O/T:- Trump

[Old_pie]

Cap off to you mate. Anybody RR trained are as good as anyone in their field. If it was on aero engines possibly a question you could answer for me (as an apprentice fitter that once was, and still is, interested in mech. engineering). I'm sure an old RR aero man once told me that the spiral spinners in the jet engines are turned by hand to make sure they do not catch the housings during production. Should the 'fins' be out of tolerance they are hand filed until acceptable tolerances are achieved. Is this true? Brilliant if it is.

Yes it was Derby. I think the old RR aero man was pulling one. The spiral spinners as far as I know are simply to warn you that something is spinning and not to go near else you'll get sucked in and come out as cooked hamburger filling the other end. That isn't to say there wasn't some final hand finishing (though I'd be surprised) but I don't see how the spirals would help with that.

We had to spend about 3 months in the apprentice shop. Lathes, millers, shapers etc etc though I'd already done a 6 week vacation session at Raleigh a couple of years earlier (that, for those that think life was easy was how we were expected to spend most of our summer holiday whilst at Uni. Making a perfect cube of mild steel with a hacksaw, file and micrometer. The following year was 6 weeks in a coal fired power station, grant you it was in Genoa which was nice but it was still work every day.

Cap off to those who could get the best out of those workshop machines, and similarly the cabinet and pattern makers. Skills not appreciated by many. My main problem was patience. Once I'd got the idea I'd want to move on to something else.

[Lullapie]

Indeed our circles were different. I spent the mid-late 60's at University with a wide range of cultures and colours. The only ones I didn't like much were the Iraqi and Kurds and that was nothing to do with their skin colour. The Persians were fine. After doing engineering at RR (Derby) I went to Aussie land where I was the new "Pommie Barsteward" but invited and involved in everything so all taken as banter and I'd take the mickey at their aerial ballet (Aussie Rules). Time then spent in Papua New Guinea so anything from brown to jet black there.

Guess I've been lucky not to see racism at its ugly worst and maybe I have a softer approach to what may upset some folk.

(A reply to Elite) The fact is that racism is world wide. The caste system in India is alive and strong today as ever. The Sikhs are some of the best exponents of this. When I lived in the UK, my business introduced me to many Sikhs and Hindus. The Hindus were down to earth and got on with stuff. The Sikhs were very 'high-end' and believed they were better than everybody else. I still loved 'em both, but I always felt there was was that underlying thing that the Sikhs felt they were a class above.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law lived and worked in Zambia in the late 60's and early 70's and were initially shocked by the tribal racism and nepotism that happened there. After a while it becomes the norm. My mother-in-law can speak Bemba (main language in Zambia), but still refers to some of the people there as 'blackies' - the name given to the lower classes by the 'top-end' Zambians, who were also non-white.

That is the problem with South Africa. When Apartheid was in place, the whites were the common enemy for many black South Africans (not all I hasten to add). Once Apartheid collapsed, tribalism came to the fore and the country fell into turmoil. Racism is as bad there today as it ever was under an Afrikaans government, but this time it is black on black.

Racism is practiced by ALL races. Nobody is exempt. It is just a case that if your daily ritual is just about earning enough money to feed your family, you seem to worry less about who you offend or being offended. As we get more 'comfortable', we seem to spend more of our time getting offended on other peoples' behalf.

If you've never worked outside of the UK, it is hard to understand how the rest of the world live. Two weeks in Benidorm a year doesn't make someone an expert on racial relations and you can't learn everything from a book. Working in another country is the best way to see how their society functions - great post Old Pie.

[seriouspie]

Yes it was Derby. I think the old RR aero man was pulling one. The spiral spinners as far as I know are simply to warn you that something is spinning and not to go near else you'll get sucked in and come out as cooked hamburger filling the other end. That isn't to say there wasn't some final hand finishing (though I'd be surprised) but I don't see how the spirals would help with that.

