[Jeroen]

I have been to a few car shows the last couple of weeks. I used to come home from these with tools and parts. Not so anymore. These days I'm on the lookout for cools signs for my garage. I keep adding to the collection

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These are all very simple replica's. Original enamel sign are unbelievably expensive these days. Easily Euro 150-250 for a medium size sign. I want originality on my cars, but on my signs I am perfectly happy with these tin ones, newly made!

[Jeroen]

Some nice additions to the workshop.

This here is technically sold to catch oil. It is very sturdy and even with warm oil it will keep it’s shape. I already have two special oil canisters, but the the reason I bought this one as it will slide underneath my Alfa Spider and will help me catch and re-use the cooling liquid. The radiator needs to come out in order to replace the two V-belts, so this will come in handy.



A little pneumatic angle grinder. Very handy for cutting bits and pieces on a car or general DIY work




Couple of mesh brushes in various sizes that will fit various of my drills.



A very nifty hammer with detachable and exchangeable heads, copper, aluminium, etc. Very handy too.



Finally, I got me one of these little portable acetylene welding kits. They are very handy. Obviously for some simple welding and soldering. But also to heat up parts.

Very simple set, complete with goggles, igniter, and I bought a set of welding rods as well.



At some point in time I will get a proper electric (TIG) welder. But for now, this will do me fine.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

This here is my workbench. The previous owner left it for me. I am quite happy with it, right size, right height. Just one thing; Its top is made of wood. When working on car parts that is far from ideal.

Car parts are often greasy/oily. And you also want to be able to work on parts on a very clean surface. E.g. taking your brake callipers apart, or a clutch cilinder.



So I decided to get myself a new steel top. Went on line and found several places that provide all sort of sheet metal. In the end I decided on a steel plate, cut to the identical size as the wooden top, made out of what is known as continuous thermal galvanised. It means effectively it has a surface treatment that withstand corrosion (rust) and is also pretty robust when it comes to scratches.

Order the plate on line and delivery to my home.

It arrived the next day on its own pallet:



Always surprised how cheap this is. This is not a small parcel. The plate alone weighs almost 40 kg, then the pallet and they deliver it the next day right on your doorstep for less than 20 Euro’s.

The only other thing I needed was a large drill bit. My vice is held in place by 10 mm bolts and the largest steel drill bit I had was 9 mm. So got me a 11mm proper drill bit.



Took the vice off, put the plate on, marked the three holes for the vice, took the plate off, drilled the three holes, put the plate back on and bolted the vice back on.

Looks really good, I am very pleased with it!!

[Jeroen]

Last weekend I took a nice Bicycle ride to Gouda, About 90 km in all. This route also take me past my favourite tool shop. Of course, I had to stop. I don’t think I have gone in here without buying anything.

The real expensive stuff was this special glue/Cement. Those of you who follow my other thread http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-do...-spider-3.html know I have been having some problems with one of the clips on the air filter of my Jaguar. It broke off. I have had two attempts with two different glues. Last one seem to work for several months, but it has come undone again!



So back to the drawing board as they say. This one came highly recommended, so I will give it a go later this week or so.

Next a couple of punches. I know I have a few of these, but for the life of me, I can’t find them, this set of four was less than 2 Euro. A cup of coffee costs more!.

I also saw some of this steel wool. Not sure if that is available in India. In essence similar to sanding paper. But I find it works particularly well on steel surfaces.

And two more boxed with bit and pieces. One has different size Parkers and speed nuts. (you will find these on almost any car). The other box is an assort of rivets. I only needed one particular size, fairly small. But then I found out that the whole box cost less than a tiny bag of rivets back home at our local DIY centre.

So I won’t be running out of rivets any time soon.



I will be doing the various odd jobs on my cars over the next few weeks. Nothing big. (touch wood!!!)

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Some more new additions to my tools: Both these items were on special this week, so I could not resist.

I already had a pair of safety goggles, but as I also wear normal glasses I never felt they fitted very comfortable. This face mask is a lot easier to put over your face with glasses on and works fine.

On the left a new vacuum blake bleeder unit. Quite neat. You hook this thing up to a compressor. The high pressure air is led through ejectors creating a vacuum. So you effectively “pull or suck” the brake fluid out through each bleeding nipple on each wheel. There is also a reservoir to automatically replenish the reservoir on the master cilinder. I will be putting it to the test in a few weeks, as I need to prepare my Spider for its long drive to the UK and Wales end of August. And I want to refresh and flush the brake fluid.



