New Look for Journeyman’s Workshop

Journeyman
The New Look Front Page
The New Look Front Page

If you have visited before, you will have noticed that the website has undergone a bit of a radical redesign. The old cign.org and journeymans-workshop.uk addresses have been relegated and the new address journeymans-workshop.uk is working for the whole site. No information has been lost during the changeover, well at least I don’t think I’ve lost anything and all the original pages and articles still exist. I have no doubt that there are some errors here and there with the CSS but I will track them down eventually. It is a bit tricky as the CSS is shared by both the static bit of the site and the WordPress bit.

The theme for WordPress is all my own work, alright I admit to using the Underscores starter theme but the rest is all mine! It has taken quite a few weeks to get everything working fairly smoothly, even though I am not using any of the complicated bits of WordPress. Knitting a static site and a blog together is not easy when the little grey cells are not used to thinking code.

The new layout is responsive and should work on phone, tablet, laptop or big screen desktop. Unfortunately to get the old pages to work they needed a bit of tweaking which took quite some time but all is now complete. Some of the original images look a bit small but changing those will take much longer! I have also made a switch from standard HTML pages to PHP which made the integration with WordPress a little easier.

Enjoy the new.

WM250 Oil Change

Journeyman
Inside the gearbox
Leadscrew Gearbox

The leadscrew gearbox was getting a bit low on oil and as the oil was still the original I decided an oil change was in order. Nothing too complicated but it led on to another small mod to the lathe which I wrote up for anyone who needs new oil.

WM250 Maintenance

Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition

Journeyman

I made the effort at the weekend to drive the 80 odd miles to Leamington Spa to attend the Midlands Model Engineering exhibition. There were a good number of trade stands there and my wallet was a bit lighter on the way home. I did take a few photos but I only had my phone with me and the quality of most shots was fairly poor.  It is also difficult to line up good shots, when like most exhibitions, the stands are fairly crowded although it seemed to thin out a bit in the afternoon.

tractiion engine
Burrell Traction Engine

Got a reasonable shot of a Burrell traction engine and also of it’s smaller sibling a 3″ scale model, being one of the good turnout provided by the National Traction Engine Trust who were visiting the show for the first time.

3" Scale Burrell Traction Engine
3″ Scale Burrell Traction Engine

Model Engineering clubs were well represented there being some 40  club stands showing a fine selection of work. One that caught my eye was the Knightcote Model Boat Club who had an excellent display which the photo does not do justice.

model stand
Knightcote Model Boat Cub

All in all a good day and well worth a visit, definitely on the calendar for next year.

2014 Show Guide

Maurice’s Mods

Journeyman
engraved scale
Engraved Topslide Clamp Plate

Maurice Duckworth contacted me from Cumbria with an interesting modification to the four bolt clamp plate for the WM250 lathe. The main benefit of which is an easily readable protractor scale for setting over the topslide. Maurice engraved the scale on the lathe without using a rotary table or dividing plate and his method could readily be used in the production of any type of dial or scale.

Also included in Maurice’s e-mail was an ingenious method to disengage and thereby silence the leadscrew change gear train. Included in this project was a description of how to make professional looking labels.

Without further ado I contacted Maurice and he sent me the necessary photos,  text and permission to publish .

Maurice’s Mods.

Toolmakers Clamps

Journeyman
Toolmakers Clamp
75mm Toolmakers Clamp

I wanted a smaller toolmakers clamp so made a couple. Not so much a project more of a “projette”. I thought I would document the making and add it to the site. I think it took longer to write the web page than it did to make the clamps.

Anyway these clamps are always useful and easy to make. I made some at school – about 50 years ago – and they are still going strong.

Toolmakers Clamps

Budapest Transport Museum

Journeyman

Should you happen to be in Budapest with a few hours to spare then it is worth taking a look at the Közlekedési Múzeum  Budapest Transport Museum. Set at one corner of City Park it has some interesting exhibits ranging from full size locomotives to model ships.

Clayton Steam Engine
Clayton & Shuttleworth Portable Engine

One of the museum attendants was explaining the portable engine to me and I mentioned it was made in England, “Ah!” he said, “But the horse is Hungarian.”

Some of the larger exhibits including a rather good paddle steamer engine complete with paddles are set in the grounds where there is a small cafe should you be in need of refreshment.

There are many large scale locomotive models in cases which are great to look at but difficult to photograph. There is however no restriction on photography. There are a few working model railway layouts and plenty of interesting railway related items. Most of the information labels are in Hungarian with a few english translations here and there.

A few more photos of mine here – Nautical Ramblings.