Evening all,
Just joined the forum after starting reading through @Sideways thread on his Harrison L5 looking for some ideas for my own, similar machine. I have to admit I've owned it longer than I can care to remember without ever getting it running, but like a fair few things in my life having gone the wrong side of 50 I've finally decided to get on with it.
I'm your classic case of having too many projects and ideas for the time I have spare. Late bloomer, divorcee with a 6 year old son and a suffering girlfriend (can't say long because we've only been a couple a year...but she's known me 10+).
A few years back the Harrison gained a friend in the shape of a Bridgeport (basically after the divorce and sell up of the house) when I moved all my stuff from North Hampshire (where I work) back to Kent and my folks (where I grew up).
I can blame my dad for this really; he studied marine engineering at Plymouth spending the next 10 years or so studying and living in Devon flitting between working on boats, being a blacksmith and working as a panel beater, before having to grow up and head back east to take over running his father's business selling and making cutting boards and trays. Care of his friends in Devon he met my mum, they got married and spent everything they had moving to Kent and buying an old farm house with a small orchard and various outbuildings, with their last £300 my mum wanted a new carpet, dad came back with a Thwaites Nimline dumper, I guess he was missing Petter single cylinder diesels... Then I turned up, and a couple of years later my sister. Dad being a practical sort was always working on the house, and we always building something...come '87 and we got offered an old ('68 Mk II) Mini for free to chuck about the yard and the drive and over to the packing shed next door that was linked by tracks to our drive...I was 13 at the time it arrived in the summer holidays. It wasn't long after it turned up that we realised it had rather low mileage and a few calls later we learned it was genuine and had come from its little old lady original owner...cue a restoration and over the next 4 years my dad teaching me all the skills necessary to deal with tin worm, dents, mechanics etc...
Various projects came and went, but the Mini has stayed (and needs restoring again now), I went off and got an HND in Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering, tried to two 5 year stints as a Sales Engineer, first in the building industry, then in the completely different world of NDT, specifically digital X-ray and 3D Computed Tomography. Sales wasn't really my thing though, so in 2006 I switched from poacher to game keeper and forged a career as a development engineer for the techniques.
Having moved into my own home and my own space, and being introduced to other like minded people big tools and more projects arrived, rather a lot of them Land Rover products (they seem to breed). But there were moderns too; 15 years of building and competing in daft Subarus (hence the user name), then a couple of motorbikes (care of my now ex-wife), back to quick cars in the shape of BMW's (I Hillclimb and Sprint one), plus a camper van (VW T25 'Brick') and then the divorce...and the move of all the projects back to Kent and the reclaim of 'my' workshop...oh and the addition of an '87 JCB 3CX...because...errr....man maths...
So to the workshop...
The clear out to accomodate these two:
Leading to:
Sadly not remaining that clear for long as things had to go back in.
There are some other toys; an R-Tech MIG, AC/DC TIG and Plasma Cutter, Gabro sheet metal folder and this little combo which I'm rather pleased with:
But right now focus has turned to the Harrison and finally getting it running;
And to that end I've just bought a 'new old stock' 2.2kW ABB 2850rpm @ 85% duty on 220V 3ph motor, and used Siemens 420 2.2kW single to 3ph VFD Inverter...elastric trickery is by far and away not my forte though
Just joined the forum after starting reading through @Sideways thread on his Harrison L5 looking for some ideas for my own, similar machine. I have to admit I've owned it longer than I can care to remember without ever getting it running, but like a fair few things in my life having gone the wrong side of 50 I've finally decided to get on with it.
I'm your classic case of having too many projects and ideas for the time I have spare. Late bloomer, divorcee with a 6 year old son and a suffering girlfriend (can't say long because we've only been a couple a year...but she's known me 10+).
A few years back the Harrison gained a friend in the shape of a Bridgeport (basically after the divorce and sell up of the house) when I moved all my stuff from North Hampshire (where I work) back to Kent and my folks (where I grew up).
I can blame my dad for this really; he studied marine engineering at Plymouth spending the next 10 years or so studying and living in Devon flitting between working on boats, being a blacksmith and working as a panel beater, before having to grow up and head back east to take over running his father's business selling and making cutting boards and trays. Care of his friends in Devon he met my mum, they got married and spent everything they had moving to Kent and buying an old farm house with a small orchard and various outbuildings, with their last £300 my mum wanted a new carpet, dad came back with a Thwaites Nimline dumper, I guess he was missing Petter single cylinder diesels... Then I turned up, and a couple of years later my sister. Dad being a practical sort was always working on the house, and we always building something...come '87 and we got offered an old ('68 Mk II) Mini for free to chuck about the yard and the drive and over to the packing shed next door that was linked by tracks to our drive...I was 13 at the time it arrived in the summer holidays. It wasn't long after it turned up that we realised it had rather low mileage and a few calls later we learned it was genuine and had come from its little old lady original owner...cue a restoration and over the next 4 years my dad teaching me all the skills necessary to deal with tin worm, dents, mechanics etc...
Various projects came and went, but the Mini has stayed (and needs restoring again now), I went off and got an HND in Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering, tried to two 5 year stints as a Sales Engineer, first in the building industry, then in the completely different world of NDT, specifically digital X-ray and 3D Computed Tomography. Sales wasn't really my thing though, so in 2006 I switched from poacher to game keeper and forged a career as a development engineer for the techniques.
Having moved into my own home and my own space, and being introduced to other like minded people big tools and more projects arrived, rather a lot of them Land Rover products (they seem to breed). But there were moderns too; 15 years of building and competing in daft Subarus (hence the user name), then a couple of motorbikes (care of my now ex-wife), back to quick cars in the shape of BMW's (I Hillclimb and Sprint one), plus a camper van (VW T25 'Brick') and then the divorce...and the move of all the projects back to Kent and the reclaim of 'my' workshop...oh and the addition of an '87 JCB 3CX...because...errr....man maths...
So to the workshop...
The clear out to accomodate these two:
Leading to:
Sadly not remaining that clear for long as things had to go back in.
There are some other toys; an R-Tech MIG, AC/DC TIG and Plasma Cutter, Gabro sheet metal folder and this little combo which I'm rather pleased with:
But right now focus has turned to the Harrison and finally getting it running;
And to that end I've just bought a 'new old stock' 2.2kW ABB 2850rpm @ 85% duty on 220V 3ph motor, and used Siemens 420 2.2kW single to 3ph VFD Inverter...elastric trickery is by far and away not my forte though
