grendel

yes, at the current quoted prices you would be lucky to get 4 units for your £1, and the price is due to rise another 50% in october too, quick question, if you already have bought cards, how many units will you get to the £1, will the meters be changed, or the number of units that the card carries, ie if you have an old card will you get the old number of units?

presumably to bring it into line with the rise in electricity prices, i seem to recall getting at least overnight plus a few hours on a card with a 500W heater last year.

if i see good brass screws i get them, i did have to pay a fair price, but for the old ones i think its worth it. I have just looked up the equivalent 8mm x80 brass screws, and the cost for the quantity I got with VAT was £93, I paid less than a third of that and got the decent old ones to boot.

the CNC machine accuracy is measured in at 0.1mm, thats only 80 units of resolution across the width of this tiny part,

an extreme blowup of the models build plate

And the miniature Jack Powles Builders badge is as complete as it will be, I can say I am happy with this, bearing in mind it is smaller than my little fingernail, enough detail is visible to show it has writing on it, I wont be taking this further though, its beyond the limit of how small my machine can achieve, by long way, and it surprises me that I have got results as good as this, I was going to be happy with a brass oval with just the border showing, to get additional (even unreadable) detail was a bonus.

the final full sized one will get enough enamel to lose the machining marks I hope.

Answer - Yes it is, I zoomed right in and I can just make out the main words, whether they will survive painting I dont know, but that is the next step.

the only problem, is it the right way up?

Happier now, yes it's tiny next to the real thing

Of course, pictures are obligatory

well all full of the hype I decided to take a trip to the kent boat jumble at paddock wood, after parting with my £5 entrance fee, i could see that it wasnt the huge event that the advertising had promised, there were maybe 30 stalls, mind you there was a good representation of stuff there, sadly nothing broads related, and a lot of it was spares for sailing boats. I did come away with a couple of new mooring ropes, pre spliced loop on the end, one 13.5m and the other 14m, and I also snagged a box of 55 brass or bronze screws, no 22 x 3", all of which will go into Water Rails restoration / repair kit (there is quite a healthy stock of Brass screws aboard now, in all sizes as I pick them up when i spot them) all of which are then available when work needs doing.

actually, that doesnt look properly centred, so I might run it again to see if I can do better, honestly at this size its hard to see until I have photographed it. this will have to wait until later though, as I hvae to run, there is a boat jumble in paddock wood starting soon.

I have the CNC file, so I just scale it to 1/12 size- Like this, a bit of cleanup required, and I nearly lost the part when it flew out of the workpiece when the mill cut through.

I have a spreadsheet that gives safe speeds and feeds, the real issue was the deep cut round the outside 1.5mm wide 3mm deep, the cutters are being pushed to their limit (or beyond, and they are only small cutters.) the problem was the holes, if I compensated for the cut round the outside, the cutter would have been too wide to do the holes.

to be honest I am always happy if a test piece ends up at a good quality, as that shows I have my processes correct.

this is the test piece that i did in thinner brass, I found I had some black modelling acrylics, so thought I would try out the test piece, it worked, a quick coat of paint and three hours later a rub across some 400 grit wet and dry on a flat background, brought up the brasswork a treat, the real deal will get done in enamel and baked for good adhesion (into the oven on low- this is when its good not to have an other half to complain at this point, I know some guys that have to have their own old oven in the workshop for these processes). anyway pleased to say this approach is quick, and works, remember this is just the test subject.

yes, the one doing similar with the disposable BBQ sitting on the hatch of the gas locker, and the one I saw at Stalham, the BBQ was about 3 ft from the diesel fill up hose and nozzle/ pumpout (at least on the ground)

I was told that because they go into an artery the wall of the artery needs to seal up, so the blood has to clot, while the pressure can cause it to burst open.

its when they have to press hard on the entry point for 20 minutes to make sure you dont bleed to death, and then you cant move for ages.

I have a home testing machine too, but for the opposite reason, so I can prove that the high readings only happen when in the doctors surgery, it got so bad that twice now they have put me on a 24 hour monitoring machine, which shows my BP scarily low when I am sleeping (sometimes so low the machine errored out because it didnt believe it), about 10 years ago when I was in hospital because they thought I had had a heart attack (it was an infection of the muscle surrounding the heart) they put me on the standard medication, and when they tested using the hospital machines they would alarm every time, i think the lowest I dropped to was below 80/50, then the doctors and nurses would all rush over and ask if I was OK. they then sent a camera up my arteries to see what they were like, and the doctor was actually overjoyed with the results, telling me it was rare that they were able to give good news, and could he se the results to show his students what healthy unclogged arteries should look like.

i get that Carole, at home i get readings 127/78, go into the doctors and its 140/95, so i fully understand, they kept trying to put me on meds for high blood pressure, and every time i fainted when i stood up quick, so now they accept the readings i have taken at home.

I dont, and shouldnt really need to with brass, if I used lubrication, that would reduce chip clearance and that is paramount with these machines and small bits

The casualties, these bits have cutting tips only 1.5mm wide (1/16") , actually on the engraving bit the tip is just 0.05"(1.2mm) cutting edge, and that was used to cut out the design and do the letters on the back. In the picture, the cutting edges are gone because that's what broke off, the shafts on these are 3mm.

Well the final product has been produced, at a cost mind, I broke 3no 1.5mm end mills/ engraving bits making this, cutting it out broke 2, as it is 3 mm thick, it's quite a difficult cut down in that pocket, as it was I think the bit pushed up into the collet as I cut 3.2mm deep and then found it was 0.5mm shallow, so this morning some cleanup was done. I so very nearly did it again as I found once I had finished, that I had engraved the back upside down, but then I rationalised that you would never look at both sides at once, so left it, I have black enamel on order, so I will do the paint job Griff. Whether I post it to you or bring it up with me may well depend on how the boats are scheduled for maintenance, as soon as I know, I can work it out.