25 Sep
2010
25 Sep
'10
5:08 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I was very young when I got my first burn from a soldering iron (not by
soldering - I had some kind of plastic version of Meccano and decided that the
soldering iron would be the perfect way to "drill" some more useful bolt holes
through some of the beams). Earliest AC-mains shock I remember for sure wasn't
until I was about nine (I decided to grab hold of a transformer that was still
plugged in - it hurt).
re. toys like that though, I'm not sure if the problem is that kids today
don't like them - or that they don't get the chance to find out because
parents don't buy them and companies don't make/market them.
The new
generation didn't have Erector sets as kids (the snap-together
plastic stuff without a plug-in motor don't count)
Kids these days :-)
I mentioned some months hack that I got my first electic shock before I
was 2 years old. By finding a screwdriver and unscrewing a wall socket to
see how it was wired. So I guess I learnt early ;-) I've seen left-handed taps and dies on sale. And
of course it's easy to
cut a left-hand thread on a lathe. But I have never seen LH nuts an bolts
listed by any company in the UK. But I've not seriously looked for them.
The regulator in my air compressor uses a LH thread - I'm not sure if all
compressors are like that or not. When it eventually gives up completely (the
threads on the associated brass nut are pretty chewed up) I'll convert it all
to RH parts I think (or plumb in a different regulator, but I can't get
off-the-shelf parts that "just fit").
cheers
Jules