Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

been a busy-ish sort of day .... my old alarm guy arrived this morning ... bloody early ... we'd arranged it last week, but didn't anticipate him turning up at 08.00


needed some fabbing skills to sort out an automated gate system bracketry.
not the first one i've done for him ... these things arrive with half the bits missing / not assembled / sorted to suit their eventual homes !!


Pretty poor show really considering the cost of these kits.


anyway three hours later and he's a happy chappy, with it all modified/adjusted to suit his needs.
tells me that he and others struggle to get small fab jobs done these days, with me long out of it and no-one else to turn to locally.


Richy the lad who used to work for me and set up on his own has apparently been tempted by a monthly pay cheque, to take a job as a maintenance engineer in a large factory of some sort and now only does what he fancies, as and when, for himself. ... Can understand the steady wage being a temptation ... the vagaries of self employment can be hard work some times


Anyway, can see Darren being back more often, as he does a lot of these gate automations, along side his alarm systems and video surveillance work .


with half the day shot, I turned my attentions to getting me cabling into the duct up the patch, now that a couple of rolls of cable i'd been waiting for had arrived last Friday


went up the duct very well .... aided by a three core 20mm SWA as a pusher .... bloody heavy though, as it got further and further up the duct





'til it eventually surfaced in the black shed ......





sorted the tails out on the SWA and persuaded it into the junction/dis. box .... hot - couldn't be arsed to get up in the loft to isolate it,





especially as I wasn't going to be connecting the tails, other than the earth line for now, as there's now't on t'other end ATM, 'til me boxes get moved.
Will mean though that it's a simple task to re-establish leccy in 'em fairly quickly after they're moved !!


also laid in two control lines... one to extend the 8 core from the house for the outside lighting control and a second to extend the LED flood supply, up from the black shed to the boxes, making them all controllable fro the house eventually --- beats groping down from there in the dark


all done and buttoned back up for now, 'til I can get it hooked up each end





didn't bother putting a pull line into this one, as I can't foresee wanting anything else up it ..... did consider laying in an MDPE pipe for an air line, but pretty sure it could be persuaded up there again .... need to decide whether to bother or not, though, before I get it all stoned up !!
Reckon a 20mm would do it, but would need to go get a roll, as I don't currently have any sat ..... either that or stick with the 25 mm which i do have, plus plenty of fittings too

excess coiled up for now ..... stone next (or an air pipe?? )





been waiting on a new ISO 40 INT to MT4 sleeve adapter to arrive with a 5/8" x 11 draw thread ..... the one I picked up recently for next to now't is M 16, which is a PITA .... without the metric bar to match it ... must get one made up
also got three more #3 MT sleeves arriving too ..... couldn't leave 'em there at a tenner each ... much quicker dropping the adapters out the quill and swapping for the next one than changing bits/tools.


guy selling them, in Oxford, told me last night he used to live four miles down the road in Grosmont ..... his dad was the local vicar ... and knows the area very well ........ such a small world !!!!








so she's now armed with a #4 MT mounted, 3/4" chuck, plus the ability to drive up to a 2" MT drill bits .. aside from all the various Clarkson cutter chucks and collet chucks I have sat, ready to use, on some of the next projects.


would have come in well handy for Darren's lil' job this morning and saved hauling the mag drill out !!


Genny's oil pressure gauge was playing 'silly buggers' yesterday .....





will have to try the new sender unit, Serge gave me, in it ..... see if that cures the problem .....

[v8druid]

watch this space ...... BIG catch up coming up .....soon ...... been busy as !!

[v8druid]

would you bloody believe it !!! ... there's only been one other of these on ebay in months and I bought it ..... cheap enough weapon ... not as shiny/tidy as my new toy ... but been converted to single phase and as near to me as Bristol, as good as ... and a grand less


don't usually look after I've bought summat, but had a search running for turret mills and this got sent to me two weeks ago on the 4th July


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333255153414?ul_noapp=true








300+ quids-worth of tooling with it .... plus a couple o' hundred quids-worth of rotary table too BTLs


Sod's law !!!

ok ....so as said got a bit of catching up to do so gonna date some of these ...


4/7/11


lovely sky tonight ..... been some sort of day ....





I misguidedly said the other night the Dane was unstop-able ..... I was wrong ...... been dealing with the verge and passing places on the drive this afters ...







