Mike Macartney

r1lark and Jeff, I really loved your posts, they made me laugh and cheered me up no end. Jane and I don't think her sister would do the 'mechanical stuff' - Sorry 😊 Jane's mum was an artist and her dad an engineer. He had a small engineering company specialising in selling welding equipment and hard facing with Colmonoy and Stellite. During WWII they hard faced the arrester hooks for carrier borne aircraft. I am sure I have mentioned this before, Jane and I were in the same class at school from the age of 12 and started going out together when we were 16, we have known each other rather a long time.

Hi Mike, I'm still here! At last, I seem to be getting some help from the medical people rather than just issuing me with antibiotics and steroids. I got a phone call on Friday requesting the pleasure of my company at the Doctors surgery for an 'inspection'. This was the first time away from the house since 23rd May when the 'lock down' in the UK started.The Dr thought maybe my very bad breathing maybe caused by a heart problem. Yesterday, I had a 45-minute 'video call' from the community Matron, which was a new experience! The most annoying thing about it all is that I feel perfectly 'normal' when I am sitting down, but as soon as I get up and walk to the other side of the room I am fighting for breath. Since my last post, with photos, on the 2nd May, over 2-weeks ago, I do have a few photos that I have not posted. Not very interesting I'm sorry to say. They are of the handle I was making, which is still not finished! Drilled and tapped for the drive pegs. Note the Albrecht keyless drill chuck which I picked up on eBay. I am really pleased with it. To hold the steel plate horizontal in the milling vice I needed 2-sides to be parallel. I set the plate up to machine the 'lumpy bit' off. To the left of the vice is my new machinists level another eBay purchase. I then sold my old one on eBay and got more for it than I paid for the new one! Probably, not the easiest way to cut the plate, but at least it gives me a bit more practise with the Bridgeport milling machine. That will do. When it came to the drilling and tapping, I was not able to do this myself, Jane helped me with the drilling tapping and screwing in the bolts. It's not much fun feeling useless! Normally, I would have used a 1.00 mm cutting disc on an angle grinder to cut the shape out of the steel plate. As using the milling machine controls was something I could do, I used the bolts to hold the plate up from vice, and milled around the cardboard template. Drilled holes for bolting the plate to a 3/4" square steel handle . . . . . . . . and tapped them. Not a pretty sight! Needs a lot more work. Coated it in marking out blue and marked around the cardboard template with a scriber. I could not see the scribe marks so I needed a plan B. Plan B was using a white pen around the template. I now have to wait until I have enough 'puff' to enable me to grind off the excess metal. Dr phoned just now and told me that there is no problem with my heart, it is just my worn out lungs.

Jeff, my post "I think 46169 is nicer!?! 😀", was typed out rather 'tongue in cheek'. I am sure that whatever shade of green you choose it will look great. Excellent job with the bodywork.

That will be a long journey for you Harm! I believe that spraying the epoxy primer on my Humberette body, last year, was the 'last straw' for my lungs, even though I wore an inline air fed hood/mask. My breathing got a lot worse after that. Let that be a warning for others!

I think 46169 is nicer!?! 😀

"Success is a journey, not a destination". Actually carrying out the restoration work, learning new skills, helping others can, for some people, be more important than driving the vehicle at the end of the project. Over the last 15-years of my retirement I believe that I have enjoyed the 'work', or should it be called 'play', more than I have the riding or driving of the motorcycles and cars that I have restored, titivated or rebuilt. My state of health may possibly be clouding my thoughts, at the present time, as for a week I not been able to venture out to the workshop. Yesterday, I decided to try some very simple machining on my lathe. I was not even able to machine the head off a bolt, as you can imagine, I am feeling rather 'cheesed off' to put it very politely. Keep up the good work Joe. At least I can still read about others restoration work on this excellent forum.

Now that one I remember as: - Some People Have Curly Black Hair To Prevent Baldness S = Sine, P = Perpendicular, H = Hypotenuse, C = Cosine, B = Base, T = Tangent Different words with the same meaning.

Why didn't I think of that! Sorry for the late reply, I have been 'out of the frame' and laid low for the last few days.

Hi Harm, I had a look at the tins of paint I had used for striping and I have tins of '1 shot' in white, but the green paint I used on the fuel tank of a 1920's Gamage was 'Wright-IT'. Your striping on the wheels looks very good. I think I needed more practise! Mind you, looking at the photo 10-years on, it does not look too bad.

