grendel

well I can trump even that, so after buying a henry hoover to replace my extract vax that had blown up, I got to thinking, this thinking ended up at axminster tools, where I was persuaded that their craft vacuum might not be man enough to run for hours while a cnc wood project was running, and ended up with the numatic NV750 vacuum, a axminster trade product,which at 3x the price he assured me i could run all day if i wished, so having purchased the adaptor to take the hose down to vacuum cleaner size, i came away with a brand new machine, and a pocket £400 lighter, so this means the henry can be reserved for indoors (or i mak move the hetty indoors and use the henry in the metals side of the workshop for clearing swarf. the workshop has recieved a superficial tidy to be able to fit the new vacuum.

whoops, tools on offer in lidls today, an electric drill, some drill bits and a ceramic heater later and I escaped, then I went to sainsburys and spotted the heavy duty version of a henry on offer, £30 off, well that will replace the old vax I blew up yesterday. really I suppose I should bite the bullet and get a proper dust extraction system, now I have the cnc router but a hoover has dual purpose and can occasionally be bought inside to hoover the house too. Todays task, dig out the corner containing the expired hoover, at least it will allow me to tidy that up, I think I should store other stuff there, and bring the new henry where I can easily empty it.

after shopping trip to lidls, its now decided, the beef will go into a stew in the slow cooker (at least another 2 days meals there, and the ham will be chopped up to go in an indian curry with some veg for another two meals, thats the next weeks dinners sorted then.

I also have a box of metric drill in 0.5mm steps, and a whole drawer unit with various sizes up to 12mm , and then there are the large sizes, some in Morse taper for the lathe.

X

they were at the other end of the workspace

well after dining well over christmas, a 3 bird roast, a small brisket beef joint and a small gammon, its time to start finishing off the roasts, i have had the sandwiches, but tonight it was the turn of the 3 bird roast, it was chopped into chunks, then fried up in some sesame seed oil, egg noodles were added and a jar of sweet and sour sauce (30% less sugar) was sloshed over the top, divided into 2 portions, the rest will do for tea tomorrow. i will update as i use the other two roasts up.

Well this is as tidy as it gets, only 2 more sections of workshop to go, however this does give me room to bring the model of broad ambition to the workbench so wiring can be done ( @broadambition ). Amongst the debris piled up were indeed some tools, 2 small engineers squares and some drill bits, the smallest at 0.7mm

No Griff, I really need to tidy first, then I may well be able to get on with it. those wires are really tiny though, but I have a plan to deal with them. its true, in all that chaos I know to an inch where the item i require is to be found.

Ok a few hours hard work, sees me with just a pile of bits to go through, in case any small tools or components have crept in, it may not be what others call tidy, but I still know roughly where everything is, and I have space to work.

I think my next 3 projects should be to tidy up various workshop areas, the one indoors and the two halves of conservatory, but I am afraid if I do tidy up, that I will no longer be able to find things. Bah spoke too soon, my dust extraction system started making a funny noise, I was just reaching to shut it off when poof- all the lights went out, so now two of the projects have stalled and will need restarting, meanwhile the second bin bag of clothers that I found that had been kept for well long enough have been binned. and I am starting to get to useable surfaces to pile arrange stuff that is useful and needs keeping onto rather than just the rubbish that was there.. anyway onwards and upwards, tomorrows job, dig my way to the old vax machine that was my dust extractor- I guess I should maybe have emptied it at some stage.

Ok, you've asked for it now, I will let you see just how disorganized my workshop areas are at the moment The engineering section The woodwork and general section The indoor ( electronics ) section, excuse the blurryness, I am still getting my head round a panorama shot. As you can see, tidyness really needs to happen, sooner rather than later, just so I can get this easily useable.