Dane was happily wading through this sort of stuff and more ... some 4 ft tall .... until I found a horse feed net hiding in the undergrowth ..... that stopped her dead ..... buggered the net too


2 mins to extricate it and away we went again, grass/undergrowth slaying in a fine fashion


with the sun cooled down after tea, I set about starting a re-coat on this ....





got a whole side and the door end (such as it is) done in an hour an' a half with my trusty fabricator's friend .... gonna have to mix up another batch of bit. tomorrow, to get any further ...... do all the big bits first and sort the fiddlys with a brush after


forgot to say, a few weeks ago ...... I installed one of those snubbers i bought to deal with the induced ghost voltage in the LED flood circuit ..... worked a treat .... no more flashing LEDs

5-7-19


another great sky tonight guys . ...








good job Pam took the pix .... I didn't notice it ... had me back to it painting the shed again, after the sun'd cooled down a bit this evening, after we'd eaten .. far too warm through the day to be stood in it .... and Clara and a can of bituminous, in the same county, would not be a good idea


latest bargains arrived this evening with the local Hermes driver ..... tripped over a guy, literally 'blowing out' a load of tooling he'd acquired, in a job lot of stuff that he couldn't use and /or didn't want ... I'd bid on and won, one bargain item and he rang me asking if I'd like some more at equally give away prices ... never look a gift horse, etc. ...








new, they're 50 to 70 ish quid each, on the MT adapters, the collet chuck'd be more ....


God knows what a 10-11" More & Wright mic.'d cost you and the random item on the left, is an aircraft grade 0-200 psi, variable, multi turn, pressure reg. (thought Alex (Cyberprog) on the BCEF might fancy that for his new found interest in air controlled 'toys' ) ....


princely sum of 30 quid the lot ...... an' a tenner for Hermes .....
I was robbed


what would you have done??


can never have enough tools, especially when they're that bloody cheap ....
will save a lot of tooling changes he had loads of other stuff too, on ISO 40, but metric draw bar, so was restrained and left that lot there .....

although I'll probably regret doing so, once I get around to making an M16 draw-bar

Got 20 tonnes of clean 40mm arriving tomorrow, some time, courtesy of Alex

my usual guys were saying 7-10 days delivery which in reality'd be a minimum of 14 ....


he got it sorted in two, with one of the quarries he has an account with ......couldn't fault him .
Must decide whether to put in that air line now, or not PDQ ....


wanna get that drainage trench filled in , before someone gets too close to the edge in a vehicle and collapses the damned thing, or one of the cats decides to disappear up the 6" pipe ....


have had to drag squeak away from it twice today ...
must be a mouse in there, so stuck a spike through the end of it, to reduce the amount of wriggle room ... not even Sparts could get by that ..... would be a disaster to get one of them stuck in there


So...... get that filled and can sort some pads for a box move, with the leccy now in situ for a relocation and speedy hook up ..... couldn't be without leccy in 'em for long

it arrived 'bout half two the next day as promised ....








a fair pile that ..... see what's left tomorrow afternoon
didn't have time to play with it this afters ... had to dash into town


Local merchants in the morning for 50M of 25mm MDPE .... persuade that up the duct (piece I had ain't quite long enough for an air line and bury it all
spent a couple of hours that morning waiting for me truck securing the taps .... 20mm hole drilled into the deck ..... solid rock ... sledge the 20mm bar into place and hey presto ... will do fine to keep 'em in the air .... couldn't see how to put a stake in the ground with out core drilling it and this'll do the job fine

[v8druid]

had an idea for a refinement .... will see if it'll fit tomorrow


shed looking all shiny next morning, after its re-paint







might finally get the gutters on that Sunday


so .... merchants at 09.00 saturday morning ... relieved of 107 quid and change for 100M of 25mm MDPE ..... thought it was dear?? ... but needed it and wasn't gonna go trekking about looking for it ..... also found a 'new' farm supplies type place on an adjacent IE, which i'd never seen before ..... didn't dare ask what they did the MDPE rolls for





so after 'modifying' the end of it ....








to aid in stuffing it up the duct ..............


it got 'stuffed' up the duct





got within probably 3 ft of the far end in't black shed and COULD NOT get the bloody thing round the bend, where it comes up in the flloor of the black shed


so hauled it all back out and started again from the shed end





..... with more success





stuck the VA-r on along with the clamshell, that hasn't seen much action in a while





and set about relocating some 40mm, from the heap, to where i wanted it





got to the second gravity fed tap and had everything held in place ...... permanently





before wrestling yon duct and the pressure fed line into it's approximate final location -- for now ...





