Gradually getting everything out of boxes again, the bench is almost functional again (although I've no soldering station set up yet).  The scope is back in position and overall I think the layout is better than I had before ( Read more... )

Some considerable time ago, my Defender blew up. Normally on the 300TDI engines, there's not too much damage when a cambelt fails; some bent pushrods and hopefully not much else. In my case however, the con rods punched through the sides of the block, pinging cast iron shrapnel around the engine bay and rendering the engine U/S. I could have had ( Read more... )

...But lab-grown sapphires are one hell of a sight cheaper.


( Read more... )

Some slightly better photos...

Exercise 1: 4 individual stones set in copper:


( Read more... )

Per the mention in the previous entry, I've started the stone setting course. Week 1 was covering the preparation of tools, followed by some simple engraving to allow Tom to get a feel of how we handle the gravers/scorpers; I did get a little bit carried away with some of the exercises - engraving to a line and concentric circles were all that was ( Read more... )

Spent yesterday over at Making Space in Havant messing with electrochemical etching. I've done a moderate amount of marking of steel, but somehow have never got around to doing any deeper etches (which is daft really, given the kit I've got ( Read more... )

Some considerable time ago, I sat on the edge of a crater with a 35mm compact and took a few photos of it, attempting to overlap them to create a panorama. This worked well enough once I got them back from the developer, sticking them in place as well as I could.

Much later, I scanned the photos and did pretty much the same thing but digitally:


( Read more... )

Some RF chips IIRC -


( Read more... )

So, I have a another lathe. This one is to tide me over until I can get my ML7 back from the wilds of my younger brother's garage (which is, in turn, pending finishing the Defender engine replacement...). About all I can say about this one is "it's old". It has a gap bed, a headstock that bolts to the bed behind the gap, taper bushes on the ( Read more... )

Rummaging through my collection of forging tools (which has *finally* been rehomed into the workshop), I found I have a couple of fairly deep bottom swages. A bit manky at the moment, but with a decent brush & polish, I'm struggling to come up with any reason why they wouldn't work as a crimping stake? Saves me making one at least ( Read more... )