Orford Vintage Machinery Show 2023

[MJM460]

Thanks everyone for your interest.  I am glad that it has proved interesting to so many.  I hope the ray of sunshine has brought a little warmth to those in mid winter.  It’s mid summer here, though with the La Niña, we are having more cloudy days than seem normal.  At least it’s still warm, and for the most part just not too hot.

Thanks also for confirming that the Separator engine was for a cream separator.  It was the only thing I could think of, but I can only remember the hand turned ones like the picture below, never heard of a motor driven one.  I remember them being red, the Alfa Laval model was probably more up market.  We used one when I was a pre-schooler but I was a bit small to turn them well.  Dads salary included a cow so we had milk, cream and butter, the butter made in a wooden churn from the cream out of the separator.  However my wife’s chores as a primary schooler included milking the cow and turning the separator.  The trick was to turn the handle at a steady speed, the high gear ratio to get the speed necessary for the internal cones made them quite stiff to turn.  Obviously a motor driven one would not need such a high gear ratio and the speed would be maintained by the governor.  Probably unnecessary for the milk required by one family.  You don’t know good cream until you have turned the separator with fresh milk!

MJM460

[gary.a.ayres]

Some great looking machines there, MJM.   

 

gary

[MJM460]

Hi Gary, good to see you back and catching up on the backlog of posts since you were last here.  I hope you are now well settled into the new abode, and perhaps even ready to get back to some shop time.

I have enjoyed that show at Orford each time I have been there, a nice country location in a farming area, only about five buildings in Orford, and the displays are among the trees around a football ground.  There have been two since I posted last, last year I got there but unfortunately did not get to post the photos until it seemed too late, and this year, I did not make it. 

Looking forward to more progress on your latest build.

MJM460

[gary.a.ayres]

Hi MJM, and thank you for the kind wishes. I also hope all is well with you and yours.

All fine here - my new workshop here in Skye is coming on well and is nearing completion. I'm really happy with it - will post some pics or a video when it is finally done.

Unfinished as it is, it is in a useable state. I have started working on building a rather large astronomical telescope (documented on another forum). I had planned to build the telescope some seven years ago and even bought the objective lens and started discussing the build on the relevant forum when - suddenly and inexplicably - I got diverted into the wonderful world of steam. So, feeling somewhat bad about shelving the telescope project and dropping out of communication on that forum, I thought I should reconnect with it and actually build the scope.

This of course means that the same thing has now happened the other way round, as I have several project threads on this forum that I have abandoned! However, that's a temporary state of affairs and when the telescope is eventually done I'll be picking up on my Vulcan Mill Engine build and hopefully delving into flash steam a bit as well.

Thought it was more than high time I dropped by to say hello, though!

The Orford event does indeed look great, and it's whetting my appetite for engine building again...   

Cheers,

gary

[Kim]

Good to hear from you Gary!

Yes, we'd love to see pics of your shop, even while it's in progress!

You should also post a pic or two of your telescope.  I've built a telescope also.  Mine was only a 10" Dob, so not so big. I made it 25+ years ago, but it was a very fun project and I have enjoyed using it (though not so much recently).

Kim

[gary.a.ayres]

Hi Kim, and thank you!

To be honest the shop is so close to being done that it will be worth waiting just a few more weeks before I do a video or photoshoot. I will post it on this forum when I do, though.

It's also in a degree of disarray at the moment as I'm building some storage units.

My telescope build is a 6 inch f15 refractor (with an Istar objective), so not wide in comparison to a Dob, but it will be eight to ten feet long. I'm not very far into the build but I'll post some pictures when I have something substantial to show.

My main aim was to build a telescope that isn't readily available commercially. I'd like to have built a Dob, but to meet that criterion it would have had to be really big one and the mirror would have cost a lot more than I wanted to spend.

See you again soon on this forum!

Cheers,

gary