We had to spend about 3 months in the apprentice shop. Lathes, millers, shapers etc etc though I'd already done a 6 week vacation session at Raleigh a couple of years earlier (that, for those that think life was easy was how we were expected to spend most of our summer holiday whilst at Uni. Making a perfect cube of mild steel with a hacksaw, file and micrometer. The following year was 6 weeks in a coal fired power station, grant you it was in Genoa which was nice but it was still work every day.

Cap off to those who could get the best out of those workshop machines, and similarly the cabinet and pattern makers. Skills not appreciated by many. My main problem was patience. Once I'd got the idea I'd want to move on to something else.

Thanks mate .... although it was the actual spinning 'fins' I was referring to, not the painted spiral warning sign that shows the 'fins' are moving. I couldn't agree with you more about the skills of time served machinists (Turners & Millers etc) and the other machines you didn't mention ie Vertical & Horizontal borers, Planers and others. In my day at Manlove Alliott the small machine shop lathes were all belt driven and rattled like hell when all the belt shafts were turning. You are so right about the skills learned .... but tongue in cheek, I'll bet the cube you were sawing and filing was cut from square bar so you only had to work on two ends!!! The best example of hand filing I ever saw was on a visit once to Moore & Wrights works in Sheffield. The test was to get two pieces of mild steel flat bar and file and scrape them using Prussian blue to show the high spots until the two faces of the bars could be placed together and lifted up with them 'sticking' together momentary owing to the two faces mating perfectly and friction taking over.

Easy to say now it's long over but all apprentices worked the 44 hour week in my day with only the two day bank holidays and annual two week shutdown for summer holidays off work. Your comments about the other tradesmen is so true, the lads in the pattern shop were brilliant working to tolerances in wood as we had our own foundry and then there were the copper and tin smith apprentices we also had. Few of the lads went to Uni in my day as it was mostly three nights of night school followed later by day release as you progressed. Another thought from way back then. All this concern today about climate change and diesel fuel. Nottingham City Transport had a great fleet of trolley buses serving all parts of the city and suburbs. Still in my opinion a better bet than the tram system we have today. Yes on reflection Nottingham was a great manufacturing city from fags to bikes, from textiles to drugs, from coal to telecommunications and trained some great tradesmen. Finally and personally I still think some of the best (apart from RR) fitters, designers and machinists were the lads involved in producing looms for the lace industry. All those moving precision parts that made up such machinery ..... fantastic. I go on so apologise - but a thought has entered my head purely out of nostalgia. I think I'll enquire to Wollaton Hall concerning volunteering to help run and maintain their steam engine collection. I'm a bit too old to physically do the hard graft but I'd love to don a proper boiler suit again, have the traditional piece of rag in my pocket and be an oil and grease monkey during this summer when they fire up.

[SwalePie]

If you've never worked outside of the UK, it is hard to understand how the rest of the world live. Two weeks in Benidorm a year doesn't make someone an expert on racial relations and you can't learn everything from a book. Working in another country is the best way to see how their society functions - great post Old Pie.

Spot on. Well said.

[Old_pie]

I go on so apologise - but a thought has entered my head purely out of nostalgia. I think I'll enquire to Wollaton Hall concerning volunteering to help run and maintain their steam engine collection. I'm a bit too old to physically do the hard graft but I'd love to don a proper boiler suit again, have the traditional piece of rag in my pocket and be an oil and grease monkey during this summer when they fire up.

Papplewick Pumping station, Great Central railway Loughborough? Tram Museum at Crich (bit far out)? There must be a few places where traditional skills are still welcomed.

[seriouspie]

Papplewick Pumping station, Great Central railway Loughborough? Tram Museum at Crich (bit far out)? There must be a few places where traditional skills are still welcomed.

Thanks Old'un but have had a response from Wollaton Hall and going to have a chat on Sunday morning with their museum Technical director, an ex steamship chief engineer. Exactly what you said, they are looking for people with the old basic traditional skills to pass on to interested volunteer helpers who have no mechanical engineering skills but wish to help out where they can.

