Parting tool chatter

[Steamchick]

I drill 1mm as deep as needed to get the gas to the jet: then the jet itself is 1~3mm through the final wall of brass. A good set-up will drill 5 holes before I lose the drill. (They are not strong enough to cope with the break-through - and the lathe gives very little back-pressure "feel" at that size of hole). A bad set-up won't drill. The jets are typical 7mm long, hex brass either 3/16" (3/16" x 40 thread) or 1/4" AF. (for 1BA) - With thread to suit the jet holder. (1BA is used in UK as a standard by some suppliers).
I buy no 5 (0.20mm) and no 3 (0.15mm) jets - cheaper than drills for me! But I mostly use no 8 (0.20mm) or 12 (0.30mm) jets - or larger number drill sizes - for my ceramic burners.
It's just a bit of fun (challenge?) - to keep me from following the misses around the house!
K2

 

[goldstar31]

It's just a bit of fun (challenge?) -
K2

I'm sure that I have repeated this
A old Myford ML2 in good hands should be quite capable of drilling a perfectly parallel 1/8th hole up to almost 13 inches in African n Blackwood or similar exotic hardwoods.
I recall overhauling a Myford which had been in almost daily use doing such things.
A chanter of a set of Northumbrian Small pipes is a bit shorter than that but 'that's the name of the game. I made a set out of Kingswood and partridge wood.

Years ago, a Scot asked in ? Model mEngineers Workshop how to sharpen a Napoleonic bayonet and
I reokied back asking him how he was getting on with his set of Highland Pipes. Simply deduction.

Different World!

 

[goldstar31]

Thinking of drilling prompts me to an account, perhaps apocryphal but indicated what the North East of England could do. After all but we invented the steam locomotives, we invented the steam turbine, arguably invented 'electricity' and got a reputation for making money in the American Civil War and built the Sydney Harbour Bridge and --- made the Imperial Japanese Navy. As our sort of last parting shots we took a battle ship - unfinished, guns untried and completed the destruction of the German Navy by sending out archaic torpedo bombers made out of string ad chewing gum after we had put the Italian Navy into harbour- for the whole wa. The Japanese actually watched us doing it to the Italian Navy-- and went and tried it out in pearl Harbour.
So years earlier, we drilled a domestic sewing pin - lengthways and sent it to the Japanese- as a joke.
They didn't see the joke and returned it after drilling another hole etc until one wit on a Tyneside toolroom engraved the Lord's on the head of the pin. How true the story is , we don't know but the Germans never ventured its remaining battle ship and left the Tall Boy bombs made on the Tyne o turn it into a tin grave yard. Apart from the pin, the rest is ACTUALLY true!
As a toddler of 7 or so, I watched HMS Manchester who took part in the Sinking of Bismarck was pooping off her guns that were made on the Tyne in 1914-18. Of course, my local pride will never disclose that our ancient torpedo bombers saw what they thought was the german battleship and dropped their torpedos on the surprised HMS Manchester. As nothing is perfect, the torpedos exploded harmlessly on hitting the water

 

[Steamchick]

Love it! Norman, you have a book in you, just all the tales, anecdotes, history and experience should be recorded - perhaps in a better place than this site. I would buy the book!
The tale I heard, was that the Americans made a glass tube smaller than a hair.... and the British returned it with another smaller glass tube inside it.
With the passing of a famous test pilot - Chuck Yeager - I am reminded that we designed his plane, then the design and calculations were passed to the Americans after the war as a political gesture, for some obscure reason. (Perhaps for donating "a million" lads to the second world war who never went home? But that can never be compensated.)
Sorry, I digressed.
Keep on with the anecdotes. Most interesting.
K2

 

[goldstar31]

Ken
Thank you but I have only written ONE story with me in it. I was almost forced to have done it !

What I have written is about the courage, the dedication - and usually the sacrifice of people- that were never really given the recognition that they IMHO rightly deserved.
We, that is my beloved Royal Air Force Squadron have a motto in Latin but reads "First in the Indian Skies' but managed to write 'Almost first in the Antarctic Skies'. It was as far as possible told the difficulties and deaths in some cases of people that that I knew- and greatly respected.
If you believe in Fate or whatever they call it, I was simply county the firm's money and my phone rang. There was a place for me on not an Antarctic Expedition but the Arctic- and I was to meet the man who tried to be the first to fly to- not the South Pole but the North Pole. The difficulty is trying to condense a huge story so that the reader will perhaps enjoy it.
My little grand daughter was doing a school thing about the War and I spent quite a time explaining as best as I could to a child. At the end she wrote much as follows:-

GrandDad was in the War as a boy, there was bomb that didn't go off and then it killed a cow.

