The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

I've just finished cannibalizing the old pressure washer.

 

The PH will get all the accessories,  pipe work and the motor as he has a machine by the same maker.  The rest has gone in the recycling.

 

In days gone by I would have removed all the self tapping screws and put them in a pot for future use.

 

I have lots of pots like this, filled with rusting stumps that were once considered useful.

 

Now I just cast screws after a single use.

 

 

 

 

[tomparryharry]

9 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I've just finished cannibalizing the old pressure washer.

 

The PH will get all the accessories,  pipe work and the motor as he has a machine by the same maker.  The rest has gone in the recycling.

 

In days gone by I would have removed all the self tapping screws and put them in a pot for future use.

 

I have lots of pots like this, filled with rusting stumps that were once considered useful.

 

Now I just cast screws after a single use.

 

 

 

 

 

Nowadays, screws are meant for single use only. One well-known DiY chain ( you can do it ) sell screws that won't even make it into the first fixing, let alone taking them out.  Typical LCD. No, not Liquid Crystal Diode, more Lowest Common Denominator. 

[Happy Hippo]

On 07/10/2020 at 23:37, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 

 

I'm looking forward to the day when you post some pictures of making offset bushes to compensate for wear and using a proper blow torch to secure them in position.

 

I once watched a friend of my father, who was an ex REME artificer do this.  A gentle blow through the pipe was all that was required to generate the heat in the correct place.

 

His final project as an apprentice during WWII was to build a scale model of a 3" AA gun. (Shades of the 17 lbr we discussed earlier.)  Of course the stipulation was that it had to work!  So it was built to fire a .303 round.

 

His hobby was horology, and when he retired from the army, he did a lot of repair and restoration of watches and clocks for some very interesting people and establishments.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[Stubby47]

Time for a moan, please feel free to ignore.

 

Our local college has grown over the last few years, replacing car parking spaces with new buildings. Hence the students have little space on site so have spread out to the surrounding residential side streets, of which our cul-de-sac is one.

Some of the village streets have signed up for the council's residential parking permit system, which prevents student parking at a cost ( having to pay for one, max two, permits per household, per year, at a fee to be chosen at random for something that should be free rankles with me).

As our street has not got this in place, the students park here. But do they park sensibly? Of course not.

There is one car outside now, taking up two potential spaces, across the road and further up is another, and a third on our side again doing the same.

This prevents residents parking and/or makes access to driveways more difficult. 

There is a perfectly adequate Park & Ride system just the other side of the village, which stops at the college complex, but do the students use it?

 

I'm learning to temper my feelings towards these rude, arrogant and uncaring idiots - the day a car was physically removed by the police for blocking the whole road was much cheered by the residents, but I am very tempted sometimes to commit acts of random damage...

 

Moan over, will go back to twitching curtains and muttering under my breath...

Edited October 9, 2020 by Stubby47

[Tony_S]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

We used to remove the seats from Land Rovers and hose them out to get rid of the dust when we were in Cyprus!

 

Imagine our disappointment when they introduced seats pads that were bolted in place.

My Land Rovers haven’t needed hosing out. One person I know, (the tiny nieces maternal grandfather) commented that he liked the seats in my then Freelander. He said for years he had had back ache sitting in the old style Land Rovers for long periods wearing body armour. He said the replacement Freelanders were much better. 
My brother had a Land Rover that was hosed out when he was working in Zimbabwe. He was having his breakfast in a hotel when he was approached by an army officer who suggested he might like to take a little longer over his breakfast as they had borrowed his  Land Rover and were cleaning it. As he was in Matebeleland and the army was the North Korean trained 5th Brigade he was happy to comply. He said it was Zimbabwe Railways vehicle anyway and just out of interest what had it been used for. Storing bodies overnight apparently. 
Tony

Edited October 9, 2020 by Tony_S

[Tony_S]

52 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

moan, please feel free to ignore

Some of the parking in our road at school drop off and collect times is very inconsiderate. I am not sure what happened recently but something was serious enough for the police to attend. The bad parking goes in phases. Being a primary school the bad parkers probably move on to the local secondary school as their children age and we get a few years of reasonable parking. The school opened a nursery and I don’t think the nursery staff can park on the site so they park down our road. This wouldn’t be a problem if they parked sensibly.  I was talking  to a neighbour once and someone parked across his drive. They said “be back in 10 minutes”. He said “take your time, your car might not be here when you return”. They moved it. 
Tony

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Or their neighbours should buy cockerels  and use pig slurry as fertiliser.

 

Jamie

Never get a spare  cockerel as you'll end up having to employ your friendly neighbourhood assassin to resolve the issue.

