I've said this before...

... but what we can *do* is pretty bloody cool.
I sent a mate away from my workshop earlier chortling with delight at what I'd done. What I'd done was a ten minute job. He'd got a 6mm Allen bolt at the end of a (roughly) 250mm long, 30mm diameter tube. He needed to undo it.
So I took a lump of 10mm(ish) steel rod, faced the end, drilled it 6.5mm, sawed off a 6mm Allen key, cleaned up both bits, cross drilled the 10mm rod with a 5mm drill, bunged a bit of 5mm steel in it, silver soldered the 5mm piece in the cross hole, silver soldered the 6mm Allen stub in the end of the rod, felt flash and stamped the other end "6mm" because I could.
He has wandered off shaking his head at the wonder of it all, I'm left shaking my head at how easy it was, with the right tools.

On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:14:19 +0000, Nigel Eaton
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More to the point did you get a pint or three out of it ?
Had a funny phone call today, some cretin rings up and asks if I have a tap about 10mm or so by 30 or 40 threads per inch.
Had a look in the drawer but there were no marked taps that size..............
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:- http://www.homeworkshop.org.uk /

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I've got several in the bank. This lad's a good 'un. A year or two back I had to do a business trip a week before I was supposed to be doing a pleasure trip on one of my bikes. The evening before I set off, I spotted the leaking fork seal on the bike of choice...
A quick SOS to the bloke in question, and it was all sorted out.
I'm more than glad to have been able to repay the favour. Thinking about it, you may remember some odd-sized ground stainless that was needed in a hurry a while back? That was him too. So he owes *you* a pint or three, on the current accounting. :^)
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Heard a farmer ordering a new gate the other day. Obviously he had just found 'metric'. The size he gave for the gate was "Three metres, five inches, and my thumb! :)

<G> "10 metres of two be four, please!"
"That'll be half a crown a foot then!"
On the original topic, a mate of mine reckons :- "You don't realise how much you know until you come across someone that doesn't."
Henry

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I found my Dremel clone collets wouldn't cover drills from 0.3 to 0.5 mm, then from 1.1 to 1.6 mm, so I asked a friend who said his didn't either. So, I set up the instrument lathe to knock out the blanks, and made a jig for slotting them on the mill, then made half a dozen of the required sizes. Worked fine. I didn't mark them 'cos I couldn't be bothered to set up the Gravograph!

On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:23:04 GMT, John Stevenson
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Funnily enough I have a 10mm x 26 tpi tap <G>
Cheers Tim
Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 19:32:35 +0000, Tim Leech
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Dual threads are not that unusual. Wadkins the woodwork people were good at this. During the 70's when the change over to metric was going on and imperial bearing became harder and more expensive they changed over to metric bearings.
What used to be an 1-1/4" spindle molder shaft with bearings and BSF thread now became 30mm to suit the bearing but because they couldn't cut metric threads on their outdated machinery they stuffed 16 tpi on the 30mm diameter and made the nut to suit.
Look at a Wadkin spindle moulder of this era at the next auction you go to, I'll bet you it's missing the nut............
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:- http://www.homeworkshop.org.uk /

John Stevenson wrote:
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I remember my father having a large compartmented steel box that stocked the various metric studs that fitted pre-war Morris engines. A legacy of Hotchkiss building engines for Morris. That Morris bought Hotchkiss in the early 20s and was still using metric in the 30s must have meant old man Morris believed in long term amortization of tooling..:-)
Tom

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Those were metric thread with a BSF head - to avoid the garage man having to have metric spanners. Bloody confusing when you find one!
The other great legacy was admiralty threads. Herbert Austin did lots of wartime machining (Great War) and therefore was well equipped to make things with fixed pitch 16tpi. This is why in the twenties the Austin 7 had some 16tpi threads in odd places and why 50 yaers later the A series engine still had a couple.
Charles

Charles Ping wrote:
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Perfidious Albion..:-)

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 06:49:31 +0000, Charles Ping
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Some Scandinavian built engines did the opposite - Whitworth threads with metric hexes. Had me scratching my head for a while when I first came across it!
Cheers Tim
Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

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There's quite a bit of agricultural machinery around with imperial bolts and metric heads.
Mark Rand RTFM

Did you ask if they required Hot or Cold John
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I think I'd have just put my 6mm allen socket on the end of a 10" socket bar but each to his own :)

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:36:30 -0000, "Dave Baker"
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FAR too easy ;-)
Regards, Tony

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FAR too impossible. It wouldn't fit dahn the 'ole...

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:36:30 -0000, "Dave Baker"
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Spoilsport. Anyway, the price of allen sockets, it was probably cheaper for the bloke to get Nigel to do it his way & buy him a pint <BG>
Cheers Tim
Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service