grendel

so this evening the second top rail was fitted.

here is the vacuum adaptor

they used to keep a couple of heated snow plough wagons in Ashford to keep the main line up to london clear, not sure what happened to them

have you seen the state of the motorways, over the last couple of weeks the holes have all been growing, especially the M2, The inside lane is almost impassable now for cars, unless you want to drive a slalom course around the worst of the potholes.

we currently have a small team of mods - yes, but inactive we are not, some of us might get to bed early, but that means we are up early too, I was checking this thread at 5am this morning, before I headed for work. We too would prefer these exchanges didnt happen at all. Smoggy, there are two places where a status appears - full member appears above your name when you get to 50 posts automatically. at this point it is usual to ask the rest of the full members whether to raise you to full membership, time is given for people to agree you are a nice person, at which point you are admitted to the hallowed circle and the jokes thread is inflicted upon you, at this point the member tag beneath your name changes to Full members, and you have access to the members section (a sort of inner sanctum).

I tend to find that when I got my printer - at first I just printed stuff because I could, now its more about printing stuff as and when I need it, one day it might be new feet inserts for a stool, or parts to fix things I bought at the boot fair. it does get used - at least once a week, and always for stuff that is useful. after the initial expenditure, the one off parts are not overly expensive, I can produce small gears for pence. but it is not a tool for a large production run. the last item I printed was an adaptor for my new bandsaw, to adapt the extract duct to the size of my vacuum system in my workshop.

I will just refer you all back to this post, particularly the first half of last paragraph. I suspect that if Ricardo is reading this that you are just proving his reasoning.

sla printers are the resin types, and yes the parts can be brittle, At the moment I cant remember the acronym for the extruded filament printers. I run with ABS, and then brush the surface with acetone to reinforce the layer bonds. software - that is another thing, plenty of free software out there, but since I am a trained CAD technician, and have full CAD software I use that, that side of things has never been a problem for me. but pick one of the free ones, learn how to get it to do what you want, plenty of youtube tutorials out there.

That looks a reasonable machine, my main worries would be rigidity, and mine is fully enclosed, which promotes better layer adhesion, do be aware that these things are a lot bigger than they look. that one looks to be a half way house between full kit, and plug and play, some assembly required, actually given the options, carbon fibre looks a good material, there are forums where you might get better reviews of 3d printers, I am on soliforum where there are some people who have been doing 3d since its infancy - though they will try and persuade you to modify your machine in all sorts of ways, new software, new extruders etc. but they do know their stuff.

a lot depends upon what you want to do, if you create the design, then you can just go to a company like shapeways and they will print it for you - the advantages there are they can do metals. you also have a choice of the type of printer I have that lays down an extrusion of plastic, or one that uses a liquid resin and uses a laser to harden the resin, and builds in layers that way. you can buy cheap 3d printers, these are build it yourself kits, that you will then need to tweak to get the best results, I went down the ready built route, but that meant twice the cost and reliance on the manufacturers spools of plastic - for me that was good as I didnt want to have to fiddle around and adjust the results, print and go was my style. Rowlocks might not work, they might be a bit weak along the layer lines. but maybe worth a try nonetheless. for functional, ABS is probably your starting material, though you can get other new materials- flexible or tough, there are some plastics you will want to avoid as they are water soluble (they are used in dual extruder printers to support overhanging parts, then they can be washed away.)

No, its one I rescued at the boot fair, it too will get a motor and radio gear sometime, someone had replaced the roof hatches with cardboard glued in place. so new roof, motor and radio and it will be ready to go.

first top rail glued and clamped.

I just thought I would report that the top rails have now been shaped and are ready for fitting.

having spent the morning shopping and getting a puncture fixed, my parents called, so it was a trip to theirs to take my dad shopping. it seems like everyone was on the roads heading for the shops today.

or a chiropodists

we had more last night too, fortunately its only a couple of hundred metres to good roads, and I only have shopping to do today.

that freezing rain shut the M2 for about 5 hours, and the M20 for about the same in the maidstone /medway area, I know I was driving (carefully) eastbound on it, past the vans on their side and other accidents at 6am yesterday, made it to work in just over the normal time.

I have been running with neat screenwash, and the other day when I recorded -14 in the car, the washers didnt cut in until it got above -5

63 - I was 3 and we had just moved to Ashford. I am told that my parents could not get a coal merchant to supply them, as it was regular customers first. when they moved in there was a line of conifers down the fence line, by the end of the freeze most had been burned to keep us warm.

the problem we are having in kent at the moment is freezing rain, it comes down liquid but turns instantly to ice, multiple pile ups on the m20 this morning, the M2 was shut coastbound as I came through to work just after 6 am, and didnt reopen until nearly 11 am, on my side of the road was a van on its side, not sure what the other carriageway was like.

I'm glad Robin didnt have to wait until now to get through.

tinkering with anything is always a good way to de-stress after a hard day at work.

It may be what other forums are, and I have experienced some that are just like that, but its not what we strive to be here. if you come here expecting to be able to sling abuse at others, then the moderators will step in. we will defend anyone's right to hold an opinion, we would just love it if everyone respected everyone else's rights to their opinions - as then we would have nothing to do.