• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Hobbies 2023/24

Morturn said:
I’m building the 1:24 Airfix Spitfire at the moment. I am doing this one with both the engine and the guns exposed. It’s interesting how much of the whole plane the engine takes up, an absolute monster of an engine the Merlin was.

View attachment 178390
Click to expand...
Back in the late 80’s I spent a couple of days at McDonald Douglas in St Louis where they built the Harrier under license as well as other jet fighters. They were all basically flying engines!
 
Richard Dye said:
Back in the late 80’s I spent a couple of days at McDonald Douglas in St Louis where they built the Harrier under license as well as other jet fighters. They were all basically flying engines!
Click to expand...
That’s the impression I got when building this spitfire too.
 
Not my hobby yet but I thought I would show this here..

Microsoft invited me to try their New Bing Artificial Intelligence Image Creator - so I did.
I asked it to draw a dog reading the news on tv - not quite what I expected but ok ..
Screenshot (10).jpg
I then asked it to create a sepia photo of a Victorian wedding group - I thought not bad until I zoomed in and looked at their faces and their eyes ....:rolleyes:
Screenshot (14).jpgBing Wedding Group.jpg
 
One of my many interests are vintage lathes and I have six in total, here is a photo of a rare 24" Pittler C3 lathe, made in Leipzig Germany in 1894. For any lathe owners here I'll give a brief description. It has a very unusual construction with the leadscrew hidden inside the trapeze shaped bed, it uses a system of worms and worm wheels for screw and spiral cutting and has an automatic ball turning attachment that is powered by a universal joint among many other unusual things

Pittler C3 lathe.jpg
 
izzy eckerslike said:
One of my many interests are vintage lathes and I have six in total, here is a photo of a rare 24" Pittler C3 lathe, made in Leipzig Germany in 1894. For any lathe owners here I'll give a brief description. It has a very unusual construction with the leadscrew hidden inside the trapeze shaped bed, it uses a system of worms and worm wheels for screw and spiral cutting and has an automatic ball turning attachment that is powered by a universal joint among many other unusual things

View attachment 178933
Click to expand...
How long did it take you to train the worms and do you have to have specially bred ones or will common or garden worms do. Seriously though what a super bit of kit, it takes me back to the fifties and sixties when all the lathes had to be operated by an attendant human and there was thar oily smell in the air along with cigarette smoke. I ònce in he late sixties as rep for a finance company had to call on an engineer on the edge of Exmoor to discuss finance on the latest all singing all dancing lathe, which was going to cost him £6K, this was going in his new building, he took me into his existing machine shop and the first thing that struck me was the slap slap of belts, he had ten lathes of various sizes and ages, all belt driven from one overhead axle. The new machine was going to produce in one day what the belt driven machines did in a week. It all worked out very well, he eventually installed 8 of these units they worked 365/24/7 and made him and his staff rich.
Bob
 
Bob Davis said:
How long did it take you to train the worms and do you have to have specially bred ones or will common or garden worms do.
Bob
Click to expand...
_------------

It uses woodworms that have been sent on a compulsory muscle retraining programme :joy:

This type of lathe was used in small factories and were made so that one man could tend a whole row of machines producing the same item. The lathe would make one cut and then a trip lever would stop it and the workman would walk back and forth advancing the cut and resetting the trip lever. These lathes were so popular that workshops were called Pittleries and even today there is still a road called Pittlerstrasse in Leipzig where parts of the old factory still exist.
 
Last edited:
Bob Davis said:
How long did it take you to train the worms and do you have to have specially bred ones or will common or garden worms do. Seriously though what a super bit of kit, it takes me back to the fifties and sixties when all the lathes had to be operated by an attendant human and there was thar oily smell in the air along with cigarette smoke. I ònce in he late sixties as rep for a finance company had to call on an engineer on the edge of Exmoor to discuss finance on the latest all singing all dancing lathe, which was going to cost him £6K, this was going in his new building, he took me into his existing machine shop and the first thing that struck me was the slap slap of belts, he had ten lathes of various sizes and ages, all belt driven from one overhead axle. The new machine was going to produce in one day what the belt driven machines did in a week. It all worked out very well, he eventually installed 8 of these units they worked 365/24/7 and made him and his staff rich.
Bob
Click to expand...
The machine he bought was made by EMI, I think, I financed about 20 of them over Devon, Cornwall and Somerset over a two year period. They were a punch card operated unit and cost £K6 to £K7 per m/ c and became the go for unit at the time. Mods sorry if I have diverted from the thread.
Bob
 
Ospreys
For many years I have enjoyed watching the Ospreys at various sites in Scotland during our many holidays there. Due to age can no longer visit Scotland, but enjoy every day looking at the live videos of them on their nests. Whilst some of the sites have closed there is one run by the Scottish Wild life Trust called Loch of the Lowes. the pair of ospreys returned there on the 17th March and she laid her first egg yesterday, with more hopefully to follow. Last year I was fascinated to watch one of the eggs hatching and the her chicks growing up until all left at the end of August to return to Africa. I'm always amazed at the ability of these birds returning to the same nest year after year, after six months away, also to watch them on their return rebuilding their nests and carrying very large twigs to put on the outside of the nest to prevent the young ones falling out.
 
