Socket

[Yorick]

I was a buyer for fasteners for Lucas Aerospace in early 80s.
Everything went up in the air.

The standards were fucking tight.

I worked at Light Metal Forgings in Oldbury aeons ago...they were making turbine blades, suspension legs etc.
The QC was amazing even then...but of course, if it breaks, you can't park at the side of the road and call the A.A.

If it went in the air, things changed.
Every single nut and bolt needed to be traced back to the lump of metal it came from.
And could only buy from CAA approved companies.

And the list went on.

No exceptions.

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's still like that. Doesn't just apply to buying physical stuff, you have to demonstrate the same level of diligence on all the theoretical work too.

[MingtheMerciless]

Thing is...I bet you can get one or two of those transistors - or some analogue of it which does the same job - but it'll cost you 10 times what it previously did.

Getting some prototyping firm to make one of something is generally doable, I've spent the last couple of decades either being the guy asking or the guy making. You can buy one or two of nearly anything, assuming its within the realms of technology of course.

Getting that transistors firm to run off 50,000 is also possible. But as you found out, getting 1000 is not possible.

We’d already exhausted the avenue of buying up the now 10x the price old stock from “vulture” suppliers before we went back to the manufacturer. In the end we found the only similar device we could but it ended up at only 75% of the output power of the original which meant that we scraped in at the bottom of the power tolerance.

It’s only getting worse in the electronics industry as organisations like the railway and military try to maintain kit that is so far out of production that all the 3rd line tech support staff at the manufacturing company have retired and you find some of the components contain beryllium or other delights that are now not allowed, I think we’ve now got PCB’s that cannot be made anymore as they don’t comply with recycling regs as well (this means whole suites of relatively new telecoms gear is reliant on the pitifully small spares pool we’ve got).

And don’t forget any equivalent “bodges” will have to get type approval.

[mangocrazy]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

[Yorick]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

I could get IS12 which was first superglue, many years before it was commercially available.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

Not really. I've done loads of work to find replacements to chemical nasties. In fact Aerospace is usually on the forefront of getting rid of them cause there is a general industry aim to be green, for obvious reasons. New aircraft have to be something like 95% recyclable now too, as do cars.

They're still bound by the same HSE laws as everyone else, military slightly different of course, but military planes are made in civilian factories....

The trike cleaner thing is more down to the ball ache involved. In order to use stuff like that you need to demonstrate the risk is managed - like anything else in HSE - and any HSE bod will tell you the best way to manage a risk is to not take it! If you do want to risk using the chemical nasties you have to demonstrate air quality controls, monitoring systems, employee health checks and so on. So its not so much a case of having free reign to use, its more the fact that only aerospace have the time, money and inclination to bother with the hassle.

We had some properly nasty chemical cleaner at my old place - liquid cancer we called it - and it was a right twat to deal with. Sadly it was also the only thing which would reliably clean what we needed to clean, so deal with it we did. They're still using it AFAIK.

[MrLongbeard]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

A lot of the REACh restrictions https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content ... 07&from=EN that stop you and me having fun and or access to the good stuff (creosote, fertilisers, lead etc.) do not apply to stuff used in defence of the realm or intended to go into space.

[mangocrazy]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

A lot of the REACh restrictions https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content ... 07&from=EN that stop you and me having fun and or access to the good stuff (creosote, fertilisers, lead etc.) do not apply to stuff used in defence of the realm or intended to go into space.

Blimey - recommended reading for insomniacs and the sleep-deprived... If stuff actually works for its intended function and there is no obvious replacement then no government is going to willingly hamstring its military (or you'd at least hope they had the sense not to). But Joe Public has to use the stuff that isn't fit for purpose.

A prime example of that is paint stripper. I can remember using Nitromors to strip household paint about 20 odd years ago and it did exactly what it said on the tin. But the stuff you buy now is pretty much completely toothless. It's a complete waste of time. I believe that's because the active ingredient (methyl ethyl ketone) can no longer be used in publicly available paint strippers.

[MrLongbeard]

Blimey - recommended reading for insomniacs and the sleep-deprived...

Jesus, don't read it, it's as dull as ditch water.
Annex XVII is the restrictions that applies to the great unwashed, and if'n you're sad enough then this is a better resource, what with it having PDF's for each restriction detailing where it can or can't be used https://echa.europa.eu/substances-restr ... _delta=200

[Mr. Dazzle]

intended to go into space.

Probably 'cause you don't need to worry about the end of life disposal!

Thats the other reason your man in a shed isn't allowed to use alot of stuff any more. It's much more difficult to be sure he'll dispose of it properly.

[MingtheMerciless]

intended to go into space.

Probably 'cause you don't need to worry about the end of life disposal!

Thats the other reason your man in a shed isn't allowed to use alot of stuff any more. It's much more difficult to be sure he'll dispose of it properly.

So I take it that down the drain or in a rubble sack to the local tip isn’t proper disposal

[Cousin Jack]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

Impossible?

You can buy it on e-bay, shipped from Italy.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw= ... 7fd447e842

[Mr. Dazzle]

I thought that military and aerospace were able to get themselves exempted from tedious concern about dangerous chemicals etc. I remember that over 20 years ago it was impossible for Joe Public to get hold of Trichloroethylene , but aerospace had free access to it.

Impossible?

You can buy it on e-bay, shipped from Italy.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw= ... 7fd447e842

Dunno if its just my results, but that link takes me to a load of documents talking about the health risks of Trichloroethylene. You need to scroll down about 10 items to find some actual trike.

Fitting

[Cousin Jack]

Dunno if its just my results, but that link takes me to a load of documents talking about the health risks of Trichloroethylene. You need to scroll down about 10 items to find some actual trike.

Fitting

My results were the same. I left it all there rather than snipping out the trike for sale bit just to remind anyone planning on buying some that it is alleged to be nasty stuff. It used to be quite common as a degreaser back in the day, I used it and survived, but that may be luck on my part. I would be very wary today.

[Mr. Dazzle]

TBF it - and stuff like it - is still used. It's common to use it in sealed vapour degreaser systems. In those you just put the parts in a magical sealed box and it uses solvent vapours to do the degreasing. Double whammy of being very effective at cleaning and not requiring you to have death soaked rags knocking about

People like aerospace firms tend to like things like this too becuase it's much easier to define and control. You say "put it in the tank this way up for XXX minutes" rather than "get ya man to clean it".

[mangocrazy]

That reminds me of a query I had when wanting to get a (car) cylinder block cleaned prior to reassembly. I'd heard the terms 'hot tanking' and 'hot wash' bandied about as if they were interchangeable. They weren't. Hot wash is largely what it says it is, a bit like an industrial dish washer but for engines, using strong detergents. Hot tanking is the kind of process Mr Dazzle illustrated involving trichloroethylene, which will munch its way through phosphor bronze bearings and bushes without a care in the world.

I needed a hot wash...