 

He can also supply an eco friendly alternative to the pig stuff!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

making offset bushes

I’m not sure I’m looking forward to making them! 
 

 (But yes in the next 10 years that clock will need stripping down and a few bushings replaced)

Edited October 9, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[bbishop]

3 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

Time for a moan, please feel free to ignore.

 

Our local college has grown over the last few years, replacing car parking spaces with new buildings. Hence the students have little space on site so have spread out to the surrounding residential side streets, of which our cul-de-sac is one.

Some of the village streets have signed up for the council's residential parking permit system, which prevents student parking at a cost ( having to pay for one, max two, permits per household, per year, at a fee to be chosen at random for something that should be free rankles with me).

As our street has not got this in place, the students park here. But do they park sensibly? Of course not.

There is one car outside now, taking up two potential spaces, across the road and further up is another, and a third on our side again doing the same.

This prevents residents parking and/or makes access to driveways more difficult. 

There is a perfectly adequate Park & Ride system just the other side of the village, which stops at the college complex, but do the students use it?

 

I'm learning to temper my feelings towards these rude, arrogant and uncaring idiots - the day a car was physically removed by the police for blocking the whole road was much cheered by the residents, but I am very tempted sometimes to commit acts of random damage...

 

Moan over, will go back to twitching curtains and muttering under my breath...

How about a few deflated tyres?  Bill

[Happy Hippo]

41 minutes ago, bbishop said:

How about a few deflated tyres?  Bill

I'm trying to deflate one or more of my spare tyres.

 

Too much cake and whisky does have a down side!

 

This afternoon efforts have been marking out and cutting all the hinge pockets and latch sockets for a replacement door.

 

I'm just taking a break from tidying up as it's quite nippy outside.

 

I'm feeling a little weary at present so that means an end to any more precision work:  The painting can take place tomorrow morning.

 

Now off to vacuum the drive!  Yes, seriously!

[polybear]

10 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Nowadays, screws are meant for single use only. One well-known DiY chain ( you can do it ) sell screws that won't even make it into the first fixing, let alone taking them out.  Typical LCD. No, not Liquid Crystal Diode, more Lowest Common Denominator. 

 

I find the heads usually chew up when they're half in - then chew up again when you try to take them out.....

 

9 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

I'm learning to temper my feelings towards these rude, arrogant and uncaring idiots - the day a car was physically removed by the police for blocking the whole road was much cheered by the residents, but I am very tempted sometimes to commit acts of random damage...

 

Moan over, will go back to twitching curtains and muttering under my breath...

 

Builder's aerosol foam (the stuff that turns into polystyrene - like foam when it goes off) seems to work rather well when sprayed up the exhaust pipe.  As to which exhaust pipe you should squirt it I'll leave up to you....

 

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm trying to deflate one or more of my spare tyres.

 

Too much cake and whisky does have a down side!

 

 

Bear is standing by to assist a friend in need......

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Interesting story for you all. About a month ago, my dad received a random email from my uncle in New Zealand saying he had bought something of great historical interest to Douglas and was sending it to him. Well today said object arrived. It is a rather old print of the general arrangement for the Dehavilland DH-88 Comet, easily one of the best looking aircraft ever. So the drawing has been put up on my wall, and looks quite good IMHO. The photo below shows it unraveled out on the floor

 

Douglas

Edited October 10, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Dave Hunt]

6 hours ago, bbishop said:

How about a few deflated tyres?  Bill

 

A number of years ago a friend and his neighbour sorted an arrogant little female canine who insisted on parking across people's driveways when going into town shopping. They parked a couple of old bangers they bought for fifty quid bumper to bumper with her car so that  she couldn't move then went away for the weekend. She didn't do it again.

 

I decided this afternoon to spray my breakdown crane with etching primer. All went well until I actually pressed the airbrush trigger when a great shower of paint splattered everywhere - me, the model, the floor, the cat, you name it there was a liberal amount of etching primer on it. That was when I discovered that the small o ring behind the nozzle had split. Just under two hours later I'd cleaned up, removed the great blobs of semi-dry paint from the model, cleaned the airbrush and made up another mix. The second attempt was much more successful.

 

I'm currently consoling myself with a snifter of Penderyn and a piece of fruit cake.

 

Dave 

[tomparryharry]

This evenings entertainment was watching a Star Trek episode, which I haven't seen before. It struck me how future technology allows humans to travel light years across the galaxy, to meet interesting people who speak perfect North American English.

[bbishop]

Ladies and gentlemen,  Three days in a row coming up at Waterloo, so plenty of gossip please.  

