2018 Archive

[GoceKU]

Last couple of days i've been looking for a new carburetor for the Little Niva i'm fixing, i've visited and phoned many parts store and junk yard, new ones are more then half price of the 4x4 and no one can guarantee if the used ones are any good and still want good money for them, so i went to my favorite junk yard he usually has VAG cars for parts but he happen to have one Lada sedan so i grabbed the carb and steering column, also it had a chromed shifter i took the entire shifter assembly, then i looked thru his storage buildings and found one more lada carb, both are with vacuum secondary, the one on my Niva is mechanical secondaries also bought couple more weber carburetors, now i'll need to clean all of them and peace one good one, i may try one of the weber on it to see if i can improve the throttle response, not a bad day and pretty cheap the weather is getting pretty cold and i'm happy not to be looking for a carburetor anymore.

 

[Downwindtracker2]

Nivas weren't bad little 4x4s. A funny story, with all the logging roads around here, when we hunt we will drive to area, check it out and move on. A couple of hunters had an accident and rolled their Niva down a hill. "I saw sky, then dirt, then sky, then dirt. "

 

[GoceKU]

Nivas weren't bad little 4x4s. A funny story, with all the logging roads around here, when we hunt we will drive to area, check it out and move on. A couple of hunters had an accident and rolled their Niva down a hill. "I saw sky, then dirt, then sky, then dirt. "

It's a common thing, strange how little damage they sustain in a roll over, in the mountains here every niva has been on its side or upside down couple of times that is why they never have side mirrors, tough little thing.

 

[BGHansen]

More eBay purchases. Bought another SDA laser center/edge finder for $50 (go for around $150 - $175 new). They sell at least three versions: Dot, Cross hair and Concentric Circles. This one is the concentric circle version. I wouldn't use it to set up the DRO on my mills' vises, but they make fast work of finding the center of a prick-punched hole or existing hole. Just move the spindle up/down to put one of the projected circles on the hole or center dot on the prick-punched hole and you're there. Down side is the accuracy isn't at my Blake co-ax for a hole or a pointed mechanical edge finder. I've experimented a bit and am repeatable to 0.005" or better. So, for a quick and dirty drill press type job on the mill, or finding a clearance hole that needs to be enlarged, they're my "go to" tool.





Also bought a 12V solenoid air valve. Future project here for the mister coolant on the CNC Bridgeport. I leave my air compressor regulator at max pressure and adjust the mister hose pressure through the mister's ball valve. I currently shut the air off by popping the quick connect on the air line. Getting really lazy in my old age, going to wire this in between an inline regulator and the mister. It's a normally closed valve, so will make a switch box with a push button to turn the air on/off.



Last for now is a gear checking gauge. Should make quick work of checking the diametral pitch of gears. Formula is (Number of teeth + 2)/diameter for diametral pitch, but this is quicker. Yeah, impulse buy as I don't cut gears for a living. I attached a photograph (not to scale) and a jpg of a scan which should be to scale in case members want to print a copy. A photo might work for quick checking a gear.




Bruce

 

[Cadillac]

The beauty of this was I didn’t buy it. More like labor trading. I have a great friend that retired two years ago. He took on the hobby of old school hand striping. His wife says he wants to stripe everything. I had rebuilt a old cushman engine for a scooter that he is doing. Well I don’t take money from friends so he ends up stopping by yesterday with a present.

I had bought a pallet of welding helmets some months back from a auction for 10 bucks. I gave him the helmets to stripe. I thought they were a great media to paint on and very sellable. This is his first helmet and I think he’s doing a great job for being self taught and a year or so in. I also pick up any old school wrenches which he does his magic on.
I’m working on a way to display the wrenches “in use”.

 

[roadie33]

Those wrenches look to good now to even use.
I'd make a display case for them and give them to him for a Christmas present to show off his ability.

 

[Aaron_W]

My mother passed away in September so I've been dealing with 2 storage units of her stuff. I went to a local non-profit thrift store that supports a hospice to inquire on donating some of her belongings.

So as I'm talking with the lady about the donation procedure (times, wants / don't accepts etc), I happen to glance down in the glass counter display and I saw a slide rule complete with its box and protective sheath for $12 (I know probably too much). Since I don't think I've ever even seen a slide rule in person I had to have it.

Pickett all metal slide rule, claims "lifetime accuracy' but doesn't specify who's lifetime, and I'm pretty sure the original buyer is no longer with us so I guess they are off the hook if it isn't accurate...

Documents in the box are dated 1960. It appears to be aluminium, the box has some wear but the side rule itself is immaculate, not a scratch or ding on it.



Does anyone still use one of these? Do they do anything better than electronic calculators?

I figure it is mostly a novelty, but I'll be set when the zombies come and all the batteries are gone.

 

[Bob Korves]

I went through my high school drafting stuff some years ago, and one thing that was in there was my slide rule. I took it out and did some quick calculations, just like I had used it last a month ago. It was actually 1964 when I got it, and we used them a lot in those days. I also have all my drafting equipment from high school and college, the newest of that would have been from the early 70's. Still ready to use as needed, still know how...

 

[hman]

Slide rules are good for multiplying, dividing, proportions, squares/cubes and roots, trig functions, logs, etc. They don't do addition or subtraction. They're pretty quick, but are limited to about 3 significant figures of precision. And you have to keep track of the decimal place.

That said, I have fond memories of the old slipstick, and I'm glad I started out with one. Having to keep track of the decimal meant that you had to mentally do an approximate calculation, so as to know where the decimal would go. This ability to do approximations is very valuable, even when using other methods of computation. Contrast with a calculator - punch in a few numbers, get an answer, take it for granted. It can be hard to detect a slipped finger or missed digit unless you have some idea of what the answer should be. I've also seen lots of cases where someone inputs numbers with 3 or 4 significant figures and writes down all 10 or 12 digits of the displayed answer.

Anecdotally, one of my recollections from college (about the time the HP35, HP45 and TI50) is seeing an (obvious) engineering student with a calculator case on his hip. Battery life was short in those days, so he had a slideruler on the other hip for backup

 

[DHarris]

Yep, still have my slide rule from college! Used it in all of my engineering classes up till the mid-term of my Junior year (I was too cheap to spend the $410.00 for the "latest and greatest" HP calculator - that only did addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division!!!!). Now I'm going to have to search around here to find that old beauty! Thanks for the walk down memory lane!