Melbourne Au Scraping Class

Not sure how much interest is in what we get up to down here. We had a scraping class last weekend. Last weekend was a holiday weekend. (Australia Day).

We had 11 guys in for the weekend. From as far away as Perth.



We dodged a bullet with the weather. This weekend last year was 42 deg C. I know, I was home painting the outside of the house. You might remember the heat interruptions if you follow the Tennis.

Last weekend was about 26 - 29C. Just nice.

Regards Phil.

A few more Pics.

Those photos bring back some great memories.
You deserve a lot of credit for running these courses because I know how much time and energy they take to organise and run and all for no financial gain for yourself (or Marko). Everyone who goes has a seriously great time and comes away with some very useful skills, new friends and a lot enthusiasm for potential projects.
Mind you scraping can be addictive and I know my wife says I need to think about scraping rehab!!

Look forward to dropping in on my next visit to Melbourne

Cheers

Mark Gray

mark123 said:

I know how much time and energy they take to organise and run and all for no financial gain for yourself (or Marko)

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Theres a couple of bucks in it, which are the best kind -cash (Which I never see in the business).

I'd hate to audit it, time and planning verses income. Truth be known, I'd be far better ahead sticking to the core business.

BUT. I have a ball putting them on. The farmers son in me dictates it. The food is an ode to my favorite Auntie Jean, who could have a batch of scones on, between hearing the front gate groan and knocking on the front door.

And I've made some good mates throughout it. You're amongst them. The other Phil, the moustached one. Took most of those picture's.

Its all about paying it back. I've had some incredible tutors.

Regards Phil.

Well I for one think it impressive what has been achieved... 5 classes in a country of 22 million people and a not insignificant number of those people had to travel very long distances in a plane to get to the classes...

What is it about 60 people or so now that are a bit wiser on scraping and have the basic skills to work from... And we have seen on the local forum a few people that went to the class have used those new skills and no doubt there are quite a few quiet achievers as well...

Only sad thing is trying to explain to people what you actually did for the weekend... They just get that glazed look in their eyes...

They cannot understand that the only reason we live the way we do and can whizz to the moon or replace hearts and lungs in people is because of scraping.. Our entire modern existence is based upon Joseph Whitworth working out how to make something flat to previously unattainable limits... Without that great leap forward in accuracy that scraping allowed, without the finer and finer tolerances that today we take for granted we might still be living in the 1700's...

I'm going to tell you a story. Richard might get a laugh out of this. 2nd day, after lunch. We pull out the powered machines.

Preface: I've practiced and practiced my power mottling / frosting / flaking. I'm pretty proud of my patten, I can lay down with a Biax.

I gather the punters around, 11 blokes watching. I'm going to lay down a killer patten on a scrap of fly cut cast iron.

I proceed. It skates and slips left, leaving the worst pattern, I've ever seen. My associate Marko claims WTF are you doing? Grabs the HM10 Biax, and proceeds to skate right, and leave the second worst frosting pattern I've ever seen.

Turned out to be my fault. I brushed up all our gear before the class. I put all new counter sunk cap screws in all the holders.

Moral of the story. Dont ever put 12mm long screws in place of 10mm. The hang-out under the Biax clamp, had it skating on the screw end, rather than the tip cutting.

Made me look like a Dick Head.

Phil,

Credit to you for telling the story on yourself. Sometimes hard to own our screwups.

Question on the photos. Post 2, photo 3. It looks like checking squareness and maybe surface against the square. Is this a late stage check? My first impulse is that early on it's hard to quantify out-of-square with a contact test and one might want to use an indicator/comparator for square and blueing for flatness separately. I'd benefit from some explanation of process here.

TGTool said:

first impulse is that early on it's hard to quantify out-of-square with a contact test and one might want to use an indicator/comparator for square and blueing for flatness separately.

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G'day.

You're correct. Early on, you only get a line contact at the top or bottom of the edge. What's missing in the pictures, the plates were scattered with 1, 2 & 5 thou feeler gauge strips. Hopefully the 5 thou one doesn't go in any where. But with a 1 or two thou feeler, you can test if the top or bottom is feeler tight.

That helps show where the meat is, that you need to take off. And the first few cycles are blind scraping as you only have a small line of blue where it touch's the square reference.

I like the method, because its some thing you need to know when it gets to scraping gibs. A feeler will show you which end is tight.

I have a shop made square master here, but not many of the guys tried it. I'll try and find a photo.

Regards Phil.

(On edit).