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There are several methods of cutting racks, varying from marking out with dividers and shaping teeth by filing, using a shaper or planer with a form tool, using a milling machine with appropriate tooling, or specialist gear cutting machinery. For a one-off not needing close accuracy, I think...

Over the last three decades or so, I've done a lot of restoration work on vintage equipment, mostly on a heritage railway. From that experience, I would suggest either accepting the cost of buying in finished fasteners as you need them, or machining them from bar stock as Jelly suggested -...

I don't think the US healthcare system is perfect, either. Obama's attempts to provide care for the less well off seem to have caused sufficient financial pain to some in the lower middle classes to have resulted in significant push-back. Also, a nation that spends 17% of GDP on healthcare...

Don't want to get involved in any arguments, but just out of interest I looked up the NHS England budget for 2020/21 - £129.9bn. (that's just the operating budget - doesn't include capital exdpenditure or Whitehall administrative costs ).The population of England is 54 million, so that means...

That needs polishing on the back, too. A mirror finish to just shy of the maker's stamp should do it.

My late sister and still-lively brother in law were avid birders, and wax lyrical about the complexities of bird accommodation. It's trickier than you might think, depending on the bird species needing homes. However, I did find this from the RSPB which seems like a good starting point on box...

A discussion about this a day or two ago on Radio 4 revolved entirely around ideas for a Covid passport (domestic version) being "an app". Fine - but what provision for those who do not own a mobile phone? (Personally, I'm not in favour of any sort of vaccine passport for domestic use. I...

For 5/16" BSW bolts and setscrews, the standard head dimensions are as follows; Precision hexagon bolts and setscrews to BS1083:1951 - Width across flats 0.525 max 0.518 min. Head thickness 0.22 max 0.21 min Bright hexagon bolts and setscrews, old standard BS190:1924 - Width across flats...

My mother was prescribed Vitamin D supplements about June last year. Within a fortnight, she'd developed constipation and nausea, so stopped taking them, whereupon said symptoms cleared up. At her recent annual medications review, she reported this to the doc, who as a consequence stopped...

Therein lies the problem. There are differing legitimate interpretations of raw 'scientific' data, held even amongst professional medics and epidemiologists of long and reputable standing, so some debate is perfectly reasonable. It's also reasonable to debate the balance between lockdown and...

Just taking their turn, after the Normans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Romans and Lord knows who else had capitalised on them. Oh, and the Vikings - nearly forgot them! I doubt there's a race or a tribe anywhere on the planet that hasn't both colonised and been colonised by others over the centuries...

Firstly, welcome to the forum! Something I've learned the hard way is that buying 'sets' is usually a mistake. You end up using two or three tools a lot, a couple occasionally, and some not at all. Thus, I'd suggest buying just three nice chisels, a small, a medium and a largish, the sizes...

I'm not that old (cough), but the first computer I ever saw was when I was 17. We got one at school; a BBC Micro, if memory serves. Just the one, between 600 pupils. You had to book time on it by asking a teacher, who logged your slot in an exercise book. Couple of years later, at university...

As we used to say at work - to err is human, but to really foul things up, you need a computer. (Except we didn't say 'foul'.) Can't help with the Excel problem, I'm afraid. I use the backs of old envelopes, or sheets of photocopier paper. Never failed me yet.

I've used Renata batteries for the last few years. Swiss made, according to the packaging, anyway. No issues, except when I've had them in stock for too long. Initially, I bought them from H S Walsh, but recent supplies have come from Amazon. A quick interweb search on 'Renata AG1' suggests...

The method outlined is partially correct for work in green wood, such as timber framing, but the tool used for sinking such mortices was not the chisel, but the twybil. Oddly, Wikipedia is quite informative; Twybil - Wikipedia The heavy pattern chisels under discussion were more generalist...

Just to add a little to the information above, these were made in two patterns, socket mortice chisels (up to 3/4") and socket chisels (up to 2"), and also in in-cannel and out-cannel gouge patterns. The design goes back a fair way - Benjamin Seaton had a selection in his tool chest, known to...

I don't think they're cutting reamers in the modern sense, more finishing tools, more like (as Marcros suggested) giant clockmakers' broaches.

The 'classical' furniture-maker's set of bench planes are a jack, a try and a smoother. If you machine prepare your stock, you can probably manage without the jack - most of the time. You have a selection of short planes to cover smoothing duties, and the 5 would cover jack work. You could get...

I'm not 100% certain of this, but I think they may be finishing reamers for taper pin holes. The usual modern way of fitting taper pins is to drill in steps with parallel drills, then finish with a multi-flute taper reamer. Before such reamers were commonly (well, relatively commonly!)...