A ROOT IN THE BIN.

I have been out insecting today and found nothing new. I did have a look in the files and found this Two Banded Longhorn Beetle. I have never been a one for saving images as there is usually something I don't like about them. Insects are particularly affected as very few people want an insect a metre wide on their wall and consequently I have only ever printed and sold one.

We have a big muck shift on at the moment and I have nothing to do with it but on my way over to see the horses I nearly had a whoopsy with one of the eight leggers carting muck up the single track road. After I had reversed for miles....well a couple of hundred yards.....I wound down my window for a chat with the driver. I thought he wanted directions. He was brilliant.

"What about these French fuckers wanting our fish Eh? 

"Just heard it on the radio."

"I'll tell youse something now. We have a wee ugly Sturgeon in Holyrood and the buggers are welcome to her."

With that he slammed his truck in gear and departed.

Just in case you need clarification on the Batflu nonsense.

STALKING.

Yesterday evening I looked out and Molly was trying to creep up on a deer. I had the wrong lens on the camera so missed the stand off bit.

She is getting closer.

She has no chance of catching it and I'm sure she couldn't manage a whole one if she did. 
It keeps her amused and this deer is used to the dogs so doesn't run far.
Have fun.

IT'S VERY BUSY HERE TODAY.

One of the New Hollands needs a clutch pack replacing. 

 
Not such a bad job as long as the tyres don't deflate whilst she's split. If they do then the two halves of the tractor will be out of alignment and it will be a real mauling job slotting it back onto the splines. Lots of "Oh bless my souls." "Well send me to the bottom of my Grandma's stairs." I have many other special words if these phrases don't do the trick. Last time I was involved in splitting a tractor it took a full day to get the bugger to line up and that was the little Zetor which weighs a third of this beast. 

Now what in the name of all that's Holy is going on here.

Looks exciting.

Looks like a posh pan mixer and a very smart mini-digger.

It's a big concreting job. I hate concreting and I've got a poorly back, toe, neck, knee and am terribly incapacitated by a debilitating attack of Idlitus. Fortunately there appear to be more than enough hands for the job and I would hate to get in the way. 
That's about it for today. I've finished the draft of the suspended table and the lassie popped round last night for a look. She has decided to increase it's plan view or footprint by a third. I can do that while she watches. She also asked if it could be made more decorative. Of course it can but first she has to find someone to make it for free. Pity the Technical Colleges were ditched in favour of silly stuff courses at pretend universities. Were they still to exist she would then have had access to loads of posh welders, plasma cutters, lathes, mills and testosterone filled young men who, if she kept out of the way and didn't distract them, would have built it for her quick sticks. I should have my bit done for the weekend and will colour it in and post a picture or two.

WHAT A DAY.

The rain has hammered down all day. I went to Aldi for some cooking oil, a pack of a dozen milk cartons and one of their malted bloomer loaves. I forgot my mask but it was fine, the lassie let me in which was very gracious of her. I also forgot that I have to go to Lidl for UHT milk in bulk. It's virtually next door in Cupar and Lidl have never paid anything but lip service to all the Batflu malarkey so I was fine just wandering in. I didn't risk Tesco.
I am surrounded by Stoats this year. This is where one was. Lightning fast little devils they are even in the rain.

Moll spotted it and has spent thirty minutes trying to find it.

Here she is nearing home after another fruitless hunt.....She is cleaner than I expected but very wet.

I still have five days to finish the table thingy and it's just as well as I still haven't worked out how to loft hollow sections along a path. There is a way it's just a bit of a problem finding it.
The Bezier curve tool is a dream to use in FreeCAD. The other thing I appreciate is that it's parametric so that one can edit anything in the tree on the left and it updates to the last operation which in this case is called Chamfer001. I should rename it to something sensible like crap tension bracket. This software is slowly getting to SolidWorks standard and it is free so a thousand or so pounds cheaper.

This is one of two tensioning arms one will be welded to the top frame and the other to the base. They will be made in four parts out of 3mm plate and TIG welded together. I don't like the shape so will sleep on this bit and see if I'm inspired in the morning. I'm tempted to go for a tapered 'T' section to match the top and bottom rings then if it fails the FEM analysis I can increase the vertical section of the 'T'. It looks naff like this.

