What have you been doing today?

[Sprocket]

Lloyd,
Sunsets may be even better. They are over Lake Champlain with the Adirondacks in the background.
It’s a fine state we’re in.
Doug

 

[michael-au]

Had a Slow day just made some circlips to hold the gudgeon pins in the pistons for a 3 cylinder radial

 

[Basil]

Progress on my Scratch build 1/6th scale Miss Severn/APBA Runabout. Mahony planks install.

 

[Steamchick]

Just been reading a scary DATA SHEET For BRAZING FLUX. (Flux 4).
It contains Potassium bifluoride...
The safety data sheet said it was for use in machines (presumably with suitable fume extraction and processing?) and highly toxic.
Yet sold on 3&@y as about the cheapest available for copper, jewellery, etc. silver soldering.
Now I appreciate modellers etc. are a sensible bunch and don't breath toxic fumes, Or at least I assume the surviving readers don't... except maybe the smokers...
But considering the toxicity of the flux and fumes, I am a bit surprised that is freely available and the cheapest on the market?
But maybe that particular brand isn't any worse than other manufacturers' flux of different formulation?
All that bothered me was the instructions to wear total skin eye and breathing protection.... because skin contact, eye contact, and breathing Fluoride fumes causes permanent damage... and can kill?
I shall be MORE careful in future when silver soldering, as the brand I use also contains some nasty stuff that can create Hydrogen Fluoride fumes, etc.
But it is not carcinogenic...
(Have to look on the bright side!)
Back to fixing my boiler today...
Yesterday I gave it an hydraulic test and a very fine jet of water exited a microscopic hole in the silver solder... I couldn't see it with a jewellers' loupe. I just spotted a damp patch appearing on a surface 2 ft away! (after feeling some wetness on my hand passing around the boiler). The jet of water was fine like a hair... It proved the necessity of the hydraulic test, as it didn't leak until just about NWP... But leaked well at 2 x NWP. - Perhaps there was a fine particle of Muck in the soldered joint?
Otherwise all OK... But watch this space...
K2

 

[peterl95124]

Just been reading a scary DATA SHEET For BRAZING FLUX. (Flux 4).
It contains Potassium bifluoride...

Teflon (your frying pan) also contains fluorine and if you leave it on the stove empty on HIGH will start fuming it in a short time, and many many other products contain it like Gortex (your jacket), and even non-stick pizza box lining paper. toxic is everywhere, the irony of "better living through chemistry!", its scary :-( !!!

 

[WisJim]

Apparently birds (such as pet canaries or parrots) can be killed by fumes from overheated Teflon pans. Not having either a bird in the house or any non-stick pans (except old well seasoned cast iron), I can't verify this personally, but it makes me wary of heating anything containing Teflon.

 

[Steamchick]

For many centuries birds have been used as a warning for toxic gases... in mines especially. When the canary stops singing... GET OUT FAST!
K2

 

[somniosus]

hi folks: as a veterinarian who has worked with birds for 40 odd years, we frequently see dead/dying small birds like budgies and cockatiels with severe respiratory distress after someone has burned a teflon frying pan, which releases PTFE fumes which are toxic to respiratory epithelium, so my advice is avoid teflon and high heat. When your pan starts to flake off a blackish residue, or any time you can see bare metal shining through the black coating, the coating has degraded, and you are ingesting little bits of this and volatilising them during cooking/heating, so its a good time to discard it and get a new one. Regular cooking temperature on intact surfaces seems Ok with relatively little PTFE release.
cheers Chris

 

[Lloyd-ss]

hi folks: as a veterinarian who has worked with birds for 40 odd years, we frequently see dead/dying small birds like budgies and cockatiels with severe respiratory distress after someone has burned a teflon frying pan, which releases PTFE fumes which are toxic to respiratory epithelium, so my advice is avoid teflon and high heat. When your pan starts to flake off a blackish residue, or any time you can see bare metal shining through the black coating, the coating has degraded, and you are ingesting little bits of this and volatilising them during cooking/heating, so its a good time to discard it and get a new one. Regular cooking temperature on intact surfaces seems Ok with relatively little PTFE release.
cheers Chris

I had heard some anecdotal "scare" reports about Teflon, but had attributed to "partially informed," folks and didn't give it much thought. After all, almost all of the wire insulation used in the equipment we built for the USN was a hi-temp Teflon insulated. But I did hear one story from Ball Aerospace many, many years ago, that in one of their machine shops somebody played a "joke" on another machinist and put a spiral string of teflon from a lathe into his pipe. Apparently, it ended very badly.

Thanks for the tip on older Teflon frying pans. I hope I can now convince my wife to spend $15 on a new pan. @somniosus, is it ok if my wife calls you for concrete verification about the beat up frying pans, LOL? (The best answer is NO.)
Lloyd

 

[Lloyd-ss]

A few nights ago our water quit. We are on a private well and I knew the pump was over 12 years old. I went down to the well in the dark and verified that the 230volts was getting to the well, but the pump was not pumping. A quick check with an ohm meter showed that the windings were not reading in the 7 to 12 ohm range. One leg had a high resistance short to ground. Next morning I pulled the pump (luckily down at only 130 feet. But checking at the pump, the motor checked good. I found a chafed spot on the submersible pump cable, and then a second spot. It was a game of whack-a-mole trying to repair the wire. I finally ended up using the ground wire as a temporary leg of the 230volt power. The pump started working again but the next morning I got a new pump, wire, wire guards, torque snubber, new one inch 200psi poly pipe, and a few more goodies The old pump had some blue burn marks on the outside where the motor had gotten very hot.
This time, I did some redneck engineering and made a roller gizmo out of some boards and 2" pvc pipe. I used my utility golf cart to pull the pump, and to lower the new pump. My daughter helped, and honestly, I couldn't have done it without her.
We've got plenty of water again.