I have a little competitor and she's clearly better than me.
Cheers

Norman

 

[Richard Hed]

Love it! Norman, you have a book in you, just all the tales, anecdotes, history and experience should be recorded - perhaps in a better place than this site. I would buy the book!
The tale I heard, was that the Americans made a glass tube smaller than a hair.... and the British returned it with another smaller glass tube inside it.
With the passing of a famous test pilot - Chuck Yeager - I am reminded that we designed his plane, then the design and calculations were passed to the Americans after the war as a political gesture, for some obscure reason. (Perhaps for donating "a million" lads to the second world war who never went home? But that can never be compensated.)
Sorry, I digressed.
Keep on with the anecdotes. Most interesting.
K2

Maybe because the US and GB were allies but GB was totally broke after the wart? After all, the US emerged, at that time, as the great power.

 

[goldstar31]

Last Night, I was drinking with someone who was on a Liberty ship built in --- ???24 hours in Henry Kaiser's Yards.

We still can't afford to pay for them
I was injured in service as a Non Commissioned Officer( possibly the youngest then) and my pay was less than 2 Dollars a day. I had my ears blown in with sweating relegated ammunition left over from the war. It took 70 years to get my hearing aids. The lucky ones got Ear Defenders- which were-------
made out of woooooooooooood! Heigh Ho!

 

[fcheslop]

When making small gas jets. I drill 0.3mm then swage down to the size needed. It saves snapping those drill bits
It is just a simple jig , punch and guide to keep the hole middle for diddle. The wire is easily found
I also tend to make batches of 10 and need to make some more shortly
cheers

 

[Steamchick]

"A better man than I, Gunga Din".
I would be interested to see your guide and punch? - Just curious, mind you, as I rarely make burners so small to need less than 0.25mm jets.
Thanks,
KL2

 

[Steamchick]

Maybe because the US and GB were allies but GB was totally broke after the war? After all, the US emerged, at that time, as the great power.

I understood it took the UK until the 1960s to pay USA for the war. - About 20 years? But I don't think Germany or Japan ever had such a debt.? They went from totally broke to being supported by the US during their re-build - or so I was told?
Not sure I understand what really went on, but I do remember streets with no cars, no refrigerators, no TVs, no kids with bicycles (some with hand-me-down shoes! - we all had hand-me-down clothes), no central heating (just a single small coal fire.. and frost on the bedroom window every winter morning), Growing potatoes and cabbages - one sausage or one lamb cutlet was the meat on your plate - and being happy and laughing! Today's kids just can't imagine what we had...
By comparison, the current Pandemic is supposed to take 3 years for the UK to pay back the loans from the IMF - on a similar basis. So tighten your belts!
And we'll still have our central heating, etc. , internet toys, TVs, Netflix, trainers and designer perfumes, 3 car families, (parked on the street as the garage is full of bicycles we don't ride and guitars we don't play!), and mobile devices worth more than a month's wages! Half the shopping will be delivered to the door - food already coked and ready to serve - and we'll enjoy 3 holidays and a few weekends abroad...
And laugh at how we "suffered" during the pandemic.
Well, some of us will have finished some models that were intended to never be finished...
"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!" - to quote my Grandfather.
K2

 

[Steamchick]

If anyone wonders what that has to do with Parting Tool Chatter - sorry, it is just "chatter"! - vis. chatter verb (TALK/NOISE) to talk for a long time about things that are not important:
K2

 

[Steamchick]

The reference to Gunga Din:
"Gunga Din", lines 82-84 View the full poem on Wikisource. The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier in India.Its titular character is an Indian water-carrier (a bhishti) who, after the narrator is wounded in battle, saves his life, only to be shot and killed.
I heard some years ago, that I am distantly related (by surname) to the only civilian who was awarded the Victoria Cross.
George Chicken VC.
George Bell Chicken VC (2 March 1833 – May 1860) was a British sailor and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was cited as he was with a party including British soldiers, ambushed by revolting Indians, and after the forces were mostly overwhelmed drove off the Indians as the last man able to fight. - or some such. His ship foundered on his return to England, but the officer commanding the troops had written so well of him in Dispatches - saving all the remaining lives - that he was awarded the VC posthumously, before they decided it should be a purely military award.
Just a bit of "Gunga Din" spirit?
K2