[sidders]

To return to the original intention of this fred, Trump has made a total cnut of himself in Davros today and I don't usually resort to invective on here. A girl less than a quarter of his age made him look the fool he is. He's either incredibly stupid or intentionally telling lies to the fools who will elect him because you can't have an expanding economy a la Trump without spoiling the environment.
No, President Trump, it's not about optimism and pessimism, it's about scientific facts. The world is burning or do you think what's happening in Aussie land is down to random arsonists? Climate change deniers have no credibility left.
His stance on this is what it makes him the worst leader since Hitler. At least Pol Pot didn't threaten the entire planet.

[jackal2]

No, President Trump, it's not about optimism and pessimism, it's about scientific facts. The world is burning or do you think what's happening in Aussie land is down to random arsonists? Climate change deniers have no credibility left.

Speaking as someone who isn't a climate change denier, but who thinks we've got f*ck all chance of achieving the globally coordinated action needed to reverse it even if we are the main cause of it...

The problem in Australia is not how the fires started, but the lack of barriers or breaks to stop it spreading. They had the same problem in Portugal the other year, where in that case lazy or often absent landowners didn't properly manage and maintain the boundaries and breaks between their land, meaning that when fires started they spread like, well, wildfire, through eucalyptus trees in particular.

In Australia it's not so much a case of landowners being lazy, although I'm sure there will be a few. Rather, they've been legally restricted from conducting the managed burn offs in the winter/cold season that usually maintain the fire breaks, ironically enough on the pretence that the managed burn offs would put too much CO2 in the atmosphere. I suspect there's a hell of a lot more now!

[Elite_Pie]

The problem in Australia is not how the fires started, but the lack of barriers or breaks to stop it spreading. They had the same problem in Portugal the other year, where in that case lazy or often absent landowners didn't properly manage and maintain the boundaries and breaks between their land, meaning that when fires started they spread like, well, wildfire, through eucalyptus trees in particular.

But don't you think that's down to the historical risk rather than the current risk? It's easy to say what should have been done with the benefit of hindsight, but not so easy to splash your own cash on the basis of what little Donald calls "doom and gloom predictions". That's why it falls to governments to take the lead rather than individuals. Surely with the mounting evidence and potential catastrophic consequences, it's better to adopt a safety first approach rather than bury your head in the sand like Trump is doing?

[jackal2]

But don't you think that's down to the historical risk rather than the current risk? It's easy to say what should have been done with the benefit of hindsight, but not so easy to splash your own cash on the basis of what little Donald calls "doom and gloom predictions". That's why it falls to governments to take the lead rather than individuals. Surely with the mounting evidence and potential catastrophic consequences, it's better to adopt a safety first approach rather than bury your head in the sand like Trump is doing?

The problem in the case of Portugal was that the Government didn't take the lead. They turned a blind eye to landowners' deliberate or careless disregard for existing land management regulations, so the fire breaks disappeared and catastrophe occurred.

In Australia the Government and the legal system did take the lead by restricting controlled burn-offs, but the outcomes suggest their policy was wrong. They probably should have listened more to the Aborigines rather than the modern environmental lobby whose short-term thinking and opposition to a bit of controlled burning led to a lot of uncontrolled burning, irrespective of whether the fires were caused by arsonists or the climate.

As for Donald Trump, maybe he genuinely doesn't believe in climate change, in which case he's entitled to that opinion even if the majority of people and significant numbers of the scientific community interpret the facts differently. Or maybe he privately shares my view that we're going to hell in a handcart whatever we do, in which case his strategy might be to govern and live unashamedly for the short-term. Either way, the voters of the US will ultimately decide whether his judgement is worth trusting or not. I don't waste too much energy worrying about things I don't control, because it would increase my breathing rate and add more CO2 to the atmosphere!