then it was time to make it stay put, so's I could fill past ..... enter Mr Spit's finest .... this makes holes almost as well as Mr Hilti's TE17 does





one 19" deep, 20mm hole later and a spike sledged into it 'til it bottomed out........





and yon plumbing/cabling was where I want it for future use





and secured for filling over


got this far and Pam's BIL arrived, with Pam's sister, Niece and other half ..... bugger!!





so, combined with the fact that we were going over to Ross, to Serge's for dinner at 18.00, they put paid to any hope of further progress for the day


reckon I was about 45% of the way round and past all the nadgery bits, so pretty plain sailing from here on, to join up with the existing run of stone, at the top end of me patch .....
Sunday or no, a couple of hours'll see it filled tomorrow .... then bag up the excess for future use, after I've added a few bits here an' there, where needed


Dinner in Ross was lovely and Serge was on fine form .....
his garage (read -- small hangar),that I did the dig out for a while back is looking bloody great ..... not seen it in the daylight before, since the roller shutter doors got installed and his upper floor/storage area got laid....it's one very nice triple garage/workshop


then it was "Time for bed, said Zebedee"

[v8druid]

well the Sunday didn't go as planned ..... but did get a few odds and sods done between visitors
Monday however, saw the rest of it down as far as I can get for now .....








and a significant reduction in yon heap .....





reckon I've used about 12t so far .. once I'd squared it back into a tidy pile again





wed.s 10-7-19


Squeak thought it was a great idea to roll in the stone dust .....





he wasn't quite as pleased with himself after he'd had one of my hand brushes over him, for a few minutes trying to get him 'back to black' ... she'd have had a fit if he'd gone indoors like it


More black stuff required now to crown the patch off and raise the levels a bit, right at the back end.


All mowing sorted by lunchtime today and been sorting out collapsed pallets this afters, bagging a couple of buggered pallets of stone into a new bag, generally having a square up in the back corner and heading for the bottom of the pile for some slabs - proper hard pavement type slabs, to set out and bed for the boxes' new home
man has it been bloody warm today


had to run into town this morning, so risked getting bent over, by the local Hyd.s emporium, for a few bits ..... couldn't be arsed to run out to Raglan and needed ,em to sort out the new Jabsco pump for the 'Drema





in the bag, amongst other things, is a long swept 45 metric hose tail I needed, to get the fill pipe past the valve chest and into the tank .... list apparently, from Parker, was 57 quid and change ..... I said "you'd better put it back mate "..... he says .... "that's before your discount" .... under 8 quid sounded a lot better dear enough still, for a fitting but a hell of a lot better than list


been pallet sorting again, trying to access a pallet full of very hard slabs, for bearing pads for the box move....... burning several dead pallets and trans-shipping their contents onto new, much more solid pallets


hard graft, some of it, but mission accomplished ... for now


cut a few slabs in half ... 3' x 2's .... ready to use and selected a few that were already 'halved' from being stood on decaying pallets, for pad stones, humped the rest onto a new pallet and stuck 'em out the way for now.
then thought i'd rough out where they'm gonna go for an hour, before tea time.


got one possibility set out, just as 'the bell tolled' and was summoned for food ..... wasn't quite where I'd envisaged it'd end up ... so set out an 'alternate' after tea .... and may well have a few more goes yet














jury's still out ..... see what it looked like with the 'Drema out the way in the morning . first option only gave me 12-ish feet between them and the location of the corner of me shed eventually ..... second option created another 3 plus feet on that, which was a lot better
then see how we're looking on levels


God knows where I am going to park some of this stuff, out the way, to get a crane in to do the move ... Russel's new machine is a bit bigger than his PPM A.T. was ... this 'un's a 6 legged Liebherr .... time he came and had a shufty.... make sure he can do what's required and I make enough space for him to do it


day -- or best part of it shot to sh*t .... 2 hr meeting with Ken's insurers this morning, for Pam, trying to sort his various policies for the farm, vehicles, tractors, implements, stock, public liability (has three foot paths across his place) plus buildings and house. Fair play the rep was very good and it could've been a lot bigger headache
followed by several more hours up there sorting details of traccies, kit, etc. .... Anyone any good at valuing traccies ??