In theory using vacuum is better than my other system that uses pressure. Under vacuum any trapped micro air bubbles will come out.

So we will see! It was very cheap I must admit, but if it works, it works!

[Jeroen]

Yesterday we went to see my eldest son and his partner. They bought a new house a few months after us. So they are still busy working on it, but things are finally coming to an end.

My son had bought these little floodlights. Incredibly powerful, comes with a rechargeable battery and an adapter. As he is done with them he gave them to me.

They will come in very handy working under cars etc. I have already used them, when flushing the brake system on my Spider.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Love the floodlights. Have been wanting like that for a while, in case of emergency (eg flood) work in our garden. Have seen here in UK, but don't know if I'll have baggage space.
(have already bought a decent set of drill bits and some beautiful Swiss files )

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Love the floodlights. Have been wanting like that for a while, in case of emergency (eg flood) work in our garden. Have seen here in UK, but don't know if I'll have baggage space.
(have already bought a decent set of drill bits and some beautiful Swiss files )

These particular ones are actually fairly small. But I was surprised on how powerful they are.

You probably know these guys: https://www.machinemart.co.uk

Maybe not the best quality tools, but a good quality / price and quite a range of tools too. They have all sorts of flood lights too:

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clar...rk-light-230v/

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Thanks!
I don't really know the UK or Co.uk scene.

Visited two really interesting tool shops last week, one huge place near Twickenham, and one jewellers' tools specialist in Hatton Garden

Edit: D&M tools Twickenham and HS Walsh, Hatton Garden

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Love the floodlights. Have been wanting like that for a while, in case of emergency (eg flood) work in our garden. Have seen here in UK, but don't know if I'll have baggage space.
(have already bought a decent set of drill bits and some beautiful Swiss files )

You get these flood lights off aliexpress. Lots of options.Search for 'Outdoor portable floodlight'. Check out once!

[Thad E Ginathom]

Thanks. I'll look into that when I get back to India.

[Jeroen]

I have just returned from five days driving around UK, Isle of Wight and Wales in my Alfa Romeo Spider, together with my good friend and spanner mate Peter.

More about that trip in a separate thread to come.

We visited the International Autojumble at Beaulieu. A huge car event, mainly 2500-3000 market stalls with tools, parts and lots of auto-mobilia.

I managed to pick up three “vintage” measuring devices. The first two are pretty straight forward multimeters. Still working. But the third piece is a real gem. It is an Oscilloscope, two channels.

I asked the guy: Does it work? He answered: I plugged it into the mains and a little blue blip appeared on the screen.

Good enough for me!

I do own a scope, but for the life of me I don’t know where it is. What with all the moving around. There are still some odd hundred boxes in the loft of my garage left to unpack. In theory all stuff belonging to my wife. Allure hobby stuff, Barbies and playmobil. I have been missing a few things, so who knows.

Anyway, I need to change the plug, find a manual as it has been a while since I have been using a scope. But for working on electronics it is handy and some of my workshop manuals do call for having a basic scope at the ready

If it doesn’t work, I will still keep it as I think it looks cool as an ornament in my workshop! It was priced as a cheap non functioning ornament I would say. I was just checking the internet for some documentation and found this one on Ebay. It is working and they are asking Euro 524 for it! https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Telequipment...item1ec32f587c

The two multimeters were a steal. The little one, sold for one pound, the large one for a tenner. I have at least half a dozen electronic modern multimeters. But again, I just like these old big beast. I doubt I will use them, but they look very nice on the shelves in my work shop!



Jeroen

[R2D2]

Having kitted myself with a few DMMs and clamp meters, I've been mulling over getting an oscilloscope to do some low level checks and troubleshooting.

Forking out a pretty large wad of cash for a 'scope invites frowns and a lecture from the wife. It succeeds in dousing all my enthusiasm. And so it has been for the past decade or so. But one day for sure.

[Sutripta]

Scope: Keep in mind the common mode voltage limits. Preferably use an isolation transformer.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

Scope: Keep in mind the common mode voltage limits. Preferably use an isolation transformer.

It has been a very long time since I last used a scope. So I’m trawling the internet for some information. At least I have already found the original manual for this particular scope. But I do need to brush up a bit on how to use them.

But first I need to change the plug and power it up, see if it lights up if anything.

Jeroen