The Night Mail

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

So apart from going to the hospital tomorrow for my appointment for a camera up the nether regions, that's no more outings to the bright lights of Telford for a while then. I'll try to put a brave face on things.....

 

Dave

Just remember to look interested when they show you on the monitor just how far they have got.

 

Been there and got the tee-shirt so know what you'll be going through.

[jamie92208]

Hope it all goes well at the hospital today Dave and that everything is fine and dandy.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

9 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

RIchard, another thing for you to inspect. My dad and I have been looking at the "base package" as it's in our price range and seems a bit better than a used unimat. We wouldn't be getting one until the new year though.

 

https://taigtools.com/product/10171-starter-set-1/

 

Douglas

 

Recommended; the following may be of interest:

http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/projects.html

http://www.cartertools.com/picture.html

 

It may be worthwhile getting the power feed option at the outset if you can; also check out ebay etc. for s/h accessories.  There's several Taig dealers in the USA and Canada so worth checking prices also.

[Happy Hippo]

12 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

RIchard, another thing for you to inspect. My dad and I have been looking at the "base package" as it's in our price range and seems a bit better than a used unimat. We wouldn't be getting one until the new year though.

 

https://taigtools.com/product/10171-starter-set-1/

 

Douglas

I have a Peatol (same lathe, different branding) under the bench that the 7.25" gauge chassis is sitting upon.

 

It actually belongs to the Wrekin Finescale Group (aka OFMC) but I seem to be the custodial of all the jointly owned stuff.

 

The Peatol/Taig are a good little lathe.

 

What one has to remember about machine tools is that using them correctly is about 10% knowledge and 90% practice.

 

Edit:  If you are after a very effective system that can be continually added to, have a look at the Sherline range.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[Oldddudders]

Elsewhere on RMweb is a good news item about Hornby sales being well-up this year, due to Covid effect. On a day when France locks down for at least a month at midnight - and three people are dead today after a knife attack in Nice Cathedral - it is good to know postal services will be maintained. Sherry - we were married 5 years ago today - hopes to be here for Christmas, but nothing is certain any more! My sole visitor until she arrives will be cleaner Alison, who is entitled to visit as an employee. We do get through some coffee, mind, while discussing her now-partner's ongoing fight w wifey. Who needs a soap opera?

[Happy Hippo]

Ian, congratulations to you both.

[New Haven Neil]

Happy Annie, Ian!

[Dave Hunt]

Happy birthday to Jamie and happy anniversary to Ian.

 

Off to Telford hospital an a short while. I suppose it's fitting that a visit to Telford involves something anal.....

 

With luck I may be able to play the wounded soldier card tomorrow and get the green light for some workshop time. Devious - me?

 

Boy, am I looking forward to something to eat.

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

Buggeration just broken the tablet. Its only letting me do things at the bottom half of the screen. I think I might be getting an early pressie from Mr S.

[Happy Hippo]

1 minute ago, Winslow Boy said:

Buggeration just broken the tablet. Its only letting me do things at the bottom half of the screen. I think I might be getting an early pressie from Mr S.

With what Dave is about to undergo, I hope you weren't using your tablet to emulate the team at PRH!

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

With what Dave is about to undergo, I hope you weren't using your tablet to emulate the team at PRH!

No fear of that. Mind you it does bring a whole new meaning to the phrase 'anal type'.

 

[Happy Hippo]

I've just found out that JJ Williams, the famous Llanelli,  Wales and Lions winger from the 70's has died.

 

He was so fast that he also represented Wales as a sprinter in the Commonwealth Games.

 

Penderyn will be raised and drunk this evening.

[tomparryharry]

I've finally finished this pedestal basin job. I don't know why, but mojo disappeared for a while. What used to take 3 hours, now, 3 days.  The weather is continuing to thwart outside progress, but there we are. 

 

Part of my idle time has been looking at milling machines.  Now, there are some lovely machines; painted blue, no less. But! £31.99 !  Must be an N gauge model! Do I get a rotary table as well?

 

A cup of tea, methinks....

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

Part of my idle time has been looking at milling machines. 

I am of the opinion that you can get a good machine for a price, and then spend the same amount again on getting various accessories to make the machine do what you want it to.

[Tony_S]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

With luck I may be able to play the wounded soldier card tomorrow and get the green light for some workshop time. Devious - me?

