Knurling and the realisation of time...

I just realised that it's only one month until my phase 1 exams are over and this phase ends.  Then I go away to sea, and for how long I don't know.  I'm sure these next few weeks will fly by and I'll be sitting in the exams before I know it.  So, I need to spend quite a lot of my time over the next few weeks revising.  This week we have our last week of workshop, so I will be able to revise during the time I would be in workshop.  This will be a big help, as otherwise I would only have the evenings and weekends.  In addition to the exams I need to study quite a bit of navigation for when Emily and I go sailing.

Last week was much the usual, with workshop being particularly fun.  We continued turning our workpieces on the lathes.  The techniques we learned this week were knurling, chamfering, cutting internal and external threads, creating a taper and turning a length.  Photos shown below illustrate what external and internal thread, knurling and chamfer are.  The parts which are a different diameter to each other are where I have turned a length - i.e. I have turned it down to a specific diameter for a specific length.

Links:

• Knurling: http://www.technologystudent.com/equip1/knurl1.htm

• Drill internal hole for internal thread: http://www.technologystudent.com/equip1/mlathe4.htm

• Turning a short taper: http://www.technologystudent.com/equip1/mlathe2.htm

Finished piece - I've added a nut and a bolt to show the threads work.

Knurling gives grip so can be used to aid handling a tool - like on the handle of a ratchet driver.

So after looking at that you might think: what is it?  Well, it is an UAO - this stands for useless arbitrary object i.e. I just made it up.  It's just a combination of techniques put together, so no actual purpose. 

Talking of objects that have no purpose, I received my male and female fitting plates back last week.  These took me a very long time as I was being as precise as possible.   Consequently, they are very accurate, and if you hold them up to the light none shows through.  Our workshop instructor was very complimentary about them.  Photos shown below.

Not much news to add.  I just finished engineering drawing for the day.  We are currently practicing what we will do in the exam coming up.  I was timing myself to see how I'm doing and I ran out of time with about twenty minutes left of work to do.  The exam is three hours and it's pretty tight for timing, so I will work on getting faster over the next few weeks.  I will include a photo of the drawing on next entry hopefully.  Tonight I will push on with revision and some navigation studies too.