 

I have two photographic collections to curate.  The first comprises locomotives and trains from 1947 - 1968 with an LSWR bias, but he kept meticulous records.  At the moment I'm creating a spreadsheet from his notebook.

 

The second is a collection of photographs of every LSWR station.  For reasons an SWC member would understand, I'm copying images from alphabetic to "route".

 

So not much chance of any modelling.  Bill

[bbishop]

12 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

I find the heads usually chew up when they're half in - then chew up again when you try to take them out.....

 

 

Builder's aerosol foam (the stuff that turns into polystyrene - like foam when it goes off) seems to work rather well when sprayed up the exhaust pipe.  As to which exhaust pipe you should squirt it I'll leave up to you....

 

 

Bear is standing by to assist a friend in need......

 

 

A potato is an alternative.  Bill

[bbishop]

2 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

A number of years ago a friend and his neighbour sorted an arrogant little female canine who insisted on parking across people's driveways when going into town shopping. They parked a couple of old bangers they bought for fifty quid bumper to bumper with her car so that  she couldn't move then went away for the weekend. She didn't do it again.

 

I decided this afternoon to spray my breakdown crane with etching primer. All went well until I actually pressed the airbrush trigger when a great shower of paint splattered everywhere - me, the model, the floor, the cat, you name it there was a liberal amount of etching primer on it. That was when I discovered that the small o ring behind the nozzle had split. Just under two hours later I'd cleaned up, removed the great blobs of semi-dry paint from the model, cleaned the airbrush and made up another mix. The second attempt was much more successful.

 

I'm currently consoling myself with a snifter of Penderyn and a piece of fruit cake.

 

Dave 

How is the cat?  Grey, russet or black?  Bill

[Dave Hunt]

Just now, bbishop said:

How is the cat?  Grey, russet or black?  Bill

 

It's now the quite rare tabby with grey overtones. On Sunday I'll be spraying the red oxide primer so it may well gain a few russet patches.

 

Dave

[Erichill16]

Just received a kit of another good looking deHavilland product, the DH-103 Hornet. I'd love to make a start on it but I’d better get some others finished first.

regards Robert

[tomparryharry]

I can't remember if I told this before, but here goes. Mrs. Smith worked for BT. She was also was the first person to have an ISDN network in Wales & Marches area. On the appointed day, about a dozen BT people parked up outside our house, all peering down the same hole. Sorry, footway box.  Alas & alack! They cannot connect to the network, no spare access! Never mind, said an intrepid fellow, there is spare access  over there, on the corner house. So, senior BT engineer knocks on neighbours house. " Can you move your car please? We need pavement access." Eff-off, said the neighbour.  Not to be worried, the intrepid engineer picked up his radio phone, and returned to the neighbour. "Hello Sir. I've called in a tow truck to move your car. It won't cost anything, we'll just add it to your quarterly  bill."  Problem solved....

[laurenceb]

1 hour ago, Erichill16 said:

Just received a kit of another good looking deHavilland product, the DH-103 Hornet. I'd love to make a start on it but I’d better get some others finished first.

regards Robert

This tbe AZ kit? Would be interested in what you think of it. Some varied comments about it out there

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 ...snip... Dehavilland DH-88 Comet, easily one of the best looking aircraft ever.

Douglas

Opinion only. Now the Connie on the other hand:

 

 

It even graced a record album:

The Connie was the only reason that I bought the album; it turned out that Linda Ronstadt and Nelson Riddle made a very good team; quite listenable.

[BR60103]

I finally had enough with one of our screws. There is a little indentation with latch where you pull the sliding doors. One of the + screws had been done up hard enough that some sharp metal was sticking up. So after 7 years of us (out of almost 20 for the house) the little ****** was replaced last month. I had to get one with an odd little head and couldn't get it in brass.

 

The neighbours have become worried. They've been very careful since comng back from Florida last spring, not even going out shopping, if we're right. They had their air conditioner replaced yesterday, thinking that it would all be done outside. The technician had to go in to the furnace to do something (s) and as in and out and didn't always wear his mask. They spent the last half of the day outside and were unhappy about going inside after that. I think they spent most of today away from the house.

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by BR60103

[Florence Locomotive Works]

23 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Opinion only. Now the Connie on the other hand:

I would say that’s probably 4th in my book. Those dogs look unusually  thrilled!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

I realized the picture earlier doesn’t show the full scale of this massive drawing. The horizontal bar below it is a 6 inch ruler! After more observation this appears to be a factory reprint of the original, distributed to less senior members of the design team, or something like that. Apologies for the poor lighting.

 

The more keen eyed of you have spotted another poster over on the far left, it a small reprint of a NYC 20th Century Limited poster.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works