You will probably be sent home with a letter about not operating machinery for 24 hours!   The stuff used for conscious sedation makes me clumsy and stupid ( even compared to normal) for longer than that. I have learned not to think I can do something.  
 

[pH]

1 minute ago, Tony_S said:

You will probably be sent home with a letter about not operating machinery for 24 hours ...

... or driving, or signing legal documents.

[Tony_S]

3 minutes ago, pH said:

... or driving, or signing legal documents.

Definitely those. 

[Dave Hunt]

Back home now after having a remarkably smooth, not too unpleasant and relaxing as possible an experience at Telford hospital with a group of friendly, efficient and informative people who treated me as a fellow human being. Maybe the bunch of Dumbos that supposedly run the place have been replaced? The good news is that the problems of my innards are seemingly under control and not the cause of immediate concern, although the consultant wants, "To keep an eye on it." Considering where the trouble is that could be interesting.

 

Tomorrow evening No.2 son, DiL and granddaughter are coming up from Surrey for the weekend and staying at the Premier Inn in Newport for the princely sum of £64 for two nights - they must be desperate for trade. We are then meeting them at Attingham Park on Saturday for socially distanced walk but if the seaweed diviners are to be believed we'll all be under umbrellas and struggling to stop them flying away. That will be followed by an outdoor (well, under cover but not in a building) lunch providing we can find our winter parkas. In the evening Jill has decided that we will all eat at our house with the two families socially distanced on opposite sides of the kitchen serving hatch. Sunday activities are so far undecided. What fun Covid 19 is proving to be!

 

Bearing in mind the warnings from several TNMs about what not to do following the sedatives used during the colonoscopy, was it a mistake to run in to that police car whilst driving home after drinking several drams then signing a confession followed by stopping at a Bentley garage and buying a new car?

 

G'night all.

 

Dave 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Dave Hunt

[tomparryharry]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I am of the opinion that you can get a good machine for a price, and then spend the same amount again on getting various accessories to make the machine do what you want it to.

 

Very, very  true. But, as I've said, I'm probably deluding myself.  A good quality milling slide is a couple of hundred £, then the cutters, ends & slot drills. Before you blink, you're off by a lot of money just to make a 4mm chassis. What I'll probably do, is re-draw the block, and hand it over to a one-off machinist, and pay the premium, or, learn how to undertake etching, which is something I know very little about.  I might go down the milling slide route, but I'm tight for space.  Apparently, the weather forecast is optimistic for the next weekend, so some building work beckons. We'll see.

[pH]

3 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

... the consultant wants, "To keep an eye on it." Considering where the trouble is that could be interesting.

Presumably by the same means employed today? Lucky you!

[tomparryharry]

He He. Just checked the weather:- Oh dear!  60-70% chance of rain, until about 18:00, then it's a 100% chance of dark.  Can't win; can't win...

[Happy Hippo]

38 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Very, very  true. But, as I've said, I'm probably deluding myself.  A good quality milling slide is a couple of hundred £, then the cutters, ends & slot drills. Before you blink, you're off by a lot of money just to make a 4mm chassis. What I'll probably do, is re-draw the block, and hand it over to a one-off machinist, and pay the premium, or, learn how to undertake etching, which is something I know very little about.  I might go down the milling slide route, but I'm tight for space.  Apparently, the weather forecast is optimistic for the next weekend, so some building work beckons. We'll see.

I used to draw up a lot of the photo etches that Brandbright used for their garden railway equipment in the late 90's.  The design of the etch with a half decent drawing package is quite easy.  Certainly the etchers are capable of far higher repeatable precision than they were back then.  I've always found the cost is the production of the original 'master' for the photo etch.  the last lot I did was for an A3 sheet size and the cost was £125 for the first sheet and £45 for subsequent sheets.

 

Obviously there is a bit difference between 16 mm and 4 mm stuff, so a much smaller etch is going to carry a far lower premium for the initial run.

 

But if the chassis is for a 26xx 'Aberdare', are you going to make a proper outside framed chassis, or go down the Keyser route and built an outside framed chassis which is a dummy and all the hard work being a second inside framed variety?

 

Of course if you do go down the p/e route, there is always the potential to sell the chassis on and recover some of your costs that way.  The 26xx is such a popular loco that you'd probably be selling the chassis by the thousand...... Or perhaps not.

