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The WX is still in active demand, about 3-4 years back Dalton's lifted one out through the roof of an office block (converted from a foundry) down the road from my flat at the time, apparently they'd spent a long time tracking it down to rebuild and supply to a customer. Anyway, anacdote aside...

I get the impression that it would depend what pattern shop you walked into. The one I'm most familiar with, has casting engineers who will work out the shrinkage as part of the specification process when they get customer drawings, and will use that to produce a drawing or 3D model of the...

There are tables which give good general indications, but my metallurgist friends are of the opinion that for large, complex geometry or near net shape castings it's best practice to ask the foundry who will cast the piece(s) to specify the allowances to be made in the patterns. The standards...

You misunderstand the origin and point of the 25kg "limit" (which if you look at the HSE's own guidance document from which it derives is not actually a regulation, or a limit)... The figure of 25kg was arrived at by analysis of decades of data on MSK injuries at work, to work out what...

Is that the WX pattern miller? I've seen one in action and they're absolutely gigantic (but also useful enough for their intended purpose that CNC hasn't fully replaced them).

Thanks for asking!

There are, although I know from getting stuff quoted for work they're largely on the more expensive "move a whole factory in a day" side, and I'd rather not waste anyone's time knowing I'm going to have to be highly cost conscious. Asking some of the local machine dealers isn't a bad shout...

Thanks both, it's appreciated.

I've been made an offer on a large lathe (17×120) which is good enough to make me seriously consider moving up my timeline for acquiring one, but need to make sure my figures stack up (in so much as making things hard for oneself in the short term to bag a great deal ever can) before responding...

Awesome kit, and not just for the innuendo value.

I have witnessed with my own eyes, and had to discipline people for continually failing to follow good practice... It becomes like an intervention, "I'm doing this for your own good, because you'll regret it when you put your back out if you keep going like that". Anyway, as long as there are...

That's not strictly true. Employers are not legally allowed to instruct staff to commit unsafe acts. I made a (somewhat ranty) post which addressed some of the misconceptions around safe manual handling yesterday... I fully agree it would be incredibly stupid from a H&S perspective for a...

I'd be leery of using an FLT to push something onto the forks of another at 90° too. Not because it's particularly likely to go wrong, but because if it does and the item being pushed catches on the forks, the pushing forklift can apply enough force that it's conceivable that it could cause...

I can get behind that logic, having always found extended periods of sitting to be amongst the worse culprits for causing me back pain. Jacking my desk up on blocks to a more ergonomic height helped some, but ultimately I've had to resort to planning short walks into my day at the insistence of...

This thread was brought to you by the letter Ж, the number φ, and "Jelly's profound sense of irritation at seeing a common and potentially dangerous misconception parroted, AGAIN in a press release by a major retailer". According to the HSE, there is no "Maximum safe lift". Seriously. I'm...

I hadn't thought about the DC angle, but this is a very likely explanation; the DC's will have access to "mechanical means" (in the form of FLT's or Reach Trucks) but almost certainly won't have the slack to use them for a time consuming task like breaking down pallets layer by layer.

On the one hand, I appreciate that they're trying to keep their staff and the public at large safe from both COVID and MSK injury, which is laudable. On the other I can't believe they haven't managed to work out a practical solution to make it possible safely, like popping the item on a...

With respect to handheld power tools, the answer is "where they do, only some of the range".: Makita has a factory in Telford which produces some of their range in the UK, quite a lot of Japanese manufacturing too (obviously not UK, but not China either). GTech has a factory in Worcester...

I store some timber outside, using bearers to keep it off the ground, stickered between layers then roped and sheeted. By and large, well seasoned hardwood is absolutely fine in those conditions, kiln dried material (almost all softwoods, and the odd bit of hardwood) does have some movement...

The thing I've always found with ripping on a bandsaw is you need size and rigidity, if you can tension a ¾" or wider blade, with a coarse toothing they will do a good job; otherwise it's all a bit wiggly. Issue is that's going to be a big machine aimed at more of the commercial market. There...