anyway... was late afternoon 'fore I got my day back ..... I've gone with the red option on the setting out for boxes .. even 'the boss' agreed it looked the best option .... so .... roughed out the centres of where the pads are going to go .....








so's I could get them pins back out the deck, 'fore they get run over and the lines wound in ....these string wound 1 micron water filters make bloody great string lines ..... tough as and plenty on a roll





then it was time to establish some levels .....








gives a good dot in the daylight, but a crap line .... probably be fine in the dark .... dot was enough for what I wanted, to set a datum and packers required .... getting the dot dead on centre line on me own was a bit hit and miss but didn't take too long to sort , once I got into aiming the lil' bugger and quicker than getting Stanley out.


levels sussed ... not three bad across the width and about where I expected it to be down the length .... dropping about 100 mil ..... shouldn't take too much sorting

[v8druid]

quick little job before tea .... persuade Zebedee, I picked up yesterday up a piece of tube for anti collapse on me Jabsco suction hose ...


he wasn't going with out a fight, so slotted an end of a piece of 10mm stainless I had , fed him onto it and wound him up to reduce his O.D. a bit, drop of lube and puuuuuuush ......











last coil got a bit out of shape on the final foot ..... when I wound him the wrong way .... but as a method ... worked bloody great


bit of a trim .....





and insert one Geka



followed by a hose tail and socket for the filter on t'other ....





should stop the bugger sucking flat ......





just enough time, 'fore 'the bell' , to get a thread file to the tank fitting ....





new nut and swept fitting went on a treat, after some judicious filing





and the new hose should clear the valve block sweet as ..... just have to 'adjust' the new elbow to accommodate an inch hose .... they didn't have a stepped fitting .... God knows what list would've been, if they had ....... i have the mod in hand .... just need to get the gas out to braze a sleeve onto the tail

[v8druid]

wrestled this lil sod out the tank after tea .... wanted to check functionality .....





and sort it's leccy bits .... it's working fine ... auto level shut off for the pump at full point


does however mean I'm either going to have to create a relay op circuit for it ...... or re-use the old control box ...





snag with that is ... the manual stop button on it has vanished into the mists of time





I assume that it's a press to make ... like the 'go' button is, which is one techy little button





the cross rod/pin is 'the make' contact ...... have searched for a 'new one' ... to no avail and ......


.....sadly the unit is one of those ...... you ain't coming in here to alter anything jobs ....





however .......


broke out the surgical instruments .. scalpel and locking forceps .... to reveal ....








one relay, as suspected and a lot of bloody tough rubber sealer ..... I've sussed the circuit with a meter and all seems in order .... will give it a try tomorrow on 24Volts ..... only snag, as said, is the missing manual over ride stop button (which it looks like I'll have to create),or failing that the pump unit does have its own toggle too as a fail safe ...... see what the test run shows up... as long as the float level system is working with the auto shut off, it's not going to be any 'biggy'


would be nice to use the original unit if poss .... it's neat





a few mods to the bracketry, as the new pump is a bigger unit and work out just WTF I am going to put it ... doubt it's going back in where t'other one came out of .. it was tight in the engine bay and re-fueling is going to be a doddle/pleasure, rather than the faff it has been ....... Oh and route the new length of shiny, black, fuel proof hose


so that'd been my day yesterday


so .... friday the 12th was shot to sh1t ... again
stood outside at quarter to eight that morning, awaiting Clara's arrival and down the drive comes Darren's bright red Veedub van FFS --- the alarm/autogate man .... ..... with yet another gate hinge/bracket problem


he gets earlier each time ..... head in hands, with a nightmare job on his hands ..... gates again, on a pub conversion, back to a house, not far from my parents old house in Aber ....


lots of pix and measurements and explanations, little of which made any sense, as to what he was trying to achieve .... looked like mission impossible
so made a fuss of the little un and shot off into town with him to view it ..... whoever made and fitted the gates should hang their head in shame ... I wouldn't put my name to it ... 140 square timber 'posts' bolted to the walls so badly that they just wobbled about in all directions and some tw*t had hung a pair of 12 ft gates on these things ...
with butt hinges ....
they filled the opening, but with returning walls either side of them, was no room for above ground automation behind the gates, so had to be an underground jobby ...
anyway....
long story short, some trick top pivots were required to suit the below ground pivot points ....


he'd got what he thought'd do the job 'til I pointed out the pitfalls of his proposals and we headed back to the bench to 'alter' them to suit/make it work


extend the pins for starters





after a bit of a 'brainstorm' ......