Here is the tripod, come-a-long, roller assembly, chain, and my trusty utility golfcart to supply the muscle. It was not an easy job, at least not as easy as it seemed 30 years ago at my previous house. And I have come to the realization that it will NEVER be that easy again. Sigh.
Lloyd

 

[Steamchick]

"WELL" done! (Someone had to say that!). - but really well done in doing the DIY. Not calling the "experts"... ("Ex" is a has been, a "Spurt" is a drip under pressure...). Or "Exp" =expensive, "Urt" is how it feels when you have to pay them.
K2

 

[Lloyd-ss]

"WELL" done! (Someone had to say that!). - but really well done in doing the DIY. Not calling the "experts"... ("Ex" is a has been, a "Spurt" is a drip under pressure...). Or "Exp" =expensive, "Urt" is how it feels when you have to pay them.
K2

Ouch, I didn't even see that one coming! I will have to share that one with my 10 YO grand daughter. We were actually along that creek yesterday afternoon, near the well, and she found a bunch of dried up, past their prime Daffodils. She handed them to me saying, "Here are some Dead-fo-dils for you," and burst out laughing, and added, " I REALLY like puns." Ken, don't worry, when I share your pun, I will make sure that you get all the credit.

 

[Steamchick]

The pun comes from comes from very old clever people.
My Grandfather loved "word-play" and had many books from his Victorian school days on word-play. A part of the teaching that was so entertaining back in his time.
She may enjoy "Schoolboy Howlers" - if you can find a copy?
Or a more modern "Verse and Worse"?
Nearest I found on the web...
https://jot101.com/2016/08/more-schoolboy-howlers/
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36702
One he taught me...
"The Bun is the lowest form of Wheat" = A mis-pronunciation of: "The Pun is the lowest form of Wit".
He also laughed at Spoonerisms, Malapropisms, etc.
"That runs like a well boiled icicle" (instead of "Well oiled Bicycle").
Hi to your Grand-daughter!
K2

 

[Lloyd-ss]

It's still a bit too risky to put the pepper plants out yet with a few chilly nights still possible, but the asparagus has really started to come in. Wish I liked it, LOL.

 

[Jonathan Coates]

Had a trip to a steam day at Ellenroad Steam Engine, which is nearby, to have a look. It is advertised as the world's biggest working mill engine and it is a sizeable beast. Went with my daughter and her gentleman, and I must say it's worth the trip. There's plenty of good video of it on the YouTube. We were surprised how quiet it all is, considering the power output as some steam engines we'd looked at previously were hissing, spitting things. She loved it so I thought I'd better build one. A Stuart S50 is near enough identical, so the kit was ordered and a lot of tiny bits have arrived. Now to translate the dimensions into something useable, as the 1 41/128" kind of bounces off even a micrometer that is in inches. Some fractional inch dimensions are needed as my DRO can do inches.

 

[Steamchick]

Been there "dunnit".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellenroad_Mill
The J & W McNaught single triple-expansion horizontal engine, with Corliss valves on the HP, was reconfigured in 1916 into a 3000 IHP twin tandem. It has Craig cut off gear attached to Corliss valves on the HP cylinders, and slide valves on the LP cylinders. It is regulated by a Whitehead governor, and drives an 80-ton, 28-foot flywheel grooved for 44 ropes. The engine survives and is steamed regularly.
https://www.ellenroad.org.uk/

Have you been to Trencherfield Mill in Wigan?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trencherfield_Mill
Another great engine!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Steam_engine,_Trencherfield_Mill.jpg
By Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12264061
The mill was driven by a 2,500 hp triple-expansion four-cylinder steam engine by J & E Wood of Bolton built in 1907. The two halves of the engine are called Rina and Helen. They drive a 26-foot flywheel with 54 ropes at 68 rpm. The HP cylinders are steamed at 200psi. As each is a four-cylinder engine, it has two 44"LPs, a 40"IP, and 25"HP with a 5-foot stroke and has Corliss valves on all cylinders, Dobson block motion on HP and IP. The air pump is driven from each crosshead. It has a Lumb governor.[15]

Just a little more complicated than the Stuart Model S50.
But the Stuart is a nice engine and a good representation of a Mill engine. I look forward to seeing the Build thread!
Enjoy!
K2

 

[clockworkcheval]

Interesting, on my trip in coming May to the UK I will have a look. I always love local claims about the biggest and largest in the world. In The Netherlands we have of course also the biggest steam engine in the world - stil in service: https://www.woudagemaal.nl/ .

 

[Jonathan Coates]

Apparently Trencherfield is closed as the roof needs repairs so that one will have to wait. The S50 is complicated enough for a first try, especially with the over complicated drawings K2

CC, I've seen that strange steam engine on YouTube and it looks fantastic. I'll definitely drop by and have a look if ever I'm in the area.

 

[paulrayner]

Sadly the Trencherfield Mill is not open at the moment, seems they have some cracked glass in the roof that may fall and injure someone. My dad worked for Lumb's who made the governor, they were a small heavy engineering company based in Elland, West yorkshire. Famous for their governors and recording devices. They went to the wall in the 80's

 

[Jonathan Coates]

Very interesting Paul, I live very close to Elland now. Would you know where the works was? I've tracked down the rough area where my Tom Senior mill was made, in Liversedge, now houses, and the Colchester lathes are now part of the 600 group based in Heckmondwike. My shaper was probably made by Denford in Brighouse, my current home town. There were an enormous number of machine tool manufacturers in this area and some still exist, albeit behind the scenes.