Hibelroad

I think it’s only recently that people have got very touchy about historical events. There was a famous statue of Cromwell outside Manchester Exchange station, I believe it was move to a park due to road layout changes.

I have always advocated retests every few years. I know I have some bad habits and probably some I am not aware of but there is no incentive to sort it out. Maybe compulsory refresher lessons before licence renewal would do the trick. The trouble is that this sort of thing would be very unpopular, so no politician will attempt to introduce it.

Hello, Goodbye - Beatles

All over the world - ELO

When Will I See You Again - Three Degrees

Tomorrow Night - Atomic Rooster

Just had a look online and it looks like MRJ 235 has sold out. Maybe everyone is building baseboards!

The Gordon Gravett method of building baseboards is outlined in MRJ 235 (available as a back number). I really do mean to try it, just need to get the layout planned first. I did get to handle one of his sample beams at York a few years back, they weigh nothing but seem to be strong enough for the job.

I’m lucky in that I have a very good dentist at the moment and she is NHS, the only downside is that the surgery is now 90 miles away but I will hang on as a patient for as long as possible. She believes prevention is better than cure and recommended what I call a mouth karcher ( water flosser ). I got one and it’s amazing what bits it gets out. Her recommendation is to floss first then clean with an electric brush, but don’t rinse as the fluoride in the paste should be given a chance to get into your teeth. You should do this a least twice a day. I have followed this advice (well , sort of followed) and for the last three years all six monthly checks have given me a clean bill of health, so it may be worth trying.

This might be something to do with the Safari browser, it does peculiar things sometimes. I have a new iPad and RMweb is Ok but I cannot get the current news on Tower Models website. Using Duck Duck go the Tower site is fine.

As has been noted there are many variables but medium to heavyish would be my guess. If you have something of the required size to hand, sheet of mdf, ply or cardboard, you could practice carrying it about to see how cumbersome it is then imagine how it would be when heavy and covered in delicate things. Generally this size is about the limit of what one person can handle safely.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it now as it’s too far away 😆. Hopefully others will swell the ranks, I was a member in the Drill Hall days and wish I could attend what looks like an excellent show.

I once sold a house due to a skip. It was my late father in laws house and we were clearing it of accumulated junk (took 5 skips in the end !). We had had estate agents round to value it and of course they were keen to get us signed up so they could get a hefty fee. On morning a builder was working across the road replacing a house window. He came across and said look, it's a bit of a cheek but can I put the old frame in your skip. It was only a small window so I said no problem, then he started asking what we were doing with the house. It turns out he was looking for a house for his son and being a builder didn't mind a bit of a project. In the end we sold it directly to him and saved a couple of grand on estate agents fees. So if there is a moral to this story its be generous with your skip.

Single action trigger operated brushes can be found with a simple internet search, they have their place but a dual action brush gives far greater control for model painting

When I were a lad me mam would give me ten bob to go down to the shops, I’d come back with three nice steaks, a big chunk of cheese, tins of salmon, a string of sausages and six tins of long life for dad and I’d still have change out of the ten bob. You couldn’t do that today, too many security cameras.

If that’s a question then my answer would be Iwata since I have never had a problem with this brand, they work well straight out of the box. Having wasted countless hours in the past fiddling about with airbrushes I am not a fan of fettling, in my experience an airbrush either works well or doesn’t work at all. If simple cleaning doesn’t solve any issue then it’s not a usable item. So my advice, for its worth, would be always buy quality and also get a good controllable air supply. Armed with these even the beginner (and we all start as beginners) can easily achieve a good result.

Fox transfers do some, worth a look to see if any are suitable.

On the phone theme, an old classic. Can I use your dictaphone? No, try using a pencil.

An unlikely tale but there were some strange uses of equipment during the Cold War. I worked for a while in an old power station control room during the late 70s. One item we had was a fallout warning box which was basically a loudspeaker connected to the phone system. This was to be used to give warnings about the levels of fallout should nuclear war take place, presumably the control engineer could then go out and tell any remaining population what deadly fallout to expect. My mate at the time was a bit of an early conspiracy theorist and told me the system had been set up to piggy back on the speaking clock system and helped subsidise the speaking clock. Intrigued I switched the box on (it was supposed to be left on all the time but made an annoying bleep noise to indicate that it was working so was generally it was switched off). Sure enough, by turning the volume right up the speaking clock could be heard faintly in the background, so not all these tales are total myths.

I’m not sure what cement we are talking about here, balsa glue, the powder used to make builders mortar or mortar which has actually set. Also what is the purpose of this experiment, other than being amazed. A little more background would be helpful.

PAT testing can be misunderstood. I once worked in an office where a new bossy manager discovered that the equipment hadn’t been tested for some years. Fortunately her boyfriend was an electrician who did testing so it became a nice little earner for them. At Christmas one young girl decided to decorate her computer monitor with a string of usb powered fairy lights. Bossy manager demanded that they were removed as they hadn’t been PAT tested, so she didn’t understand either.

I think that in circumstances like this wallowing is the worst thing to do, it really is best to look upon this as a dropped stitch in the tapestry of life and forge ahead with future plans. However it does focus the mind on making the best use of your time. All the best with the treatment and looking forward to better times ahead.

Time after Time - Cyndi Lauper

Golden brown - Stranglers.

Attack it with a dremel type tool and cutting disc, that will go through anything.