Because at the moment there isn't enough room on the electronics workbench. I still have a few days to get some tidying done and clear enough space, but still fear I will need a bigger magnifying glass to even see well enough to solder those minute wires.

excuse the untidyness, I am currently working on no less than 3 projects today, one on the CNC, one on the 3d printer, and one in CAD, I have 2 of the rectangular ones, one I use at the lathe or mill, the old one is currently supporting the dust extract hose on the cnc, and the other is over my indoor workbench. (which is also untidy) the old one was completely rewired to accept the led circular lamp.

personally I favour a magnifying lamp, I have 4 currently 2 are LED floor standing lamps with fresnell magnifying lenses, with a guess at A4 size lenses, one is a modern compact flourescent lamp that clamps to my desk and has about a 5" magnifting glass in the centre, the other is an ancient flourescent with a replacement LED lens, and the starter transformer removed from the base (and the asbestos).

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Griff, I have the small makita battery hand router, that does come with a plunge attachment. this is only the first one that came up on my search https://www.powertoolworld.co.uk/makita-drt50zjx3-18v-lxt-1-4-brushless-cordless-router-body-only-inc-extra-bases though I think mine came with charger and spare battery too. although only a small one it does seem to work pretty well. I am not sure they do a 1/2" one in cordless.

the other problem becomes that of interpreting the engine diagnostic codes you are getting, for example on my car recently I was having a problem and the only error code it had was telling me that the turbo boost pressure was low, (after having a new turbo fitted) in the end that translated to the manifold air pressure sensor had a broken wire (meaning the sensor reading the turbo bost pressure was faulty) so if you add the complexity to the system to read the codes generated, then you also increase the complexity of the fault finding, its easy to juust plug a code reader in and then fire the parts cannon trying to fix the fault, but in this case it migh have lead to the expense of a new turbo, which would not have fixed the fault, all over the fact that one wire was broken. a simpler electrical system does not have these complex sensors and wiring, so is much easier to diagnose and fix if you are a home mechanic (and lets face it, most of us born in the sixties had to learn how to keep our cars running by our own efforts, where nowadays unless you have the code scanner, you dont stand an earthly chance of even guessing what might be wrong. as cars have just got so complex. a boat diesel engine will pretty much run once you have it going, a modern car, if one tiny sensor fails, the whole thing decides its going to shut down right now- and right now could be on breydon on a falling tide.

my condolences, the only bright note is that her suffering has ended and she is at peace now.

so I am just realising I missed some items (due to the fact they cannot be seen), there is an air compressor, a wood turning lathe, another 1/2 ton press, the sheet metal edge roller Air tools, corded power tools, the same power tools, but in cordless (thanks lidls) no fewer than 5 bench grinders (in different configurations, one has a slow water wheel, one has a tall sanding belt, one is set up for grinding, another for polishing, a small (spare) bandsaw, a small (spare ) table saw. a whole box of chisels (sharpened to a razor edge) there are small drawer units with just about everything you could need, a lazy susan type cabinet full of taps dies and the correct drills for same, from 1" BSW down, 3 6" or bigger bench vices, dozens of smaller bench vices a hand metal shaper, - Oh dear, I think I may have a tool problem----------------------not enough yet.

surely with that colour code there should only be a single worshiper (10x1/10- Brown Black Gold)

now that was the sort of thing I was interested in too, hence the application to the BBC.

I cant say that my unimat changed my life that much, I did have a point where my interests and career could have gone down a very different route, after leaving school I had to choose between 2 job offers, one at a local engineering company that made oiling systems for pipelines, and the other as an electrical apprentice at the BBC, because of my love for draughting I chose the position in the drawing office at the engineering company, giving me a career as a draughtsman and a job I have loved every minute of the 40 years in that career. I may have ended up better off at the BBC, but that I will never know, I achieved all the targets of a sucessful career as a draughtsman, ending up as drawing office manager, then dropping back down the ladded a couple of rungs to ease myself down to retirement. The unimat- well that was used extensively for a few years, then sporadically when I needed something, then finally resurrected about 5 years ago as I rebuilt my workshop and started making things again.

just imagine all the extra wiring involved in that, most cars have an onboard computer monitoring all the systems, - the ECU, most boats dont have electronic engine management- or canbus control which is where the data can be fed back along the wiring to the computer. simply put, boat systems are a lot less like car systems, boat wiring is where car wiring was back in the '50's and 60's for the main part.

dont worry, its our secret, I wont tell. (mines a pint)