I haven't an artistic bone in my body. Plenty of autistic ones so maybe I could ask to swap one or two. There really is no need to model this as from a manufacturing point of view I could just draw it. The problem with a drawing is that artistic folk need something that is 3D to criticise and since everybody now uses 3D CAD, folk are used to seeing a proper picture of the finished object. The plate I expect to be laser cut so it will have to be converted to CAD at some point for the laser machine to cut it. I'm wondering if it could all be fitted into a standard sheet of cold rolled mild steel. This is turning into a really good skill expanding project.

Here is the latest interpretation of what is expected from us sheeple. Give a round of applause to Andrew Lawrence.

This bloke helps keep me normal if not sane. Do folk still clap for BLM, the NHS? I suspect not, even idiots eventually realise that clapping and banging pans makes no difference to the efficacy of a killer virus. I see this is the two thousandth post I've done. Mostly shit so not worth pan banging for. 
Have fun.

A CHANGE.

There are few things I enjoy more than investigating the intricacies of CAD or 3D software, as recent visitors will know I am modelling a funny table. That job is coming together but having been granted a fortnight to do it I feel there is no rush. I need to be told. "Yesterday would be good." To get anything done on time. The lassie to her credit is following along with screen grabs but keeps getting in a muddle. Before you criticise try it. Not as easy as sketching on a bit of paper. Last email I got was.
"Fuck me. I wish I'd never started this."

FreeCAD is either getting much better or I am, I doubt it's the latter but I keep finding things it can do and playing. The lofting on a path is wonderful until one want's to add wall thickness. I can't do that bit yet, whatever I do it goes tits up. When I learn then it will be perfect for someone wanting an exhaust manifold doing, be even better were they paying for it.
 Clive who steered the 'Lassie of the Table' my way used to give me mundane tasks using SolidWorks and I really enjoyed doing stuff for him. When I got stuck I used to shout Clive, Debbie! One or the other would appear and with a couple of clicks my errors would be gone and a few more clicks from either of them and the job would be done. Made me feel superfluous and a little special needs or spastic as they phrased it. It's amazing how fast the job is and converting drawings to machine code is a matter of minutes. Selecting the right tool and tool path requires knowledge. It's all too easy to bust carbide tooling, I was middling good at picking feed, cut depth and cutting revs. Good but a little on the conservative side. Anyway I digress.

I suspect I'm turning into one of them. I have a Vegan meal on the stove. It's a Cajun fried cabbage. Cajun's are a bit odd as the cabbage is gently cooked in it's own juice not fried at all. Cajuns were from France.... This explains some of it.....Interbreeding could account for the rest. They are a bit like our Royals though I suspect most of the Royalty would struggle to Identify a cabbage in the round. Most Cajuns can and have the ability to cook and work banjos and fiddles. Not a skill set I've noticed in the Queen's progeny or her for that matter.

 Now we have a problem..............This is nearly Vegan..............Vegans will have to pretend  the smoked sausage and the little square bits of gammon are jack fruit, tofu or whatever shite they use to make them fart and feel self righteous. It's mostly peppers and onion and garlic and cabbage. Near enough vegan for anyone who isn't a pedant.

I think I'm turning into a Liberal. Liberals have much the same outlook as I do. They are for free choice.
Then I hear them.
They don't seem to want choice on schools, trade, health care, energy, plastic, which of the liberals are allowed little children to screw. So they are pervy twats. I think I am going to settle for being an almost Vegan. Sounds good. I could be a LiberalVeganabit. I suspect I will remain normal.
Have a great weekend or what's left of it.

DAFT AS A BRUSH.

Last weekend I fell for the charms of a young lady. She is doing some design course in Glasgow and had been round a few engineering companies to get a very strange table made. Needless to say they were not enthusiastic as she only had colour washed sketches and engineers are not at all keen on colour washed dimensionless drawings especially when presented by a young lass with a ring through her nose and her trousers arse hanging out. One of them suggested I had time on my hands and enjoyed messing with such stuff. I had never seen anything quite like it. This isn't her drawing but shows the general idea. She had wires, maybe a posh synthetic Kevlar/Carbon fibre cord would work. Who knows?

