Early Risers.

[AndyB]

Now that should have confused you.

Apparently my long-standing Dustin Hoffman "Is it safe?" dental-themed avatar was giving a dentist-averse friend the heebeegeebees. 

This'll have to do for now. 

[gordon s]

Made me chuckle....

 

[New Haven Neil]

Afternoon-ish.

 

As mentioned yesterday, here are a few shots of the rather tasty new Accucraft 7/8ths" Bagnall saddletank, loitering on my bench at work.

 

It's big.

 

Really big.

 

 

Like the hitch hikers guide says, you wouldn't believe how big, so......here it is next to Sea Lion, which is to same scale.  That's why I am always hitting my head on Sea Lion's cab.

 

 

No, really REALLY big....so, that's an OO scale Adams Radial.

 

 

 

Want one.

[emt_911]

Yet another frustrating day where nothing went right. Lets hope that tomorrow is better.

 

Andy - A belated happy birthday.

 

Dom - I really hope that the treatment works.

 

Dick - Excellent news on the health front for you. I certainly wouldn't know what to suggest as regards intervention for your friend.

 

BoD - Good luck with the procedure tomorrow

[Happy Hippo]

Afternoon-ish.

 

As mentioned yesterday, here are a few shots of the rather tasty new Accucraft 7/8ths" Bagnall saddletank, loitering on my bench at work.

 

It's big.

 

Really big.

 

P1070134-2.jpg

 

Like the hitch hikers guide says, you wouldn't believe how big, so......here it is next to Sea Lion, which is to same scale.  That's why I am always hitting my head on Sea Lion's cab.

 

P1070146-2.jpg

 

No, really REALLY big....so, that's an OO scale Adams Radial.

 

P1070157-2.jpg

P1070158-2.jpg

 

 

Want one.

 

Wait until you see the Decauville,

 

You'll want one of those as well.

 

Sell a couple of your donor cycles and fund a whole new railway empire.

[Smiffy2]

Well, we did it all, and we're just waiting for the curry to arrive...

 

Apparently when they tested my Macbook the keypad worked... but they'll probably replace the top case just to be safe.

 

Still no idea of what to do with Al (old buddy). I wish his wife would take a stronger rôle, but she's one of those people who does anything rather than confront a problem, which I find considerably less than helpful. So does Al, which isn't helping.

 

So beer.

[AndyID]

Evening all... Just had a mail from the Highways Dept of my local council re the crane.  All work has stopped and it's been turned through 90 degrees until they get the necessary licence!

 

How on earth do these guys think they can get away with things in this day and age?  They must have known they would need a licence but probably just ploughed on regardless.

 

Little man 1 Developers 0......

 

I may have a beer to celebrate...

 

Schtum! Schtum! You wouldn't want to get a nocturnal visit from Piranha Bros. (Cranes) LLC.

[AndyID]

Many thanks for all the felicitations!

 

I don't usually make a big deal about my birthday, but with this one I realized I'll have to stop thinking of myself as being "middle-aged".

[Andrew P]

Now that should have confused you.

Apparently my long-standing Dustin Hoffman "Is it safe?" dental-themed avatar was giving a dentist-averse friend the heebeegeebees. 

This'll have to do for now. 

Much much better, I can look at your post's and sleep at night now without having NIGHTMARES, hahhahhahha     :scared:      

[New Haven Neil]

Wait until you see the Decauville,

 

You'll want one of those as well.

 

Sell a couple of your donor cycles and fund a whole new railway empire.

 

Already seen it - you do know where I work?    Ian was here the week before last.

 

The Baggie is more my kind of loco though, being a cousin of Sea Lion and I have a thing about saddletanks.  I'd like to see those Maine two footers you were talking about too!

 

Trouble is neither the Baggie nor the Decauville will fit through my bridges.  We don't sell bikes.....   not unless we really have to!  We cut down from 9 to 5 and ithalf killed me selling my babies.

[AndyB]

Much much better, I can look at your post's and sleep at night now without having NIGHTMARES, hahhahhahha     :scared:      

 

Ha, you should've counted yourself lucky I've never posted a photo of my track work or ballasting! 

[NGT6 1315]

Ha, you should've counted yourself lucky I've never posted a photo of my track work or ballasting! 

You mean you sort your ballast by size and map the placement for each individual stone for the nightmarish maximum in precision modelling?

[grandadbob]

Flavio,  I believe Jamie's last post talked about doing the last minute packing for his trip to France so maybe that is why we haven't heard from him.

[grandadbob]

  Found it!