 

[ajoeiam]

I understood it took the UK until the 1960s to pay USA for the war. - About 20 years? But I don't think Germany or Japan ever had such a debt.? They went from totally broke to being supported by the US during their re-build - or so I was told?
- snip

You may want to check that assertion that Germany didn't pay any reparations. (Dunno about Japan though - - - sorry.)

The reason it looks, from today's perspective, that they didn't have to pay comes from the fact that the industry in both Germany and Japan were so destroyed by the end of the war that the aftermath meant they had to build new. That new was far more efficient and so made them a lot of money. The US - - - not having 'enjoyed' catastrophic destruction of their industry - - - continued to use the older technology until it was really clear that they were getting beat up. That realization took a long time to sink in it would seem.

 

[Steamchick]

You are correct. Germany did pay reparations, but things like a DKW 2-stroke engine design for what became the BSA Bantam (which was then produced on the clapped-out tools left from making WW2 stuff) and lots of other "technical" reparations with a book value determined by non-technical people - using ideas of value from pre-WW2 - were not the same as the Gold transferred from the UK treasury to Fort Knox.... Still, despite that, the UK trades "above its weight" on global markets, as perhaps the 1980s showed we can still do. On the subject of tooling - as I experienced, as well as my Seniors taught me, the Americans sold/shipped their clapped-out 1920s and 1930s tooling across the Atlantic, and used new 1940s tooling for their War Effort. I was taught in a machine shop in the 1960s using that same worn-out 1920s and 1930s American tooling - lathes with 3~6 thou wear in the bed so on a cut of more than a couple of inches I had to compensate according to a table written on a piece of paper, and chalk marks on the lathe! Otherwise a 4 foot shaft would end up like a cucumber!
Nuff said, it is History, and History buries unpalatable truth. The reality of what we have inherited cannot be changed, just re-written.
I'll crawl back into my bolt-hole.
K2

 

[goldstar31]

You may want to check that assertion that Germany didn't pay any reparations. (Dunno about Japan though - - - sorry.)

of course this must be assumption- and the famous, 'I knew a man, who knew a man*******'
You see I walked in as then the newest "Goldstar in RAF Transport Command, 46 Group (Rear) at a resurrected RAF 31( The Goldstars) Squadron who were part o with 38 Group which was running Operation Plain Fare. Quite a mouthful-- and one which probably has never ben mentioned- by the man that knew a man that knew a man ********.
You see, unless you are at least 94, you have no first class evidence of what went on. The rest of these ones who have ffirst hand experience are either gaga or-- sadly DEAD. As far as my little place there are only two of us.

Next morning- I hd escaped being re-mustered and - well the rest was history.

 

[Steamchick]

Understand. Heard tales of Planefare - life on the ground in the "delivery zone" - from an Uncle "who was there". They could talk about "non-warfare" activities. My 99 year old Mother is the last of that generation of relatives - and she is Gaga... But the people "who were there" don't usually tell us all. The "war-work" was kept "hush-Hush" and the leave parties were not for their childrens' ears anyway! So we only heard about the nights they were bombed-out - as we played on the bomb-sites as kids we saw some of the reality. All just History now. And Korea, Suez, Russians invading Eastern European countries, Cuba, Vietnam, Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan... will all become History when we and younger folk have passed... But - having worked with many who were "there" - in various places - none of them talk about the difficult situations - just the amusing ditties that interrupted the phases of terror.

But (like Cressy and Agincourt) we will remember them... and for those previous incidents, we will remember them through their histories.
And returning from this digression, regarding machining, we will remember "how" through this excellent website, as well as the models that record "Engineering history" in a way that will outlast us all! - Even if "the machines (and people) that made them" have long since been "recycled".

Sorry, that was a bit heavy.... not intended that way.
K2

 

[goldstar31]

And for Ken!

