Today I acquired...........

[roofman]

a set of davida vacuum gauges bought in 2006 for £90 never been out the box
with adapters and damping clamps View attachment 339752

Best gauges ever built..i know the owner of the company,sadly the company has been wound up. BTW you don't need damping clamps with these gauges as they are fantastically damped from within

 

[dobbslc]

a set of davida vacuum gauges bought in 2006 for £90 never been out the box
with adapters and damping clamps View attachment 339752

Nice gauges but be careful of the threaded adapters as they break easily!

You do know that curled up lip at the back is for holding your fag while using the hacksaw..they thought of everything

I have a 23, good to know about the fag rest! I don't smoke though

 

[nickk]

Would that mower be for sale by any chance Nick

Will speak to the soon to be wife .

 

[jack-daniels]

There is one particularly strange socket in there, big (didn't have time to measure but probably around 2") that reduces down a 1/2" drive. For the size of it I would have expected at least 3/4"??
View attachment 339640View attachment 339641

Ball joint socket? (Metro is 1-13/16)

 

[Cuthy246]

Ball joint socket? (Metro is 1-13/16)

Just had a Google, reckon that's spot on

 

[daleyd]

I decided to pop into the local charity shop as I was passing and had a look at the books. I found a couple which interested me, the "Manual of Seamanship" Vol 1, published by the Admiralty in 1951. All thing relating to ships and boats and the Navy. The second might come in handy if I ever get hold of some Naval artillery pieces "The Gunnery Pocket Book" also published by the Admiralty but in 1945. They must have had bigger pockets back in 1945, it measures 245mm x 160mm. All you need to know about lobbing shells at other ships and the relevant terminology. Some great illustrations in foldout pages in the rear of the book. I shall attempt to take some pics if there's any interest.

I’d love to see some pics of that! (See my avatar lol)

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

£42 on Amazon...I did what old people do and bought 1 to use...and 1 as spare. They're a nice bright inspection light ...supplied without batteries but I have a couple of those tiny batteries lying around so will be perfect. They're good for welding too...although needs to be set at a distance I find otherwise the reflections trigger my mask.....good for spotting pin holes in my welds

 

[DAPPH]

£42 on Amazon...I did what old people do and bought 1 to use...and 1 as spare. They're a nice bright inspection light ...supplied without batteries but I have a couple of those tiny batteries lying around so will be perfect. They're good for welding too...although needs to be set at a distance I find otherwise the reflections trigger my mask.....good for spotting pin holes in my welds

View attachment 339788

Put a big sign up in the mancupboard . " Discharge & recharge all rechargeable batteries on the first of each month " .

Our Men's Shed group was the proud owner of fifteen or more un chargeable six year old portable devices when old folk didn't do it or their wives hung on to them till they too snuffed it . You could buy a new one with battery & charger for less than the price of an individual new battery .

I did fall car boot lucky on one of the very early battery fueled Dremel's c/w tool case and loads of attachments that looked as though they had never been used.@ £9.00 .
It was as dead as a dodo , I dropped the battery in the deep freezer , left it there for a week brought it out for four hours then tried recharging it , noticed a tiny voltage so I set up some 12 volt light bulbs and discharged it through them .

Then did the freezer trick & recharged several more times over the next week . Once it ran the Dremel for two minutes on full speed no load it was a case of almost discharging the battery several time and recharging it .. It appears to have lost the stepped memory resistance that prevented earlier charging.

 

[minimutly]

Best gauges ever built..i know the owner of the company,sadly the company has been wound up. BTW you don't need damping clamps with these gauges as they are fantastically damped from within

Hmmm, not so sure they're so good. Have a really old set here I borrowed, one gauge didn't work. Turned out to be the damper screw blocked. After unblocking it I checked the accuracy - they were quite a bit out, so I had to callibrate them the same. Having said all that, once fixed they are good, and easy to use.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Put a big sign up in the mancupboard . " Discharge & recharge all rechargeable batteries on the first of each month " .

The amount of cutting and wire wheel work I'm doing at the moment I'm lucky if my batteries last a few days! I always run them till they're dead and then charge. I have a shelf for empties and a shelf for fully and just cycle thro them....I could do with 2 more big batteries but like everything else they're expensive these days.

Looking for a spare B&D power file...last one cost me £28....now more like £50!

 

[roofman]

Hmmm, not so sure they're so good. Have a really old set here I borrowed, one gauge didn't work. Turned out to be the damper screw blocked. After unblocking it I checked the accuracy - they were quite a bit out, so I had to callibrate them the same. Having said all that, once fixed they are good, and easy to use.

They do normally live in a harsh environment just by the fact of what they are, you also cant control the monkeys that have used them if you borrow or buy used as they must be kept in a drawer and away from damp.

