Help! > Mistakes, muckups, and dangerous behaviour

Oh the pain !

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Stuart:
Not the pain but your post brought back soft soldering memories from my apprenticeship days

we had to use gas heated irons these were huge beasts made from 6 inch long  2 inch square slew blocks with a 2 inch X 1/4 copper tip let into the end like a tongue sticking out , thet had a 1/2 dai shaft with a wooden handle, they were considered hot when the  steel was dull red . these were used in pairs one in use and one hotting up.


they were used for soldering up 75 hp armature commutators took about a day to do the soldering and tip them off , boy did your arm ache after that job.  The real rub is that it could take about six weeks to wind the armature ( coils were single turn 1/2 by 1/16 copper tape ) the ends were tined and fluxed ( we uses a resin based flux ) then the job was assembled and drop tested ,at this point the test was perfect evan without soldering up the joints.

as you can imagine the job then stood around whilst the winding was completed and later soldered up ,with no second chance and no way to test the joint

my mentor was about to retire and anything less that prefect ment you were in trouble it had to look right and be right


you may ask why you could not solder as you go , well the steel wire bands had to be out on to stop the coils flying outwards that meant that the coils were pulled down before they were soldered else they would crack at the joint


Stuart

Farmboy:
Your post brought back happy memories of my late father cutting a beautiful 1/4 inch keyway in a machine shaft with a cold chisel, to fit a drive gear. Although he was a civil engineer by profession, he had spent a year in the Ruston-Bucyrus works in the late 1930s during his student days, working on the old dragline excavators, where I'm sure he must have endured some of the experiences described above.

He always said you need to do a job by hand so you understand the principles involved before you use a machine.

Mike.

ScroungerLee:
I still get surprised by how often I find myself contemplating some difficult machine setup just to realize I can do the same easier with a file, or hand saw, or even a chisel then file.

I didn't go through the same painful schooling, but all I had were hand tools when I was a youngster trying to repair my motorcycles, cars and other toys.

Lee

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