Workshop Practice

[David Morris]

Hi All,

Talking about days gone by reminds me of my college days on day release. Although I did an HNC course in Applied Physics, we had to have a basic knowledge of mechanical engineering. So, it was down to the basement of the college for the last period of the day, where the workshop was situated. One task that I won't forget in a hurry was to first file a perfect square of brass plate about 2 inches square and 1/8th inch thickness. The instructor had to pass your work at every stage. Failure involved going back to square one! Secondly, we had to scribe this out with scribe lines about 1/8th inch apart and centre punch each intersection, having firstly made our own centre punches on the lathe, complete with cross hatching.

Then we had to drill holes through the brass plate at each intersection. The strict but fair instructor mandated the drill size so that each hole very nearly 'ran' into the adjacent one, or it did if you had incorrectly scribed the plate in the first place, or didn't get the centre punching exactly on the intersection of the scribe marks. It made you realise quite a lot on how to make a drill bit move a bit if you angled the work piece slightly when the instructor wasn't looking! If your holes did intersect each other, it was back to the beginning again, there was no escape!

Another task was to gas weld a small steel box, about 2" by 4". The metal was about 22 SWG flat plate. When nearly completed, you had to half fill this with water. The test was to ensure that the box was entirely square on all edges and that it didn't leak any water! The instructor would shake it, to make sure!

Happy days!

All the best,

David