basic academic foundations of engineering and practical nuts-and-bolts knowledge. As part of the program we had 4 co-op semesters to gain some additional real world experience. These were arranged so that our first summer semester was a co-op, and then later on 3 semesters in a row with the option to either work in three different experiences or spend a whole year in a single opportunity. I did my summer semester with a construction company, but was looking for something more mechanical for my next semesters. It could be tough for us to find employers in our program because a lot of employers were looking for university students, no college students. A good number of us found jobs through networking rather than the college office, and I managed to arrange an interview with an engineering firm through a contact. This firm usually hired 2-3 students per semester, but only from a particular university that is well known for their engineering program. The only reason I got my foot in the door was because I had a contact and he had been through a similar program to the one I was taking. They asked the usual interview questions and then had a few tests at the end. This included doing a sketch to show you had basic drafting skills, some basic problem solving questions, and then the interviewer pulled out a container and passed it over. It was full of random fasteners and he asked me to start naming as many as I could. So I start picking through this container and naming various fasteners and taking some wild guesses at the sizes and thread specs. Made it through the whole thing, and asked how I did. Turns out that they had never had a student make it through the whole container before, and many of the students being interviewed couldn't identify much of anything. So I, the community college student only there because I know someone, aced the interview process that the well regarded university students couldn't. They had never been taught nuts-and-bolts (literally). I ended up landing the job and spent a whole year with the company, and was able to do actual work for them rather quickly. There were also a couple university students hired at the same time, and while they were very smart guys it took them longer to get up to speed since they needed to be taught the basics. That experience convinced me that I was in the right program and I never ended formally continuing my education after graduating from that program. And now when I'm hiring designers to work under me I look for the community college level graduates because I know the practical experience they bring to the table.

[Stepside]

A friend dropped by and needed a #10-26 threaded machine screw. Not a #10-24NC and I had him check the sample with pitch gage and it was a 26 pitch. So I set him up with the SB9 and with a small ammount of help he cut his first ever thread. It fit the part perfectly. He now thinks he needs a nice small lathe.

[J Tiers]

It may be that CC students are more likely to have hands-on experience than students at the university. I finished my EE courses after spending a bit over a year fixing audio equipment (back in the 1970s when stuff actually got fixed instead of pitched). I had also been fiddling with electronics for years, so I was familiar with common circuits and components.

I recall a couple courses which really tested one's knowledge of the actual workings of circuits. There were two of us who had work experience, and the rest were kinda new, probably had heard that EE was a good field to be in, but chose it with the idea that they would learn it in the courses.

Anyhow, we had the first midterm in one of them. Holy crap.... the prof gave us our papers, but warned us first that there were two groups of students. One group had got over 90, and the other were all under 30 on the test.

Yep, you guessed it, the group over 90 had two members. We utterly ruined the "curve", but he could not ignore us when setting up the curve to grade on. Later tests and the final were about the same. I later heard that the prof had actually gotten threats, because the low grades had fouled up at least one person's pre-med program.

Essentially, none of the others were in EE because they were "interested", they were there because ot was "a good field". So their grasp of what was going on with the components was just not there yet. A few laboratory courses were not going to be as good as having messed with electronics for years already.

I hope those folks eventually did better. I have no clue. I do know that the design course we had later on was not encouraging as far as what had been learned..... most had a hard time getting a plan going.

[Tundra Twin Track]

Those look great. Really tightens up the tail and makes it easier not fussing with straps. I got asked to make some tiedown plates for LINQ brackets a few years back for a friend of a friend and this is what I came up with. He liked the first batch, so he ordered 20 more. Looks like a pretty handy system. Too bad one has to own a BRP product to use them (yammy guy here ).

Thanks Dan,been running that Shovel Setup since 2012,the Core Group of guys I ride with are into Tree Riding in the BC Interior Mountains hence the 175” x 3” 🤓 it gets DEEP.

Those plates look good,you don’t have to own a BRP unit,just buy the tunnel mounts providing they don’t interfere with heat exchangers,what Yamaha do you ride?