......then set about the hangers .. having altered/hacked/created one out of 'screwfix's best' making the second of the pair was a bit more fraught








but I got there in the end ..... late in the afternoon ......





after a two plus hour interruption at 11 for grandadding duties at Clara's sports day





my primary school teachers never looked like these





mostly 50 + year old spinsters




sooooooo as said ... friday burggered from the off


the day was gonna be mine tomorrow ... Clara'd gone off to Plymouth with her mum -- having nicked our golf for the run and I wasn't answering the phone ... to anyone

[v8druid]

had a bit of a challenge on the go last Sunday .... Rory ( JD450A of the CEF ) has had an issue with his towed roller and was in need of some bushes to get it mobile again .... and couldn't find any ... POP with a lathe, but, with a little lateral thinking, these will be in the post Monday





got all set up earlier .....





went to the genny ..... pressed the go button and ... several clicks from the control box and ...sod all .... running fine last week .... oil pressure off the scale and hadn't even turned over .... so lots of head scratching ..... very similar fault to the last occasion it pissed me off


appeared to be going through the motions of trying ... just not doing it ?? had a good shufty around everything then checked the earths to the starter ... dropped a connection off .. cleaned it all and ........ away it went with perfectly normal oil gauge ... I'm hoping that I may well have found the culprit


so.....I was away ....


as said a bit of lateral thinking was needed for this .....





Ajax lathe ......... started with this ..





the jig saw came out for the other three


then it needed a hole ... a 70mm one











as a solid disc, gripping it was easy .... as a tube it was a different matter and had to get it 'just right'





mission accomplished .... " where there's a will " - etc..... but jeez what a bloody mess .... took me an hour to clean up all the acetal swarf !!


can report that the Ajax is a peach ..... the DRO is the bollaux, for summat like this, where repeatable centre set up was paramount ... accurate to 0.1 thou. .... gonna enjoy owning this ....... and the genny ....... started / stopped fine all afternoon


Great to be 'driving' a machine tool again ..... and I love machining plastics .... so nice to work with ... .... no sharp, or hot bits


all packed and ready for the PO Monday morning, after I drop Clara at nursery





and in case the posty can't read ........





worst - er, I mean .... best one I could find


Sunday july 14th - wimbledon final


well .... these two blokes on the telly've been beating the shizer out of them yellow balls since I went out to mow all the bloody grass at 14.00... an' they're still at it 4 hrs later .... don't think Pam has moved


The Dane's decimated either side of our drive, the three passing places on the main drive and the turning area ... then me and Sparts have mowed our old drive and the lawn ....







he was asleep on our bed when I got the Countax out the shed ... and was waiting for me at the end of the patch drive, by the time I got there









was either here, on my lap or down on the foot boards all the way round .... and stayed there 'til I'd finished and put the Countax away again










Gonna have to make him some sort of 'perch' / seat / bed to attach to the bonnet ..... he's alright on my lap, or the foot boards, but perched there I have to take it real slow/steady, with him up there ... and on my lap, come to think of it ... his back claws are bloody sharp .... keep his fronts clipped as he has a tendency to climb your leg, if you don't pick him up quick enough


....... and they're still slogging them balls about ..... tea's gonna be late tonight

[v8druid]

been a busy-ish day last tuesday ...... once Pam had departed, for Plymouth and Shem minding duties for the rest of the week, 'bout two o'clock .... Home alone ... no interruptions 'til Sunday evening


Been getting me new Jabsco installed in the back end of the 'Drema .... bit tight in places - everywhere in fact ... bits of skin missing all over


.... especially when I had to make an ultra quick exit, from the engine bay, when I was joined in there by the Group Leader of 633 Squadron ..... bloody hornet must've been 60mm long
.... sounded more like a Dornier diesel, than a Wellington or Lanc. .... bloody thing has been doing fly bys all evening


started with a sort out of the tail for the tank ....





brass hose tail was a perfect fit over the swept hyd. hose tail and being brass was an ideal candidate for a soldering job ..... once I'd got the hose tail clean enough to get the tinman's to take to it and sweated on


installed that and then routed me new shiny bit of 1" fuel hose down into the engine bay, to where it needed to end up to meet the pump's outlet tail




next on the agenda was persuade the Jabsco into position to suss a fit .... took some wriggling in .....