WOW Jeff, that repair looks extremely good, and that is a rare compliment from me, having spent many years welding up 'rusty motors' with oxy-acetylene then MIG for more years than I care to remember. In the UK there is no need to drill holes to lighten steel bodies - the rust will do that for you! We used to call the rust - 'Golden Body Lightener'

Another week comes to an end, not a lot to show for it, although I do have lots of ideas buzzing around in my head. I have not got much further with 'the spanner' for holding the 'anti-rattle' device for the lathe. I stuck the cardboard shape for the working end of the spanner onto some thick sheet steel. I then wondered if it was possible to mill around the cardboard shape? Normally, in the past, I would have just used the angle grinder to cut out the shape, but with my breathing problems I don't think that's a very good idea. I had a go with using the mill to just cutting a spare bit of plate off the end where the handle will fit. By moving the table traverse a few thou at a time and then the cross slide the same amount, I managed a 45o cut. If I machine the plate, by this method, it will be rather laborious but maybe successful? I found a couple of 5/16 UNF bolts, that I can cut the heads off to use as the pegs in the spanner. Studying the photo I think it will be best if I drill and tap the two holes for the pegs first. I can then machine the heads off the screws, in the lathe, and screw them into the plate. The plate can then be held more securely the vice by clamping the 'sticky out' bits of bolt. I now need to work out the distance between centres of the two bolt holes. From my maths class at school I seem to remember it is something to do with right angle triangles and female Indians! I could not quite remember the saying or how you spelt the name of the female native American, so I looked it up. To my great surprise, it said, 'Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered offensive, derogatory, misogynist and racist'. So I had to rethink the mnemonic or use an online calculator which was a lot easier than working out squares and square roots! With the Bridgeport came these two draws, one with Imperial 5C collets and the other with Metric collets. As I had bought some new and secondhand 5C collets on eBay, previous to buying the Bridgeport, I had a sort them out to see what makes and sizes I had two or more of and found that this lot, in the next, photo are the duplicates I have. Under the paper are imperial and above the paper are metric, that are all spares. I attempted to list the spare collets by pasting an Excel spreadsheet, just in case any of the followers of my restoration 'blog' needed any, it didn't work and the bit that did paste, won't delete. METRIC SIZE MAKE CONDITION 3.0 NN GOOD 4.0 NN GOOD So if there are any 5C collets you are short of just let me know. I think I am going to mount some of this 4" x 1.5" aluminium box section, on shelf brackets, behind the lathe and drill holes in it for tool post tools, and brackets to fit my Dickson tool holders. At least it will give me a bit more experience with using the mill. I have not used the DRO yet as I still need to learn how to use it. I don't have a manual for it and I have not seen any information on this make and model on the internet.

Maybe I should lend you one of my cats? Tigger is great with the TIG welder, the rehomed Alley Cat is a real pro when it comes to aluminium welding, Moggie is useless at welding, but when it comes to restoring a Morgan he's the cats whiskers!

You have given me an idea for a book - "101 things to do with old brake rotors" I still have the outside part of the rotor left. Perhaps I could make it into a halo for Jane! Not managed much since last week but I have put some screws in the shelf above the lathe to hang the spanners I use on the lathe. It will be useful as long as I remember to put them back after I have used them. Seeing the photo above I think the top self needs a sort out! Played with an idea for the peg spanner for undoing the cast iron part from the threaded ring. Perhaps I need something stronger than cardboard!

I'll have a look this morning and see what make the paint is that I have used in the past.

Let me see if I can manage to finish posting last weeks work! With the lathe cleaned up, the chuck back on the spindle and the angle for the taper set . . . . . . . . I could start machining the taper. This photo reminds me that I should make a space somewhere handy to put the spanners. I put them there when Jane cleared up the swarf and tools so, that she didn't put them in my tool box in the other corner of the workshop. I am having to think about things like that now to make the work easier for me. I used a telescopic bore gauge to check that I had bored the taper out enough. To actually check it on the spindle, the chuck will have to come off yet again! I'll get Jane to help me again tomorrow, to change the jaws in the chuck, so that I can turn the casting round the other way to grip it on the outside, to machine a little bit more off the thread. I will put the casting in tub of Envapo-rust overnight. That looks better being clean of rust. The wood and wedges are ready to assist with removing the 3-jaw chuck. I forgot to take photos of re machining the thread etc. If you look closely at the casting, you will see a mark around the part, below where the holes are, this was a mistake! When we changed the chuck jaws, Jane wound them in for me and tightened the chuck on the casting. What I should have said was - 'tighten the jaws up hard'. The casting spun in the chuck when I went to cut the thread and came out of the chuck, luckily it did not do too much damage. Jane is doing very well for the first couple of days of her apprenticeship. It fits, but I need to machine one of the holes into a slot so that the key on the spindle will go into the slot. Ready to use the milling machine for the first time since it was delivered. Exciting or worrying, I'm not sure? I not too happy about my clamping, but I could not think of another way of clamping it apart from bolting it down to the table and I don't have the 'puff' for that at present. I fed the table in very gradually, by hand, and it cut the slot easily. It fits, job done. Now I suppose I will have to make a spanner to remove it.