Her design is for a work station and is supposed to be elliptical in plan view. I did point out it will be a bit wobbly but looking at the job I think with enough tension on the chains the wobble could be reduced to a quiver. The original idea was to use cast iron....apparently it is all the rage. Hers, if she gets the finance to build it, will be fabricated. I pointed out that casting is very expensive for a one off and a prototype at that. The innocence of youth.

I have made a start on the job.

This is the base the horizontal bit can be laser cut in 10mm plate and the vertical bit MIG welded on from 8mm cold rolled strip. It measures 900mm x 400mm so the waste on the base would be horrendous. Probably make it in three pieces, maybe five. TIG it together and give it a good polish. No one would know. This is an oblong as it makes it easier to pick up centres for the support structure. One has to have equal tension on all four chains which is a real laying out bugger of a job. I wonder if she would settle for a triangular table. I doubt it as when I suggested an equilateral triangle she was making those funny noises women make....Like a snuffling up the nose whilst speaking and applauding ones efforts sort of thing. I think it means. 
"I understand you are doing your best but try harder."

I searched all over for a CAD drawing of chain but ended up having to create it as chain makers don't seem to give CAD images away. No need, unless you have an arty farty person as a client. This chain is to spec as they do provide a drawing. 

It will require four of these toggles to connect the chain to the top and bottom rings, The top ring which I've yet to construct will carry a sheet of either 6mm or 8mm posh glass cut to fit or so I'm told. I will need a fifth one of these to connect a short chain to the bottom support arm and another similar with a screw tensioner on it to go on the top one. 
Bearing folk are wonderful they give CAD stuff away.

This is perhaps overkill but I can see the chains having to take one hell of a load, at least 500kg if not a 1000kg. This is from AST Bearings but most bearing manufacturers supply CAD models. This bearing costs about a fiver if you buy fifty. If she popped round and smiled they'd most likely give her one.....Please excuse the expression.
I still have to create the support arms and the top ring. I'm trying to work out how best to fabricate them as there are many hours of machining and welding already. I will get the rest done before the weekend and then the fun starts with the FEM. Not the artist you pervs, FEM stands for Finite Element Method it shows stress/fail points in fabrications. Freecad supports FEM and once I get my tiny brain round how to use it I will find I have to pop a mini Acrow prop under her table or re-design lots of bits of it. I have a new project that has inspired me. Should be done with working drawings for a week on Sunday. 
I may be daft as a brush but Clive was unusually perceptive when he volunteered me for this job. I'm enjoying it.

This is the latest from Andrew Lawrence.

Have fun and smile at the stupid world we live in.

BIN DAY.

Monday is the start of the working week almost everywhere but here we have the added excitement of it being bin day. The bins have to be wheeled a couple of hundred metres down the hill as the bin people don't come up the last bit of the road.
First thing this morning I wandered out to do half their job for them and look what I found peeping at me.

Sitting on the tins and plastics bin was this lovely lady. She is a hoverfly one of the Syrphini or wasp imitators. If you look carefully you will observe a tiny dark spot in the middle of her eye. This is not muck but her pseudopupil and it tells you which of her ommatidia or eye lenses are watching you. Just behind the middle leg you may notice a cream coloured round disc. This is one of a pair of halteres. They allow the little beast to compensate for only having two wings., a counterbalance system.......Very posh.

Here she is in side elevation. I'm going to guess that she is a Syrphus ribesii, I'll amend the ID to Marmalade Hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus;  thank you Trevor. She's a beauty and all the better for not being plastered in pollen. I did try for a front view but the little sod flew off. 
Have a great week.

INSEX.

The dogs and I have been out this morning looking for something rare. Neither I nor the dogs found anything unusual but there were dozens of Bonking Beetles bonking away on Hogweed.

Common Red Soldier Beetles. Shameless they are.

This should make you smile.

Have a good weekend.

GOT MY EYE IN.

I popped out insecting again this morning and took a dozen shots and only two were fuzzy. Happy as a dog with two tails I was.

This is one of the Miridae. I think it may be a Common Green Capsid Bug but as is usually the case I have my doubts. It's about 6mm long and a very obliging little creature.

These are Pollen Beetles. They are very small and have wonderful antennae. I'll start taking the camera when I walk the dogs and see if I can find something rare. These will enlarge with a click.
That's all for now.

A FULL ROLL.