although it doesn't look it in there ... 's a big lump in a small space ..... marked the best location




and dropped the belly plate ...... was hoping to find that red button ..... but no such luck





gave me a good chance to clean out the back end of the engine bay too while i had this belly plate off ... done the other two a long time ago ... on Zeus,s ... this 'un bolts on ...... don't think it'd ever been off
anyway, got yon plate back in position .... 4 hands would've been handy .... and realised it was time for some grub .... this went down real well with a nice soft bread roll to accompany it .....





have had it before and REALLY rate it for a quicky .... bloody gorgeous looks as good as the pic and tastes even better .....


so ... refueled, I set about persuading it all back in there again ..... after i'd checked out the control unit on 24 volts on the bench .....


the red button was as I suspected .... push to break .... and's wired in parallel with the float switch .... yon relay in the box full of rubber must be a latching unit .... so needs to have a circuit 'made' in the normal position, which was a bit of a PITA ...
but it got druidised and'll do for now 'til I can find a replacement guts for it ...... the floaty bit was working fine


it all went back in and got bolted down, followed by an introduction of said rubber bit .....





jeez it is tight to get yer mitts into, but got there .... routed and cable tied everything into place .......








In the middle of refitting the float switch and me phone rings ... Simon ... " are you still up? " ..... silly Q. .... " yeh sat on the top of the 'Drema's fuel tank , re-fitting the float switch in it - it's only half nine FFS " ..... he wanted to drop by on his way home, with my laser target, he borrowed ... several years ago LOL that I'd asked him if I could 'borrow back' for a while


so by the time he'd arrived I'd gotten tidied up for tonight ..... and was on watering duties ... daren't let Pam's plants expire on my watch ... been 28C here today ...... wiring to sort tomorrow and can give it a try
..... a good hour plus watering ... good job I tidied up when I did ... struggling to see the bloody plants, by the time I'd gotten around 'em all




beautiful semi-lunar eclipse tonight when the moon came up, 'bout ten o'clock
.... took about two plus hours to transition to the full moon we've got tonight


Tight was not the word for this job ..... the original pump is 2/3rds the size and was mounted on a bracket, attached to the front face of the tail weight ... where that pipe tee-block has been put for the breaker valve's servo and LS line interfaces with the pumps .... bloody stupid place to put that
... the old pump had been left sitting on the belly plate, stuffed back out of the way .... could've made life easier, if I'd re-jigged some of the plumbing and re-located that tee-block .... but!!!!! ...... I managed


well I sorted the wiring thurs morning .... had a bit of a senior moment when I put the float switch back in last night - the wrong way up - I blame Simon's phone call .... so although I'd actually got power at the loom connector supplying it (the original feed), it would not run .... 'til I traced the new loom back to the switch - took it back out - and realised my 'error'


whilst I'd got all me wiring gear out i thought I'd replace the rear facing roof top lights with the new LEDs I've had sat for ages ...





they're 'kin bright, even in daylight


With that done, I thought i'd try the pump out, after tidying everything away ......





she was about 1/3rd full, so in need of about 160 litres ...... bloody hell does that pump flow fuel at a hell of a rate .... once i'd gotten it wet..


self priming, according to the paperwork for it, but was new and 'dry', 'til I decanted what it HAD managed to suck up half the pick up line .... then it was away
did not take long at all and kept a very careful eye on the speed at which it rose up the tank.


As Stu on CEF had said ..... the froth could've been annoying ... but stopped it a few inches short of 'full', let it settle a while and went again ... didn't dare let the autostop dictate the stop point
..... needs a second pair of eyes for that ..... or a remote switch button, on a wander lead, one could knock the pump off with, whilst watching the filler port ... would certainly be a good idea
Quickest fill she's ever had .... love it

[v8druid]

couldn't resist one of these for two quid ..... came across 'em on Ebay the other week .... just for the craic








every duck should sport one


and that about gets me up to date .. sort of .....


