Screwing around (Was: Multimeter recomendations

I think I've mentioend before that these days my parents would probably be guilty of child cruelty or something. My 8th (I think) birthday prsennt consisted of things like a woodworking tenon saw, a junior hacksaw, a set of twist drills, a wheelbrace (hand drill) to use them in, a small vice, and so on. Yes, I ahve cut myslef with them over the years. But no, I have had no serious injuries from tools ever... And I do thank my parents for encouraging my hackish tendencies. I certianly think there are fewer constructional toys around now than there were perhaps 30 or 40 eyars ago. I must have over a dozen different educational electronics systems, and none of them are Heathkit :-). As I've said before, I think the Philips EE kits were the most fun, but teher were others. And there were many more electronic kits (as in solder a device together) around back then than there are now. It's dubious how mucyh electronics you learnt by assembling a Heathkit, say, but you did certianly get practice with tools, and you might be inpsired to find out more about what you were doing and why. Be careful!. LH threads are always ued for a reason, not becuase the manufacturer is awkward. I don;t know aobut compressors, but I rememebr there is some convention with gas cylinders and the regulators for those. There are LH and RH threads, IIRC oxygen/air/oxidising gases is one, 'fuels' like acetylene, etc is the other. The idea is so you can't accidentally couple up the wrong one, or put oxygen into a regulator that has been lubricated with oil (compresed oxygen and oil can catch fire or explode). It's been a long time since I worked iwth gas cylinders, so I cna't remember the details, but I can check. So I would not modify anythread in a compressor unless you really know what you are doing. -tony