 

 

Morning all from a still dark village.   A proper ER this morning.  Spent yesterday getting the last bits of the layout out of church and putting it all away. Also spent a lot of time helping Beth prepare for the family feast. The hordes duly arrived for 6pm and a good time was had by all. FiL was tired and left by 7.30 (He is nearly 91) and the younger ones left us in peace shortly afterwards. Beth retired straight to bed and I cleared up and then did some emails and other stuff. She was up early today and the antibiotics have obviously kicked in and she's a lot better. Now there is the last minute packing to do for out trip to France. All the stuff has to go into the car, then I set off to pick up the hired box trailer before my mate arrives to load it and we set off to Portsmouth. It should be a good trip.

I hope to hear some news of Jock in due course but do wonder if it will be from his family as he has arranged.

In the meantime I wish all a good day. I must now attend to the cats, as they are sitting in front of me looking disgusted and trying to tell me that they haven't eaten for 3 weeks, even though it's at least an hour before their normal breakfast time.

Regards to all

Jamie

[Purley Oaks]

Happy birthday, Andy, belated.

 

A beautiful spring day here, sunny and warm all day. To South Queensferry to meet a couple of workpals for lunch and the new Forth bridge is looking good, coming on well. Think it's due to be opened in December.

 

My mum, 91 next month, was called up for jury duty just last week! She's been excused.

 

Good wishes to all

 

Mal

[Shedman5]

Evening, a restfull day planned for tomorow after a day doing garden tasks!

 

Jury Service, done that I am afraid to say, suffcie to say that the case was of such magnitude that the Judge exempted us all from further jury service. That was some 35 years ago.

 

Water Meter, no regrets in having one once the boys had moved out, certainly saved/saving some money!

 

Smart Meters, I heard these discussed on Money Box Radio 4 a few weeks ago, it seems that here in the UK we decided to let the energy providers sort Smart meters out which is why we have different types and some people run into problems changing supplier as the existing Smart Meter will not talk to the new provider. Italy and a couple of other European countries took the decision to make the National Grid responsible hence one type of smart meter!

Common sense there then!

Once the majority of the population have smart meters then it will be easy for the energy companies to introduce on large scale different rates for different times of the day which is bound to happen.

I am aware of what electric we use how much for a kettle etc and happy to remain without for the time being and wait and avoid the teething problems!

 

 

Last but not least Happy Birthday Andy somewhat belated I am afraid, as for Jock in one sense no news is good news as he has given instructions for us motly crew to be made aware should he part this world. I often wonder what happened to Travellin Trev he  just vanished. So fingers crossed I will be reading Jocks eloquent posts soon.

 

Take care all

[Donw]

As Jock hasn't posted anything I assume he is possibly in hospital with no wifi access and thus cannot post. I do hope he is being well looked after.

 

Ed's comment about part P approved. The approval seems very dodgy to me these are people who have learnt a little and have been told what to do but usually have no knowledge of why or understanding of the principals. If you do any significant work on electrical circuits the best option is to get a proper engineer to test the system and give you a certificate. Building control and any prospective purchasers will accept the certificate. 

I once put in an electric shower for a customer the electrician had run the cable but not fitted the MCB as he wanted to test it first. I fitted the shower knowing the cable ran down in the stud wall I carefully drilled through the tile and put in a short screw to go through the plaster and half an inch into the wood. When the electrician tested the shower he found I had gone through the cable. The reason was that he had brought the cable out over the stud giving only the tile thickness as cover. If he had done as I did with the pipe drilled down through the middle of the stud it would have been ok. Or at least marked clearly where the cable ran.

Don

[Oldddudders]

Evenin' all

 

Happy Birthday to Andy.

 

Great to see Gordon asserting common sense.

 

As part of Sherry's rehab we took the bus down into Torquay and wandered around the shops a bit. Not much money spent, but I got a PAYG SIM for my phone, as the French contract has a lmited cover here. Then we wandered back to the harbour, found a cafe selling wine, and sat in the sun. Sherry received an email with a two-for-one dinner offer at Prezzo, Italian eatery, so that sorted dinner. Meal was excellent, we are home and chilling.

 

Hope your week going well.

[New Haven Neil]

I think Trev went whizzing to the States as his girlfriend there got something nasty.  I have his e mail but he hasn't ever answered it.

[Andrew P]

Evenin' all

 

Happy Birthday to Andy.

 

Great to see Gordon asserting common sense.

 

As part of Sherry's rehab we took the bus down into Torquay and wandered around the shops a bit. Not much money spent, but I got a PAYG SIM for my phone, as the French contract has a lmited cover here. Then we wandered back to the harbour, found a cafe selling wine, and sat in the sun. Sherry received an email with a two-for-one dinner offer at Prezzo, Italian eatery, so that sorted dinner. Meal was excellent, we are home and chilling.

 

Hope your week going well.

Ian, Is there still a Model Railway shop in the back Streets of Torquay? I seem to remember it was on a Corner, I bought quite a bit there including 2 Boxes of Lima Catenary and some Locos when I lived in Buckfastleigh and Buckfast.

[AndyID]

 I got a PAYG SIM for my phone, as the French contract has a lmited cover here.

