:mad: why teenagers should be band from workshops

[CRB]

Being let loose in the metalwork room during the late 70's using the forge, flypress, grinder, pillar drill, lathe and casting aluminium seemed a normal thing for a teenage boy to do.

70s for me too and I still have the cast aluminium ashtray, definitely not done today I am sure, and the wooden half-shark thing, and the trinket box.

I cannot remember if I did any turning on the ashtray, but I certainly filed the semi-circular indents.

Pictures may be available, if anyone is really that bothered.

 

[tttonyyy]

Reminds me of this vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yCia4DGigs

Teenagers haven't (for the most part) got the experience to look a bit forward into the future and think "what happens next?". Which is why they are often terrible drivers.

So yes, young lads larking around, which is what young lads do, testing the boundaries.

If it was an adult that did that with the lathe, then natural selection is at work and little sympathy would come from us lot, but while minds are young and inexperienced guidance is needed, which seems to be seriously lacking in the lathe video.

 

[Wallace]

I cannot remember if I did any turning on the ashtray, but I certainly filed the semi-circular indents.

Luxury items! I can only remember casting a screwdriver with a silver steel shaft and forging the end, filing to shape and heat treating. The handle was machined and knurled on the lathe, an awful thing to use as it wore through the calouses on your hand and gave you blisters! I'm sure there were other castings now lost in the mist of time I call my memory.

 

[Mikey D]

I remember planishing something or other , surely that must be a lost art now ?

 

[Wedg1e]

Hmmm, I did a cast aluminium nutcracker Cast body, drilled and tapped one end, made a T-bar screw and (somehow, I forget) pressed a cup onto the business end that cracked the nut.

Also did a teapot stand, two lengths of mild steel strip bent at each end and a square of ali, machine-turned finish no less attached with countersunk rivets. Still in use as a cup stand on my mother's hearth - 33 years on!

Also a sliding bevel... must be still in my dad's garage, I never had any use for it (and neither did he, come to think of it...).

I was crap at metalwork (and woodwork). I sort of expected that since my dad did 'stuff' with cars that I should be good with my hands as well but even after all these years and with all the gear I own, it's still a rare occasion when I turn out something that's more or less how I envisaged it. As there were so many kids in classes when I were a lad, they tried to keep the tech classes for those who'd benefit and moved the swotty kids out to do 'O' level History or bloody Latin (guess which I got... oh wait, it was both).
So for the last two years I didn't do any crafts (shame as I liked Tech Drawing even though I had sweaty hands... and our teacher was a crack shot with a blackboard rubber), never got to use a lathe or mill or work on the school's project car.
But I did get to snog Alison Pelmear at the prefects' disco... so that was a result

 

[octo0072000]

school years

well i did the plump bob on the lathe and the knurled screw in end bit for the string and blued it in the class as well cant imagine that nowadays
kidney coffee table' a nice poker with a brass planished guard with multi coloured turned plastic (acetate) and brass handle was quite proud of that

 

[CRB]

Also a sliding bevel... must be still in my dad's garage, I never had any use for it (and neither did he, come to think of it...).

Forgot that one. Knurled and screwed locking button. I do remember doing both operations on that.

 

[CRB]

well i did the plump bob on the lathe and the knurled screw in end bit for the string and blued it in the class as well cant imagine that nowadays
kidney coffee table' a nice poker with a brass planished guard with multi coloured turned plastic (acetate) and brass handle was quite proud of that

and a copper ashtray. I think it was meant to be a concave circle but I got a bit carried away and it ended up like a balloon shape. that is still around too, somewhere.

 

[Sean]

sort of OT ...but,

In education the much misquoted "3Rs" aren't "Reading (w)Riting & Rythmatec" it was from the early days of state education when, for the good of the nation it was decided that as a BASIC education children should be taught Reading(Literacy and language), Wrighting & Rythmatic(Numeracy). "Wrighting" as in wheelwright, practical construction skills such as metal work wood work etc.

 

[Wallace]

well i did the plump bob on the lathe and the knurled screw

Lucky old Bob, did all this happen at the school disco?

