I think I should just pack up and go home - hang on, I am at home so that isn't an option! What has brought this on? Well...... As it is still mostly raining so unable to cut my wood for the back scene supports outside and not wishing to fill the house with sawdust (again!), I decided to sort out another couple of bits of wiring which meant plugging in all the connecting leads. Result - dead short. After much head scratching eventually disconnecting and unbolting each section I found the culprit - a point which was switching polarity the wrong way. I am sure it was working correctly before so suspect something has either gone wrong with the polarity switch in the motor or my wiring to it. Has got too late to sort it out now so will look at it tomorrow AND another motor which made a sort of cracking noise and now just cycles one way and then the other when operated.

Is it any surprise that I am rather worried about anything working at all for it's first (3 day), outing in September. It certainly won't be when you read the next bit.

The alternative title for this piece is ' Bad Baldwin' because in the above attempts to test the layout the Baldwin did this ;

just in case you can't spot the problem here are a couple of clues.

What I don't know is if the broken rivet on the lower link was cause or effect of the expansion link jamming itself up in the motion somewhere. Result was a leapfrog across a point and then a complete seizure which luckily I stopped before the motor burned itself out. Not a hard problem to fix here at home but something that would be a bit trickier in the middle of an exhibition.