 

Our children all have expensive monthly contracts on their "foens", but we have used PAYG for years. I buy 1000 minutes once a year for $100, and they roll-over any unused minutes. They work fine in Europe too, but no internet service of course, except on Wi-Fi.

[lightengine]

Ian, Is there still a Model Railway shop in the back Streets of Torquay? I seem to remember it was on a Corner, I bought quite a bit there including 2 Boxes of Lima Catenary and some Locos when I lived in Buckfastleigh and Buckfast.

Years ago IIRC there was one at the top of the town (Castle Circus) but its gone now.

[Oldddudders]

Years ago IIRC there was one at the top of the town (Castle Circus) but its gone now.

I've wandered about most of the periphery of the shopping parts of Torquay, and only found games and radio-control emporia. Paignton Model Shop is only a bus-ride away and does a reasonable job.

[JohnDMJ]

Good Evening, all!

 

Thanks, DonW:

The electric supply should have its own earth the bonding is to ensure the water pipe earth is at the same voltage as the electric supply earth so the plastic pipe will not matter. Inside the house even if the pipes are all copper you only need to use a plastic connector somewhere to break the electrical path. I can only recommend ensuring that all circuits are RCD protected. If the live and return currents do not match the RCD will trip so any current sneaking off down others paths will trip the RCD.

Before the introduction of modern RCD fitted consumer units houses supplied by overhead cable usually had a big RCD fitted before the fusebox and a connection to an earth spike. Underground cables either have an integral earth or use the sheath/armouring as one.

Don

 

I have often seen water or gas tap-sized covers in the pavement outside of bigger buildings declaring Earthing Rod but, as far as I can determine, my house has none such. I do have, however, a complete system of RCDs in the newly installed consumer unit!

 

We're in the process of having a water meter fitted. It wil be a "smart meter" that can be remotely read. The water utility offer a free fitting in the house or £150-odd if we want it outside. However, they've had a look inside my house, near the stop tap and they can't fit it there. So they waive the charge for digging up the road outside...... Just waiting for the team with a pick and shovel to arrive in the next few days.

 

The deal with my water supplier is that if it works out that the metered supply is more expensive that our previous "fixed" water rate, we can revert back to the fixed tariff.....

 

Welcome to a sunny (yes sunny) East Lancashire.

The rest of today will be mostly filled with more decorating and general tidying up of the project at wife's work.

 

Other admin tasks include checking that my passport and visa are up to date for a three day trip carrying out missionary work on the other side of the Pennines. There may also be some golf and drinking.

 

Have a good pre-hump day folks.

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

Smart water meter - that's a new one on me! My house already has gas and electricity smart meters and, as a single occupant, I instructed the local supply bods to install a water meter; they did not mention the 'smart' possibility at the time. More investigation required, but it will probably need a mains feed to it so that te SIM card can do its stuff!

 

Fraid not, it came on the back of a Transit. Interesting bit of kit, it looked like a normal pnuematic drill without the operators handles and a bit slimmer, about 100 mm diameter. Once the drill was removed the water pipe was simply pushed through manually

 

Having had the water meter installed, I came home to find a note that when they fitted it, the little red dial was doing a fine impersonation of a helicopter, and duly summoned the Portsmouth Water Technician to investigate.

 

Massive leak under the front lawn, although with the local clay 'soil', bot a suitably lush lawn atop.

 

Got the recommended company out to fix the problem (they found at least five joints in the plastic pipe running under the house, so I took the decision to 'cut and run' (for want of a better phrase) and have a new pipe moled under the front lawn to the cloakroom, at the front of the house and thus bypassing the existing pipework to the kitchen at the rear.

 

Because of the nature of the ground through which they were moling, as I recall, they cut a longer than needed length of blue pipe off of their drum and used it as the mole air supply pipe for at least one of its many needed passes, thus pulling it through as they went!

 

Meter is now refitted and not doing helicopter impersonations; I was going to get the entire house replumbed anyway so ended up with only use of cloakroom basin (cold tap) and WC whilst the work was done. (I was already living just round the corner, so was not inconvenienced by the work!)

 

I'm now thinking of getting a mains cable moled out to the garage as well!

 

Best wishes to all those in need, hope ths missing are not totally lost, etc.

Edited April 19, 2016 by JohnDMJ

[bbishop]

So I'm building a brass kit of a Cambrian brake van. Pretty well finished when I realised the steps had been forgotten. So scrape off paint, fit steps, clean off flux, take outside to spray undercoat. Newspaper on wheelie bin, kit on newspaper, quick spray and pop inside for a couple of minutes.

 

During which time the model falls of the wheelie bin.

 

Luckily (!) it landed upside down, with one veranda badly stoved in. I've taken the flat nosed pliers to the brass and have got it fairly square, but there is a fair amount of re-soldering to be done, then a new paint job.

 

Pillock.