 

[Moose McAlpine]

My mate won a set of Saltus OJ's , ROJ and DE metric ring spanners 4,5 ..6,7.... ,8,9...,10 ,11...12,13.....14 ....15 , 16....17 , 18.....19 ,20 ..... 21, 22 ...... 23, 24,.... 25 , 27 & 28 , 29 in a Christmas raffle in 1970,
I won a 36inch chest Wrangler sweat shirt ( They were quality tops in those days.) .

As I was a 44 inch chest & he was barely a 38 inch chest ... he'd no use for spanners being a clerk so he asked me if I'd swap my prize with his. It was hard not to rip his extended arm off .

I was doing a long over due mancupboard tidy yesterday and today .. In all that time I have only Killed the 13mm ROJ when I snapped the ring end whilst working is a scrap yard in Germany trying to undo one of the super glued in bolts on a smashed up BMW . The 10 mm ROJ was cut in half to allow me to remove the difficult to get at magneto BA mounting bolts on a Mighty Antar's Meteorite 205 RR petrol engine . ( still got both parts)
The 10 mm ROJ was replaced with a Britool 10 mm in 1974 .
The owner of the scrap yard brought me a brand new Hazet 13 mm ROJ
The Saltus spanners now have had a bit of surface discoloration but are still in fantastic condition , the Hazet spanner is almost as good ...not bad for 52 years of almost every day hard abuse free engineering

Hard to beat the proper functional German tools.

You don't see much of Saltus these days. Shame, they made great tools.

 

[Brad93]

My mate won a set of Saltus OJ's , ROJ and DE metric ring spanners 4,5 ..6,7.... ,8,9...,10 ,11...12,13.....14 ....15 , 16....17 , 18.....19 ,20 ..... 21, 22 ...... 23, 24,.... 25 , 27 & 28 , 29 in a Christmas raffle in 1970,
I won a 36inch chest Wrangler sweat shirt ( They were quality tops in those days.) .

As I was a 44 inch chest & he was barely a 38 inch chest ... he'd no use for spanners being a clerk so he asked me if I'd swap my prize with his. It was hard not to rip his extended arm off .

I was doing a long over due mancupboard tidy yesterday and today .. In all that time I have only Killed the 13mm ROJ when I snapped the ring end whilst working is a scrap yard in Germany trying to undo one of the super glued in bolts on a smashed up BMW . The 10 mm ROJ was cut in half to allow me to remove the difficult to get at magneto BA mounting bolts on a Mighty Antar's Meteorite 205 RR petrol engine . ( still got both parts)
The 10 mm ROJ was replaced with a Britool 10 mm in 1974 .
The owner of the scrap yard brought me a brand new Hazet 13 mm ROJ
The Saltus spanners now have had a bit of surface discoloration but are still in fantastic condition , the Hazet spanner is almost as good ...not bad for 52 years of almost every day hard abuse free engineering

Looks like every major development in torque wrench development came from saltus. Unfortunately since they were acquired by Atlas Copco it appears they have been wrapped up

 

[Mart63]

I've used Tuff blades for a few years and I can't recommend them
Never had a problem with the service it’s just they always seem to start stripping teeth from the weld no matter how careful I am.
I've tried the carbon steel and M42 grade in a range of tpi including the varitooth range.
Always try to keep at least 4 teeth in the metal, break the blades in and keep low pressure.
I try to keep a fine and coarse blade and change them over when required.
The saw is a 6 x 4 Hitachi which has rubber on the wheels and if I use “any” oil, the blade won't stay on, so I have to cut dry which I'm sure doesn't help.
The only way I can get any reasonable life out of a blade is by nursing it over the weld which gets old very quickly. I can hear / feel the join in every blade from new so it not an isolated problem (for me)
I've never worn a blade out, just end up with a section with no teeth and have lots that I need to join.
I now just try to cut thick stuff on the band saw which is ok because I have a chop saw which works better on thin wall stuff.
I’m now out of blades (again) and it would be great to be able to cut mitres in box or tube on the band saw again.

Anyone have a recommendation for another supplier?

I use A.A. Smith for bandsaw blades. We only have a wood cutting bandsaw so no experience of metal cutting. Their blades have lasted well and been a good price.

 

[Maker]

Got some good stuff today...



Don't look like anything special but they're on eBay for thirty quid a rod!

Got some silver solder, fluxes and mystery brazing rods too, plus a little pot of 157PA solder paste for stainless but it seems to have dried out. Not sure if I can use any of it with just propane anyway, I might have to stash it all away until I get some oxygen.

 

[Dieselman 63]

A heap of old rubbish. Will sort later!

 

[dobbslc]

Tasty!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Tasty!

The oil is new. That’s a free service right there!

 

[roofman]

The oil is new. That’s a free service right there!

Magnatec too

 

[dobbslc]

The right stuff?