Pam got back Saturday, late evening ... wondered WTF it was, as wasn't expecting her 'til Sunday evening ....


yesterday got spent doing all the grass, after the rain we had friday and some tree management .... all growing like crazy ATM








second barrow load getting dealt with





sorted for another 5-6 days hopefully

[v8druid]

been 33C here today .. apparently a perfect day for Vax-ing the living room carpet (TBF .. she was right) ....











was still 29C here at 21.00 ... just locked up and still 28 in a box - was 39C in there, this afternoon
... 26C outside on the patio still
listening to the weather earlier, they're forecasting even higher, record breaking temp.s later in the week
I like it dry and comfy ... like 20ish .... been melting all day

[v8druid]

So.....last night.. had a hell of a leccy storm here ... anyone else have it ? was mega here ...... sat outside in a sun lounger watching it all around us, until we had plop, plop .... run for cover and down it came .... glad I took all the cushions in with me

Sparts was sat watching it on me lap ... Squeak cowering under the table indoors.

Left a lamp on for 'em when I eventually went to bed ... not a happy pussy was Squeak .... having them on the bed was not an option ... had enough difficulty getting any sleep as it was, with the storm and the heat.

Reminded me of an electrical storm we had back in summer of '82 ...
was living in Raglan, at the time and sat out again watching it, most of the night ...
doubt I'll ever see anything to match that again ...
very little cloud and the sky was spectacular colours ... reds, purples, yellows - you name it ... had to be seen.

the lightning was virtually continuous for hours, from about 22.00 'til 04.00 am ... multiple forked across the sky and loads of ground strikes.
Was a privilege to see it TBH .... words can not describe how awesome it was

[v8druid]

usual pilgrimage to Welland steam rally on Saturday ... started to pee down, half way up the M50 on the way there .... but'd reached a tolerable wetness, by our arrival ... told it'd lashed it down the previous night - we'd had sod all

IMHDO was a bit of a subdued event, compared to the usual 'carnival' atmosphere ... sadly.

Disappointing day TBH and was heading for the car, to catch up with the rest of 'em, to leave, when my eye was caught by a bit of kit i'd seen being dragged about earlier in the day, which'd looked at first glance like a big water pump ..... anyway

Turned out on closer inspection, to be a water brake dynamometer and they were just hooking up a gert Traction engine to it ..... departure was delayed
not often you get the chance to see one of these beasts flat out, under full load .... so for your delectation

takes a while to 'get going', but worth the wait ..... no idea on the eventual figures as it'd started to pee down and seemed to take 'em forever calculating the outputs
oh and watch the steam start to appear out of the brake's water reservoir tank

[v8druid]

been trying to find a new suds pump belt for me band saw for a while ...
eventually have tracked down some outfit doing Startrite Meba spares
but .....
they want 52 quid plus VAT for this and 15 quid to post it out FFS !!








it's 555mm long/circumference ... been trying to find a sewing machine belt or similar to no avail


was on the verge of biting the bullet, when i thought I'd have a.n.other go at Google for it and came up with another seller doing 'generic' belts for 38 quid ...... better !!


theeeeen found an outfit that makes 'em


just paid for two at £7.50 each plus £2.95 shipping plus the usual Vodka & Tonic


HTF do the first two sellers sleep at night/justify their exorbitant prices ???

[v8druid]

Also been trying to suss out, for a while, why the speed indicator/limiter on said band saw has been so far out .... having found a pic of one the other night, I could see that some numpty had had it off and straightened it out .. God knows why?? so it had to have a bit of treatment the other day ..







to try to return it to its proper shape ...





and position ..... split it doing it .. some pretty tight bends required, to get the twists and angle changes required ..... but sod all the welder won't cure, the next time it's out though




was gonna mow the bloody green stuff this evening ..... 'til it pissed down for 20 minutes, half an hour ago ... bit slick now


this bit is in special need LOL





and's in even more dire need since I took that last week .... growing like hell ATM

Yodel's van came Friday and left more than a parcel ......








dunno what it was, but smelt like DOT4 to me ... LOL ... wonder how far he got?? .... TFR shifted it .. eventually ..... he was only parked there maybe 2-3 minutes ... hell of a leak for that short space of time .. wonder how big his brake master cylinder reservoir was ???






and on the subject of parcels ... 'they' get worse ...





posty told me, when he saw the label that there's a guy in the sorting office who doesn't seem able to distinguish between his Aber,s (there're a lot round here LOL ..... it got so bad at one time, they had a van running between Abercarn, Aberbeeg, Abertillery, Abersychan and Abergavenny ... swapping deliveries around FFS !!
posty thought the guy'd been sacked .... seems he's back :
so much for paying for tracked next day mail --- another 4+ day delivery