[Dave Hunt]

46 minutes ago, pH said:

Presumably by the same means employed today? Lucky you!

 

I think the trouble arose when I got annoyed with someone during my recent spell in hospital and said to my neighbour, "Just look at this ar**hole," which was overheard by one of the sigmoidoscopy team....

 

Dave

[tomparryharry]

4 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I used to draw up a lot of the photo etches that Brandbright used for their garden railway equipment in the late 90's.  The design of the etch with a half decent drawing package is quite easy.  Certainly the etchers are capable of far higher repeatable precision than they were back then.  I've always found the cost is the production of the original 'master' for the photo etch.  the last lot I did was for an A3 sheet size and the cost was £125 for the first sheet and £45 for subsequent sheets.

 

Obviously there is a bit difference between 16 mm and 4 mm stuff, so a much smaller etch is going to carry a far lower premium for the initial run.

 

But if the chassis is for a 26xx 'Aberdare', are you going to make a proper outside framed chassis, or go down the Keyser route and built an outside framed chassis which is a dummy and all the hard work being a second inside framed variety?

 

Of course if you do go down the p/e route, there is always the potential to sell the chassis on and recover some of your costs that way.  The 26xx is such a popular loco that you'd probably be selling the chassis by the thousand...... Or perhaps not.

 I started a 26xx some years ago in 4mm.  The basis was a Dapol  'City' kit, suitably worked up to masquerade  as the venerable Aberdare. To introduce some weight, the chassis was a brass block, (12mm) rather as such Nu-Cast used to make.  The motor & gears are High Level, with a road runner set up.  Some design work will require to enable motor fitting within the confines of the existing body.  The chassis does indeed roll, and roll very well. It's bang-on quarter, so I'm reasonably happy.  The one thing I haven't done, is to mill out the opening for the motor/gearbox.  The Brassmasters kit is very tempting, and boy, I'm tempted.  I consider the Aberdare the missing link, and if the highly unlikely possibility of buying one in RTR... 

 

The proposed  model will need to have the side frames made in clamshell fashion, the the upper portion having a joint line at the frame  bottom line, with parts of the base plate having   upstanding segments to integrate with the axles, as they pass through the frames. Your etch proposal has merit, in as much that there will be greater space between the frames. I'm wondering about weight addition, which is why I started out with the extruded brass bar.  Perhaps, perhaps, stealing the idea from early Triang locomotives, and using a metal block to add as a spacer.

 

More thought needed....

 

Cheers,

Ian. 

[BokStein]

Good to have you back, Dave!

 

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Back home now after having a remarkably smooth, not too unpleasant and relaxing as possible an experience at Telford hospital with a group of friendly, efficient and informative people who treated me as a fellow human being. Maybe the bunch of Dumbos that supposedly run the place have been replaced? The good news is that the problems of my innards are seemingly under control and not the cause of immediate concern, although the consultant wants, "To keep an eye on it." Considering where the trouble is that could be interesting.

 

Tomorrow evening No.2 son, DiL and granddaughter are coming up from Surrey for the weekend and staying at the Premier Inn in Newport for the princely sum of £64 for two nights - they must be desperate for trade. We are then meeting them at Attingham Park on Saturday for socially distanced walk but if the seaweed diviners are to be believed we'll all be under umbrellas and struggling to stop them flying away. That will be followed by an outdoor (well, under cover but not in a building) lunch providing we can find our winter parkas. In the evening Jill has decided that we will all eat at our house with the two families socially distanced on opposite sides of the kitchen serving hatch. Sunday activities are so far undecided. What fun Covid 19 is proving to be!

 

Bearing in mind the warnings from several TNMs about what not to do following the sedatives used during the colonoscopy, was it a mistake to run in to that police car whilst driving home after drinking several drams then signing a confession followed by stopping at a Bentley garage and buying a new car?

 

G'night all.

 

Dave 

 

 

 

Were you able to watch the screen during the procedure?

 

When I had a Sigmoidoscopy, the thought never occurred to me but when I had the full colonoscopy, I glanced at the screen and, as an Engineer, decided that this looked like an interesting piece of plumbing! The claw used to extract samples was also of interest! I even asked the practitioner how the probe worked so, when extracted, he demonstrated its manoeuvrability; fascinating!