what are you doing ?

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jack
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#331 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by jack »

Yep. Our place sounds similar - metal shop with myfords, milling machines etc plus forge area, and a woodwork shop with lathes, band & table saws.

One of the few times in a classroom you not only could take your tie off, you HAD to take your tie off. Hair not so much of a problem as they were fairly strict on length.

If you were known to be competent, you were pretty much left to your own devices.

One thing I made, under the pretext of it being a pneumatic damper for some other project, was a pretty cool small breech-loading cannon with mount and even a soft copper gas gasket. Still got that on my "shelf of doom" in the workshop. Used to use lead shot from the physics labs and sugar and weedkiller propellent - remember these were the days before fire retardant was added to all nitrate-based weedkiller due to the Irish troubles. Fuse was a bit of Jetex (who remembers those?). Barrel was even rifled... Stopped using it when I noticed a small bulge developing in the barrel after I used a number of more percussive propellants made in the chemistry labs...

This sort of thing probably helped bring in the excessive H&S stuff we see today 8)
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steve s
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#332 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by steve s »

jack wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 6:13 am

This sort of thing probably helped bring in the excessive H&S stuff we see today 8)
I don't ever remember any one getting hurt at school. I blame risk assessments. They are both good and bad at the same time.
I too loved both metal work and wood work. At the age of about 12 we made screwdrivers, we cast alloy onto the blade, turned them up and knurled them. Most of the lads could not grind the blade squarely I remember doing most of the classes. I loved it.
My grandad worked as a turner in the shipyards. There was old photos of him turning ships prop shafts. The lathes where extremely large.
All that pointed me towards an engineering apprenticeship, but by the time I'd finished that I could not wait to get away from lathes and the like.

15 years later I bought my 1st little myford.
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Paul Barker
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#333 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by Paul Barker »

All we made was a dog tag out of pig iron.
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simon
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#334 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by simon »

Is that the new rail college Ant?

I really enjoyed woodwork at school, less so metalwork. Projects were "modest" I seem to recall, and strictly hand tools only. That was nearly 40 years ago.
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The Stratmangler
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#335 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by The Stratmangler »

simon wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 12:45 pmThat was nearly 40 years ago
So they'd gone soft back then ....
It was bandsaws and pillar drills a gogo in my first year of secondary school :shock:
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#336 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by jack »

Probably about 14 when I made this - over 40 years ago... Used to screw it to a tree stump for safety. I tried using tent pegs into the ground, but it flew backwards about 20ft and just missed my head... Really rather powerful. Having since then shot a number of weapons, I'd put this somewhere between a .357 magnum and a .45, depending on the charge used - always more than a .38 special.

Loved metalwork and wanted to do an apprenticeship, but I come from a very academic family and my father was set against it... So I did the uni thing and later trained in cabinet making...

Methinks a slight cleanup is long overdue...
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Last edited by jack on Sun May 17, 2020 1:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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ed
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#337 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by ed »

I think we've all got a tale to tell, which probably dates us.

1965 and back to Hitchin boys grammar, I was getting frisky with the oxy acetylene, busily putting together the fireside set. I didn't have the heart to tell old Percy Mumford(metalwork teacher) that we had a gas fire at home.
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#338 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by jack »

ed wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 1:17 pm I think we've all got a tale to tell, which probably dates us.

1965 and back to Hitchin boys grammar, I was getting frisky with the oxy acetylene, busily putting together the fireside set. I didn't have the heart to tell old Percy Mumford(metalwork teacher) that we had a gas fire at home.
:)

Found some bits of a unipivot arm I made when I was 16. The turntable platter I cast out of phosphor bronze and it weighed loads - that had a silver & tool steel thrust bearing, but that got lost... years ago..

You can just see the micrometer adjustment knob for the counterbalance. The bits there are all brass, aluminium and silver steel - scratch made from bar stock and spring steel wire. The arm and headshell were aluminium, again long gone.
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simon
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#339 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by simon »

The Stratmangler wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 1:06 pm
simon wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 12:45 pmThat was nearly 40 years ago
So they'd gone soft back then ....
It was bandsaws and pillar drills a gogo in my first year of secondary school :shock:
To be fair they were probably taking reasonable precautions. One kid had his head squashed in a woodwork vice by the "cock of the year" so anything more dangerous would probably have been asking for real trouble.
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The Stratmangler
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#340 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by The Stratmangler »

simon wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 3:15 pm
The Stratmangler wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 1:06 pm
simon wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 12:45 pmThat was nearly 40 years ago
So they'd gone soft back then ....
It was bandsaws and pillar drills a gogo in my first year of secondary school :shock:
To be fair they were probably taking reasonable precautions. One kid had his head squashed in a woodwork vice by the "cock of the year" so anything more dangerous would probably have been asking for real trouble.
I have a confession to make - I spent my first 3 years of secondary education at a school set up by the MOD in Germany, not far from JHQ Rheindahlen, during the Cold War standoff of the 70s.
You learned early on that shit travels downhill very rapidly, and if you misbehaved really badly your old man's CO knew about it before your old man did.
And that was not a situation that you wanted to occur, for obvious reasons :shock:

On top of that, corporal punishment was still acceptable.
I don't remember anyone getting caned in the three years I was there, but the Headmaster preferred to use psychology rather than physical punishment.
Chris :happy3:
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#341 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by Ant »

simon wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 12:45 pm Is that the new rail college Ant?

I really enjoyed woodwork at school, less so metalwork. Projects were "modest" I seem to recall, and strictly hand tools only. That was nearly 40 years ago.
It's the new one they are building where they flattened the old court buildings, next to the police station and magistrates court
Also starring Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln

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Ray P
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#342 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by Ray P »

Not in the mode of wooworking or metalwork classes but we had one genius in our physics class who thought it was a good idea to put his tongue on the end of the tube from the vacuum pump - ouch! I think he was very lucky that one of the other kids hit the off switch very quickly, as it was it was a 999 ambulance job.
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
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Ray P
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#343 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by Ray P »

I cycled up to the old WW2 airfields at Dunkeswell and Smeatharpe (up on the Blackown Hills) this afternoon; this Chipmunk was parked up at Dunkeswell.

Image

Image
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
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#344 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by simon »

Ant wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 4:43 pm
simon wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 12:45 pm Is that the new rail college Ant?

I really enjoyed woodwork at school, less so metalwork. Projects were "modest" I seem to recall, and strictly hand tools only. That was nearly 40 years ago.
It's the new one they are building where they flattened the old court buildings, next to the police station and magistrates court
Ah right, round the back of the new council offices and Cast theatre then?
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#345 Re: what are you doing ?

Post by Ant »

Yep that's the one
Also starring Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln

www.bte-designs.weebly.com
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