Why do the simple jobs go wrong.......

That's fine with me ;-) Erik-Jan.

Yeah - I have the same 'problem' with the rather tatty 110.

btw: 'communications systems' sounds rather grand, I do the odd bit of network cabling installation.

Aye - the office ain't quite so bad, but having a flash motor really rubs their noses in it when you visit.

Hah! I've just got back from one of my IT clients offices where I was sorting out a recalcitrant firewall. I took my ratty 1963 Series IIa because it looked like it needed to be used. True to form it marked it's territory in their carpark so I'll expect some feedback about that tomorrow. ;-)

I'll let me dad know (another SIIa owner who's had one from new) although he's probably a wee bit old for you ;-)

It just keeps getting better. :P

Many a fine tune is played on an old fiddle etc... :-)

BSP rules in diving circles.

Because of the need for backward compatibility people have kept using the threads they started with so the DIN fitting is a 5/8" BSP thread and I have Russian military kit with 1/4" BSP filling junctions.

nigelH

On or around Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:24:04 +0000, Steve Taylor enlightened us thusly:

they're not all manky. I susepct that it's not worthwhile for the elcheapo manufacturers to make nonmetric stuff. with the exception of that easibolt threaded rod which seems to come in metric or whitworth.

On or around Tue, 31 Jan 2006 10:02:37 +1000, "Karen Gallagher" enlightened us thusly:

I could have done that. If it was a late series III.

I think Spring is fast approaching.

Oh I don't know, I used to dress up in suit, tie, trousers, shoes, big "city boy" overcoat etc and go off to destroy the networks of large blue-chip companies in a tatty red Defender 110 pickup with a rag top and snorkel, covered in mud. I got a few double-takes when I jumped out in car parks dressed in the gladrags. I stopped using the landy in the end as the mileage wasn't kind to the truck, the fuel was expensive, it was often hard to find a car park that would take the truck and I ripped two pairs of trousers getting in and out!

I was "asked" to remove my 109 hard top (in fetching silver with jam sandwich stripes) from the front of Rolls-Royce in Crewe - it got me out of going to any more endless boring software meetings!

On trips to MIRA it was a positive boon - one Software Reliabitlity seminar opened with a rather irritating bloke asking, "Ok, so who here hasn't got at least one microprocessor in their car?"

"Er, me!"

"Ah! But what about the radio!"

"What radio?"

"Oh Bum"

It completely threw him off the track of the rest of his rather pompous "breifing".

Later I went for aninterview for a contract in Bradford in my very muddy 110. The place was a Yuppie House, and I knew immediately I had no intention of taking the job, but had to go through the motions to keep the agency sweet. As ever when you really don't want the job the interview went swimmingly until he said I wouldn't be able to park "That" in the staff car park. This gave me the perfect excuse to tell him what I though of him. The idiot kept ringing for

Happy days!

Richard

Mother"

On or around Sun, 29 Jan 2006 19:32:54 +0000 (UTC), "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

you can get metric bolts made by GKN, of course...

and as to BSP... the BS lot did threads for everything. trouble was, a lot of foreign people didn't agree :-)

steam engines tend to be whitworth...

In article , Austin Shackles writes

Isn't it supposed to be the easiest thread form to tap in cast iron?

Regards,

Simonm.

Whitworth is better for cast iron simply because it is coarser. What you have to remember about Whitworth is that he was the first person to standardise threads. Before him each bolt and nut was hand made to match and the nut had to be kept with the thread. The other thing to remember about Whitworth is that the pitches were designed when the usual material for bolts and nuts was wrought iron (this is why the nut/head size of Whitworth these days, when steel is usual, is a size smaller). The ideal thread form and pitch depends on the application and material, but modern practice is to use the compromise USO metric on the basis that standardisation is a bigger advantage than fine tuning the physical advantages. JD