The BSA Bantam was the err favourite transport of little lads who were known as 'telegram boys'. My top erk had had one

 

[Steamchick]

Uncle talked of being on the coal bag brigade after flattening the cities in previous years.... While his plane was being "turned around" sometimes weather, or whatever, delayed the return flight, so he helped the delivery guys on coal trucks. They dumped a bag of coal on odd street corners as it was "perishingly cold" - and the German ladies used to scramble and fight for the few lumps of coal they could gather in their skirts.... They lads figured that only "the rich" got the coal that made it to the depot, and so they let some fall off the back off the wagon to "poorer people" for free. They ladies even swept the coal dust up... Now that is my second-hand tale of Berlin.
K2

 

[goldstar31]

The most coal was brought in by-- flying boat!. Short Sunderlands were brought in from submarine searches and the Avro Shackleton - which could fly with 3 engines stopped replaced them. I recall Farnborough 1949. Metor 8's with re-heatts and 40 thousand feet in 40 seconds. And then there was Comet One and Brabazon flew in from Filton. I was on a fiddled leave pass to save money!
I have digressed Yea 'Flying Pocupimes' they used the lakes around Berlin! Of course it was all good fun. To stop the landings, the Russians pointed their search lights at them. Of course most of the British lads were demobbed but re-joined at a lower rank and had survived the Bomber Command stuff. So the experts flew down the beams-- and the Russians got the message.
You see, I missed the 'big Even', missed the Virgin Soldiers in Malaya, missed Korea and missed flying 'shot gun'in an Ambulance Avro Anson Mark 12 to the Gold Coast. That's a new bit? The natives were revolting..
Shame really but some of it seems still hiddden in the Official Secreta Acts to which I was a signatory.

i was close as that!

 

[Richard Hed]

I understood it took the UK until the 1960s to pay USA for the war. - About 20 years? But I don't think Germany or Japan ever had such a debt.? They went from totally broke to being supported by the US during their re-build - or so I was told?
Not sure I understand what really went on, but I do remember streets with no cars, no refrigerators, no TVs, no kids with bicycles (some with hand-me-down shoes! - we all had hand-me-down clothes), no central heating (just a single small coal fire.. and frost on the bedroom window every winter morning), Growing potatoes and cabbages - one sausage or one lamb cutlet was the meat on your plate - and being happy and laughing! Today's kids just can't imagine what we had...
By comparison, the current Pandemic is supposed to take 3 years for the UK to pay back the loans from the IMF - on a similar basis. So tighten your belts!
And we'll still have our central heating, etc. , internet toys, TVs, Netflix, trainers and designer perfumes, 3 car families, (parked on the street as the garage is full of bicycles we don't ride and guitars we don't play!), and mobile devices worth more than a month's wages! Half the shopping will be delivered to the door - food already coked and ready to serve - and we'll enjoy 3 holidays and a few weekends abroad...
And laugh at how we "suffered" during the pandemic.
Well, some of us will have finished some models that were intended to never be finished...
"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!" - to quote my Grandfather.
K2

As we are told: follow the $$$. The alleged pandemic is destroying small businesses-- does you thimk that is all by accident? In the US, when the alleged pandemic began, they closed small hardware stores, restaurants and other businesses, however, the large groceries (being necessities) were allowed to stay open. So wallmart (fall-apart) was allowed to operate as it has a large grocery section. It also has a hardware section, houseware section, furniture section, toy section, clothing section--ALL WHICH WERE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE! Seems to me, this was the plan all along, to destroy one's competition. There most likely is a disease called covid but was it made by humans? Was (is) it just an election fraud? Is it realy as dangerous as the child molesting politicians claim? (I doubt it.) In the 70's there was a "pandemic" that was every bit as dangerous as this one and no one even remembers it.

We are told about the 1918 pandemic that supposedly killt 18M peeps (less than 1% of world population) and we are told about the plagues of Europe and Asia which apparently wiped out huge portions of the population before there was an understanding of any germ theory which came after the US Civil War, with brown rats (or republicans) with their fleas and gthe fleas with their bacteria and the bacteria with their viruses and the viruses with their poisons. Small pox, apparently a virus, is far more dangerous than this covid. Polio affected a far larger njumber of people than this covid, so where is the 'pandemic'? Sorry, but I just don't trust my government, nor any other alleged 'authority' when they have been caught in so many lies.