Yesterday I popped new batteries in the ring flash and wandered out to see what creepy crawlies I could find. There wasn't much about and what there were weren't tame and cooperative. I clicked almost twenty four frames and failed to focus on the bit I wanted to focus on. I was using the 5D and not the EOS. I have a prismatic focus screen in the latter which makes light work of macro focusing. These little Pollen beetles are very small, 2mm long at  best. They were also on Thistle heads which is something I've not noticed before. They are usually found on yellow things.....maybe these were colour blind.

It always takes a while for me to get my eye in using the MP-E 65mm lens also, like a Muppet, I'd forgotten to shut the aperture right down tiny small which on this lens is f16.  Not really small enough for best depth of field but it is what it is. I had a good check this morning and found the dioptre adjustment was way out, not something I thought to check as I'm usually too lazy to use manual focus. Ho hum life can be a bugger. I'll pop out this afternoon and try to get some better looking snaps. I'll then bump the magnification to three or four times and get really close in.
That's all.

I FOUND SOMETHING NEW.

This is a short post showing a nifty trick in FreeCAD. It made my day when I discovered it.

After a drizzly day the sun is now shining and I really ought to go out mowing but tomorrow is forecast fine so I'll do it in the morning.

Have fun.

BACK TO BASICS.

Over the last few days I have been downloading exercise projects from GRABCAD. It all started when I got the newest version or latest stable version of FreeCAD and found I could not remember either the workflow or shortcut keys. I have run through several test pieces and am slowly getting faster with fewer cuckoos.The drawings in the link above are for a SolidWorks course but that doesn't make them any the less useful. I shall do another half dozen and by then I will be either up to speed or have gone completely crackers.

This swing arm is as far as I've got. The next one I'll do will be basically the same but one of the arms is on the same plane as the keyed boss and the other is cranked. Before I start playing with original stuff this is what I'm aiming for.

When I can do this then I can start on my 2-Stroke engine. FreeCAD is much better than when I last used it for anything other than sheetmetal layout or 2D laser cutting. It is keeping me amused.

This morning I had my weekly run to the shops and thought I would have to wear a mask but fortunately I didn't as the only one I could find was a filthy thing that was last used when I blew the muck out of the combine. When I asked in the shop if I could be served sans mask the lassie said that Wee Nippy had forgotten to put the legislation through so no bother. She assumed that she had been too busy filling her expenses in and arranging for everyone to clap on her birthday. I think clapping is the wise option as a twenty one gun salute would most likely leave her vulnerable to a nasty accident.
Have a good weekend.
Nearly forgot. Something else boring that I eventually got round to fixing.

The Quad hitch that naughty Carole broke. All good as new again.

ANOTHER ONE.

I looked out this morning and through the mist and drizzle I saw double.

I do enjoy seeing them and they were quiet this morning.

As from tomorrow at midnight I will have to wear a mask when shopping. It is going to make the job very difficult as I've just located the masks a lady kindly stitched up for me. I had a practise run during breakfast this morning and I can't see it being a success, I put grapefruit juice in my coffee instead of milk. I suspect the seamstress is too young to remember the Lone Ranger as the daft bat had forgotten the eye holes. Things could be worse, it's a good job I don't drive a taxi.

A NOISY LITTLE BLIGHTER.

A couple of years ago they culled a score or so of deer as they were getting a real pest, wandering through the crops and stripping bark of trees. I was a bit slow and never thought to buy one for the freezer. The numbers are slowly building up again but they are not trashing the place so are fine for another year at least..... All bar this one who is barking outside my van at four in the morning.

What it's barking for at this time of the year I don't know.  At least it is on the fallow field and not in the barley, this despite it's being a Roe Deer and not a Fallow Deer. It must be an MGBGTXYZ Deer. Even I could have shot this one. You aim just below and to the left of it's front hip joint. A soft nosed 22 slug on a 303 cartridge does the rest. They are called Hornets and I suspect they will be banned as they work just as well on politicians.

