'nother Aussie

Home Model Engine Machinist Forum

Help Support Home Model Engine Machinist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

///

Simon
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
470
Reaction score
63
Hi Guys,
Seems to be a spate of Lurkers becoming active members lately, I've been lurking for around a year, so I probably should introduce myself too.
Before I get to that though, a friendly tip for non-Australians on the pronunciation of 'Aussie'
It is pronounced with hard Z's, like Ozzy Osbourne... I only bring this up due to the soft 'Ossy' heard frequently on TV ;)

Anyway, my name is Simon and I live in Perth, Western Australia.
I currently work for a company that designs and builds Fire Protection Systems for the oil & gas industry.
Occasional CAD work lets me play with Autodesk Inventor 3D modeling software but my main role at the moment is documentation.
I just finished a ~1700 page PDF document containing Material Certificates and Hazardous area certificates etc etc, of which the Client requested four hard copies... had to print and collate ~7000 pages!
Weren't we supposed to have been a paperless society by now?

My interest is mainly in IC engines, but I have had the occasional urge to build a beam engine with coal fired boiler. Will get around to that someday.

I suspect I am like many members of this forum, in that I was fascinated by model aircraft, cars and boats when I was a kid, which ofcourse lead to an interest in Glow and CI engines and then onto dreams of owning a workshop full of machines to make my own Glow or 'Diesel'.
A magazine I used to buy when I was a dreamer kid was 'Airborne' magazine which often had adverts for the Taig lathe, I used to stare at those adverts and dream for years. Another advert I used to see was for the Conley V8... that really got me dreaming!
The magazine also had(still does?) a columnist named Brian Winch. He wrote a monthly article called 'The Airborne Engineer' in which he occasionally wrote about his own workshop and constructing engines, all with a very witty sense of humour, and he often mentioned a magazine called 'Strictly IC'... but being a young kid, with little money and a magazine published on the other side of the planet... a subscription remained a dream.
I now have about half the SIC back issues, and will be purchasing the remaining issues as cash flow permits.

I'm slowly piecing my workshop together, it is modest at the moment and contains a Sieg C3 lathe (7x14), X2 mill, a vertical bandsaw, horizontal bandsaw, and a half completed gantry style CNC router that uses parts salvaged from an old Servo driven pen plotter.
I still need to sort out the Z axis and build a spindle which will be driven by a high speed BLDC motor. I will probably have ER8 collets or something similar for the spindle, but would like to somehow set it up with an auto tool changer. Also need to shell out for some Gecko servo drives.

I recently purchased a set of plans for Steve's 'Little Demon' V8, however I hadn't considered that the plans were in imperial units(silly me) so not sure what to do now. I can use imperial no problems, do it all the time, but machining in imperial.... particularly with metric machines... ewww.
I am considering re-modeling the plans in metric using Inventor 3D, and then going from there.
To get an idea of how difficult that would be, I am testing my mettle by re-modeling the plans for David Kerzel's hit'n'miss engine, in metric.

As soon as I have done the cad work for the Kerzel, I will start building it and might start a build thread.
I'm still buying/making tools though(it never ends does it?) so it may be a while.

Thanks to everyone here for such a great forum, it's good to see so many people openly helping others and sharing their knowledge and failures for us newbies to learn from. Two thumbs up!

A short post is a good post right? Sorry! I promise this will be the very last looooong-winded post you see from me... ever! ;D

"I am sorry I have had to write you such a long letter, but I did not have time to write you a short one"--Blaise Pascal
 

Hi Simon and welcome to HMEM. I like the introduction as it does tell us a bit about yourself. What you describe in part fits a good number of the members of HMEM. I think you will enjoy Steve's 'Little Demon' V8. He had a very large following on the board when he built it and it seems to be a good runner. If you have any questions just ask as there is always someone around to answer or at least give an opinion. We look forward to your participation in the forums.
I do have to ask though, how did you get the name /// and how am I supposed to pronounce it? :bow:

Cheers *beer*

Don

 
Hi Simon,welcome to to the forum.Wish I could do a long post but when I start typing my brain cell goes to sleep. wEc1
Crab
 
Cheers Don.
To be honest the nick just kinda happened. Wanted something different and hit the / key three times.
No idea how it is pronounced :D

Haha, thanks Crab.
I was at first dreading the intro post, as I am normally similarly afflicted as you, but it all just kinda flowed out once I got going. I'm sure there are plenty of readers that wished it didn't ;)


I do have to make a quick correction to my first post, I think Brian Winch's article was actually called 'The Airborne Engine-Ear'
He also used to write for the British mag RCM&E from memory.
 
Welcome Simon Glad for the long post ,it's raining here os I am in bed [long story] so I didn't mind at all. Hope to hear more from you.Again WELCOME Dale
 
Welcome Simon - surely it's pronounced 'Slasher'?
 
Hi Simon, welcome on board... it also took me a while to make the jump from lurker to poster.

Your story of being a kid interested in model aircraft, dreaming about owning a lathe one day, is very familiar... I did the same.

I too am gradually collecting bits and pieces to make a CNC router.

Looking forward to seeing some of your work.
 
wEc1 Simon, I am from WA to just a bit south from you near Mandurah sort of. Good to have you aboard.

Brock
 
Simon,

Welcome to our forum. wEc1

Best Regards
Bob
 
It's funny how the words can keep coming - I too am glad they did. Thanks for the intro and please share more as you make progress, in thought if not deed.
Charlie
 
Thanks to all for the warm welcome.

Latest news, I have ordered a pair of Gecko G320X servo drives, should get them early next week.
Looking forward to playing with those.

Also, my copy of the book "How (not) to paint a locomotive" by Christopher Vine has just been delivered by the postie.
I'm not really interested in building a loco (yet) but this is supposed to be the ducks nuts of painting and detailing books, so it should be very helpful when the time comes to paint the Kerzel hit'n'miss.
It certainly looked the goods when I had a quick flick through it (currently at work)

Brock, your not that much further south than me, I'm in Rocko.

Tel, haha slasher could be on the money.
 
/// said:
Thanks to all for the warm welcome.

Latest news, I have ordered a pair of Gecko G320X servo drives, should get them early next week.
Looking forward to playing with those.

Also, my copy of the book "How (not) to paint a locomotive" by Christopher Vine has just been delivered by the postie.
I'm not really interested in building a loco (yet) but this is supposed to be the ducks nuts of painting and detailing books, so it should be very helpful when the time comes to paint the Kerzel hit'n'miss.
It certainly looked the goods when I had a quick flick through it (currently at work)

Brock, your not that much further south than me, I'm in Rocko.

Tel, haha slasher could be on the money.

Simon aka ///

At least its not back slasher. :big: :big: :big:

Cheers :)

Don
 
dsquire said:
I do have to ask though, how did you get the name /// and how am I supposed to pronounce it?
I presume the second / is silent ?

Welcome to the forum.

Ken
 
Back
Top