So far the only other item I can remember making in metalwork were centre punch and scriber plus a few bits for my Tribsa, one part was Titanium too! I'm sure there is a cast aluminium scribing block floating around here somewhere but that may have been my brothers from 10 years previous.

I did the first year of my apprenticeship at an off job training centre called HEGTA, (Hounslow Engineering Group Training Centre) and I still have a few of the tools I made there. I didn't complete all the tools we were supposed to make as a lot of my time was spent helping other mechanically inept kids especially Liz Dell on the next bench! It was easy to tell when Liz was really struggling with a job as she would disappear off to the toilet to sort out her makeup then come back and flirt with me! I could have been apprentice of the year if it wasn't for that girl and her CB125 twin......

We were fairly well behaved at Hegta as being apprentices were a little more focused on the work and the instructors were quite hot on safety and usually knew what type of idiot to look for. Safety glasses were issued day one and had to be worn at all times on the shop floor, woe betide if you were caught without them or even out of the area you were training in! Happy days.

 

[dannyp]

there are meany middel age and older idiots in this world, usally there the ones calling everyone else stupid.

guy in question was about 55 and was trying to remove some bolts holding pullys onto the crackshaft of a +1000 hp diesle genny.

his plan was to put a 1" bar on the bolts and use the starter to crack them by wedgeing the bar. ( as he'd done with some car menay years ago ) anyway had an argument with him about it been quite a stupid idea

anyway he carried on and his plan didn't quite work bar didn't stay put and the engine fired, braker bar smashed hi in nuts lifed him up and over smashing pelvis and causeing massive internal inguries died 3 days later.

 

[Woody.v8]

there are meany middel age and older idiots in this world, usally there the ones calling everyone else stupid.

guy in question was about 55 and was trying to remove some bolts holding pullys onto the crackshaft of a +1000 hp diesle genny.

his plan was to put a 1" bar on the bolts and use the starter to crack them by wedgeing the bar. ( as he'd done with some car menay years ago ) anyway had an argument with him about it been quite a stupid idea

anyway he carried on and his plan didn't quite work bar didn't stay put and the engine fired, braker bar smashed hi in nuts lifed him up and over smashing pelvis and causeing massive internal inguries died 3 days later.

I have done the same procedure dozens of times safely by lashing the torque bar to a fixed structure in the correct rotation and disabling the stop in some manner, And standing the hell out of the way,
So the idea wasn't that bad, but the execution was poor, Pardon the pun.

 

[Wedg1e]

I have done the same procedure dozens of times safely by lashing the torque bar to a fixed structure in the correct rotation and disabling the stop in some manner, And standing the hell out of the way,
So the idea wasn't that bad, but the execution was poor, Pardon the pun.

Yep, worked for me on the Rover V8 in my TVR some years back. OK, so the breaker bar is a tiny bit non-linear but it got the pulley off.

I think the torque of a diesel of any size would be rather more though...

 

[Wedg1e]

Forgot that one. Knurled and screwed locking button. I do remember doing both operations on that.

You must have gone to Eton . Mine had an M6 bolt and wingnut

 

[Woody.v8]

Yep, worked for me on the Rover V8 in my TVR some years back. OK, so the breaker bar is a tiny bit non-linear but it got the pulley off.

I think the torque of a diesel of any size would be rather more though...

The engine involved is non relative if it isn't firing Also the engines I was referring to were 300 to several thousand HP.

 

[Wedg1e]

The engine involved is non relative if it isn't firing

Oh fudgenuts, of course Look, it's almost my bedtime, I wasn't thinking, OK...

 

[dannyp]

I have done the same procedure dozens of times safely by lashing the torque bar to a fixed structure in the correct rotation and disabling the stop in some manner, And standing the hell out of the way,
So the idea wasn't that bad, but the execution was poor, Pardon the pun.

standing the out the way and diabeling the stop are key to sucsess. i'd been useing the same trick for some time before and still do now occasionaly. but had to buy a geared wrech for one job so tend to use that on the big stuff now