This morning I was chatting to the lassie stocking the shelves in Aldi and she was moaning that all the 2m lines would have to be stripped off the floor and replaced with 1m lines. I suggested popping another bit of yellow tape between the existing ones. She looked a bit perplexed and then the penny dropped. Fucking hell, you must be a genius and yoose being English at that.... (Bloody racist Scots)..... I'll away and tell the manager and away she went with her nubile bum looking chirpier and livelier the nearer she got to the 'Staff Only' door.
 I know it's been a metre in England for a while but Wee Nippy has to exert what power she has and be as annoying as is possible with it. I can never tell how much of her nonsense is pure Bolshevism or whether she is genuinely Special Needs. In practice it makes little difference but apparently when the distance drops on Friday we will all have to wear masks. I think I'll see if I can find a Megan Sparkle or Lewis Hamilton mask, they being half black and half white I shouldn't upset anyone.

I have been quite busy, mowing in the day for few hours and after much thought I have a new project to occupy me for the rest of the time. Years and years ago Ferrari designed a wet sump supercharged two-stroke engine, it never came to anything as common rail injection and posh ECUs hadn't really got going. With modern processors, capacitors in plug leads, electronic ignition and multi stage injectors it ought to be possible to make a tidy engine with a respectable power band. I am playing with this idea. I am thinking of a three cylinder 600cc in line water cooled bike engine, it's that or a twin which could be converted to a V-four. I'll do a single first at about 125cc. Something to keep the little grey cells busy and not as boring as mowing, topping, horseing, sheep supervision or welding. We had a slight incident with a naughty dog chasing the new sheep but they are only being fattened so no real harm done but as I said to the lady with the bad dog had they been in lamb and near term it would have been shot, as the bloody things would have been dropping still born lambs left right and centre. Not shot by me, I like dogs and would most likely have missed and hit a sheep. The lady was very upset so I invited her to turn up with her dog, a lead and I would show the little tinker the error of it's ways. Dogs generally want to do nothing but please, an hour should see it sorted. It is a Spaniel so maybe two hours and a trip up the glen to see the Alpacas. Alpacas can be really funny buggers. Okayish when they get to know you but even then they can be a bit funny. They would sort a Spaniel quick sticks.
That's all.

I'VE BIN BIZZY.

I am up to date with all my jobs, paddock sweeper mended, quad tow hitch replaced with a new one and extended to take a pin and a ball hitch, it's shitty throttle cable replaced with a proper Bowden type cable with hard soldered ends, I had to pop the ends on but amazingly got aircraft spec cable with an outer built to the length I asked for and for twice the price of crap, got something that should last forever. We will survive with or without China, there are folk here and hereabouts that know what they are doing.
 We have new sheep on new grass. All jobs that didn't require heavy lifting. The job is a 'gud un' brilliant but without doubt something else will break.
 I have never understood why Quad manufacturers went from manual gearboxes to the Variomatic Dutch invented crap, all machines ought to be warmed up before use but the young just expect to jump on, start up and shoot off at full throttle. I expect I was just the same but I was told and told with a clip round the ear if I had to be told twice. I noticed the quad was a little snappy in reverse and I hate doing Variomatics but dislike them or not five grands worth of machinery can't be just scrapped for the sake of a days frustrating and really annoying labour.
I have got a bit sick of looking at the blog header winding it's way in and out of trees. This is just a first draught of something I'm pondering. A teaser.

I'm also thinking of moving to YouTube and this will animate very nicely. I am more interested in moving images these days and 3D stuff. I have a back catalogue of many middling high definition live insects which few folk now on Blogger appreciate, they go down a treat at the Rotary or W.I. I can understand that, it's knew to them. An MPE- 65 lens is a sod to work and shooting down a microscope is impossible with live subjects. It's far from easy with the MPE but makes a good slide show. The lens costs an arm and a leg used. 

I don't know what else I have to impart. It appears the 'Forensic' Starmer is no longer a fan of BLM. 

He was a fan of Jimmy Saville, or didn't prosecute him. If you are going to buy into a bandwagon then at least kick the tyres Kier. I could add get a descent suit, the lasses in Tesco dress better. What a tosser. Who advises these people? The answer is other tossers.
We may be getting a few hundred thousand Hong Kong folk but they will be for the most part a benefit and grateful. Even if a few Triad creep in they will make the others like the muslim and our anglosaxon peados think twice. What is it about these folk? Children can be attractive or down right ugly, they are without exception annoying. Sexual objects.........I just don't get it. They want a bit of lead in their ear do folk that sexualise children.  When one is a child it seems to take forever but as one hits the declining years it was over in seconds. 
That's all.