Morturn said:
I’m building the 1:24 Airfix Spitfire at the moment. I am doing this one with both the engine and the guns exposed. It’s interesting how much of the whole plane the engine takes up, an absolute monster of an engine the Merlin was.

View attachment 178390
Click to expand...
Crikey, it’s a bit of a step up from the 2/- kit of my day. I think that most of my pocket money drained away into Airfix’s coffers back in the early sixties. Having bought the kit, there was little left for paints, but I did my best. Christmas and birthdays enabled me to go a bit upmarket of course. After watching the programme about Hornby on TV, I feel an urge to return to the hobby, but my eyesight is too poor now I fear.
 
  • Appreciate
Reactions: RRJ
Apart from train spotting(great excitement if it's a NAMER),in 1950 there was a quite a craze for collecting cigarette packets.A lad at school,Neville Howard,collected about 200,which,by other vollectors,was regarded with admiration and envy.There were plenty about,along the roadside,at football matches,pretty much everywhere.I had,and still have,about 100,which I pasted into an exercise book.All smokers,hopefully now,ex smokers,may remember Players,Senior Service,Woodbines,Capstan(the full strength would rot your socks),Gold Flake and all the rest.Perhaps tbese fag packets may still have some value,if only in our memories.
Mind you,memories are all important,aren't they ?
Tojo.
 
waverlee said:
Apart from train spotting(great excitement if it's a NAMER),in 1950 there was a quite a craze for collecting cigarette packets.A lad at school,Neville Howard,collected about 200,which,by other vollectors,was regarded with admiration and envy.There were plenty about,along the roadside,at football matches,pretty much everywhere.I had,and still have,about 100,which I pasted into an exercise book.All smokers,hopefully now,ex smokers,may remember Players,Senior Service,Woodbines,Capstan(the full strength would rot your socks),Gold Flake and all the rest.Perhaps tbese fag packets may still have some value,if only in our memories.
Mind you,memories are all important,aren't they ?
Tojo.
Click to expand...
Tojo, great memories, NAMER!!! I also used to collect cigarette packets. Some of my best finds were in the gutter covered in leaves walking home.
 
My main hobby was and still is model railways (although trainspotting was important when loco-hauled trains were the norm), resulting in a OO gauge layout called 'Birmingham Great Queen Street'.
I tried ON30 model railways and liked it but found it needed too much space, so had a go with 009 Narrow Gauge and found that much too small for the aging eyes and fingers.... so have stuck with OO.
 
Birdwatching, generally at Upton Warren and sometimes at Slimbridge. I bought a long lens when I retired and I'm learning to photograph waders and other waterside birds. I volunteer at Upton Warren. In lockdown I developed my skills in identifying wild flowers in bloom and took an interest in insects, bats and fungi.

Avocet at Upton Warren.jpeg
 
Stokkie said:
Birdwatching, generally at Upton Warren and sometimes at Slimbridge. I bought a long lens when I retired and I'm learning to photograph waders and other waterside birds. I volunteer at Upton Warren. In lockdown I developed my skills in identifying wild flowers in bloom and took an interest in insects, bats and fungi.

View attachment 179460
Click to expand...
Stokkie, how long a lens did you buy? My longest is 18 to 300 which is quite good but wondering about something longer. I use a Sony A6000.
 
Richard Dye said:
Stokkie, how long a lens did you buy? My longest is 18 to 300 which is quite good but wondering about something longer. I use a Sony A6000.
Click to expand...
Richard, I use a Fuji 100-600 these days. It is light compared to Nikon or Canon. APS C like your camera. At the Warren, I'm generally in a hide so a longer lens helps to reach the birds. Camera is Fuji X-H2S which is light too. For your Sony 400 or 600 would give you more reach, but there's a trade off in weight and money. The long zooms are generally slow lenses like mine F5.6-8, but IBIS makes it more usable. Depends how close you can get.
 
Last edited:
Stokkie said:
Richard, I use a Fuji 100-600 these days. It is light compared to Nikon or Canon. APS C like your camera. At the Warren, I'm generally in a hide so a longer lens helps to reach the birds. Camera is Fuji X-H2S which is light too. For your Sony 400 or 600 would give you more reach, but there's a trade off in weight and money. The long zooms are generally slow lenses like mine F5.6-8, but IBIS makes it more usable. Depends how close you can get.
Click to expand...
I had looked at a 600 fixed lens, but I like the variable length. 300/600 would work but I need to do a little touch and feel!
 
Richard Dye said:
I had looked at a 600 fixed lens, but I like the variable length. 300/600 would work but I need to do a little touch and feel!
Click to expand...
As you know the fixed lenses offer wider aperture, but at a considerable price. But I think Sony or perhaps Sigma variable length might suit?
 
I have had for sometime a Nikon Coolpix P900 with 83X zoom. Looked the other day and noticed there was a P1000 out with a 125X zoom at the cool price of a thousand quid !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top