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daleyd
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Are you leaving the Skoda to one of the EVists?
I confess I'm kinda hoping to outlive the Skoda!
Don't worry @daleyd ... I'd have the same look if you left me your EV (actually no - I'd be off like a shot to chop it in for a petrol ICE
)
badabec
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Tell the executor where you have stashed the will.
A customer of mine bought a house with a sitting tenant living in the upstairs half. She was about 70. He thought she would be dead soon. She told the him that she kept all her important documents in a metal box in the sideboard. She died 25 years later. He went upstairs, opened the metal box, nothing, empty. After a mad scrabble through all the usual places he gave up and started re-decorating. Under the carpet, under the lino was the will. Obvious..
I'm "open-book" as to what's in my Will - I figure it's better that way. So immediate family are all going to get a copy.
Where my granny kept her important stuff. Well, apart from the 40yr old shotgun cartridges - a big box of them under her bed.
My sister reckons our mum told her that's were she's put her important stuff - under the carpet. All fitted carpets, none show signs of disturbance, so I reckon its figment of her imagination.
Prajna
Fixing things for the love of it
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Another job for Alvãro: his favourite scythe had a dirty big crack in the blade (sorry, no 'before' pics). I was a little shy of welding a scythe blade but the crack didn't run to the sharp edge and, having given it a squeeze in the vice and a bit of gentle panel beating to close up the gap, hit it with my trusty lidl Parkside fcaw set on its lowest setting. I was very pleased with the result (though I could have spent a little more time with the flap disk cleaning up the front side.) Gave it a quick sharpen and it's now back in service.
Blue Chips
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Just finished repairing the rest of the plaster and cornice damage in the 'north parlor' of our project house. Wherever possible, I used lime putty plaster (lime putty, sand, and hemp or animal hair) in three coats: scratch coat, brown coat, and finish coat. I mix it quite stiff/dry to reduce shrinkage cracking, which makes it quite a bit of work to apply and smooth out, but I like the fact that lime putty plaster gives me a lot of working time, which is good since I'm not particularly fast at plastering. The main challenge in this room was to repair the fancy plaster cornice moulding, which was damaged in multiple places. Ideally, one would start from scratch and set up a track tor a 'horse' (sliding template) and 'run' the cornice in multiple passes, but this was a repair job, not a start-from-scratch job. Still, I applied some of the same techniques to the repair job.
Here are some 'before' photos:
Note the damage to the cornice moulding against the ceiling. There were probably a dozen places that needed repair.
To make a template tool for repairing the cornice, I started by making a two-part mold from an undamaged section of the cornice. I had to do this in two parts because of the undercuts. This is the jig I made to make the first section of the mold:
I had experimented earlier with using the polyester resin mold itself as a sliding template for shaping the cornice repair plaster, but it didn't work very well, so this time I used the polyester resin mold as a guide for making a steel template like a traditional cornice expert would use, except that I slid it along the cornice by hand instead of attaching it to a 'horse' that slides along a track.
Anyway, after messing about with it for a while and trying different plaster mixes, I finally got the hang of things and managed to drag new plaster across the cornice fairly smoothly to fill in missing areas. The fluted part of the cornice was easier.
Here's an 'after' photo of the same damaged cornice shown above. It ain't absolutely perfect, but I'm happy with it. It still needs another coat of primer, which will help hide some of the minor glitches.
The north parlor is now pretty much done. It's primed and ready to paint with any color scheme. The floor boards are original. We stripped the paint off of them, but we didn't try to sand out more than 200 years of old stains, scuffs, and wear (character
). I used penetrating polyurethane rather than oil, and the old wood soaked up about four applications, so it's well protected. The floor boards were re-nailed with wrought-head nails like the originals. The new light fixtures for the parlors should be arriving tomorrow.
Here are some 'before' photos:
Note the damage to the cornice moulding against the ceiling. There were probably a dozen places that needed repair.
To make a template tool for repairing the cornice, I started by making a two-part mold from an undamaged section of the cornice. I had to do this in two parts because of the undercuts. This is the jig I made to make the first section of the mold:
I had experimented earlier with using the polyester resin mold itself as a sliding template for shaping the cornice repair plaster, but it didn't work very well, so this time I used the polyester resin mold as a guide for making a steel template like a traditional cornice expert would use, except that I slid it along the cornice by hand instead of attaching it to a 'horse' that slides along a track.
Anyway, after messing about with it for a while and trying different plaster mixes, I finally got the hang of things and managed to drag new plaster across the cornice fairly smoothly to fill in missing areas. The fluted part of the cornice was easier.
Here's an 'after' photo of the same damaged cornice shown above. It ain't absolutely perfect, but I'm happy with it. It still needs another coat of primer, which will help hide some of the minor glitches.
The north parlor is now pretty much done. It's primed and ready to paint with any color scheme. The floor boards are original. We stripped the paint off of them, but we didn't try to sand out more than 200 years of old stains, scuffs, and wear (character
). I used penetrating polyurethane rather than oil, and the old wood soaked up about four applications, so it's well protected. The floor boards were re-nailed with wrought-head nails like the originals. The new light fixtures for the parlors should be arriving tomorrow.
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Not personally, but on my behalf - this massive leak on a 3" water main on the farm that we had no idea was there - not on SE Waters plans. Seems to be a branch off a 10" main that we did know about.
Fixed with a bolt on band aid !
Fixed with a bolt on band aid !
dan.taylor.1
General Tinkererer
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That's nothing, Manchester aqua duct from thirlmere runs right through our farm, had a lot more surface water about than we'd had rain one year, called them up, "yes we'd noticed a bit of pressure loss"..!
No visible surface leak, so they traced it and found the culprit, their man was happily digging away with a 13t machine till woosh, bucket and boom damn near get blasted to the side, and a 100+ft spout of water appears, they had shut the pipe section in question (apparently about 5 or 6ft diameter!) but because of the sheer pressure and volume still in it it took several days to stop leaking.
They had to import some special repair section from Germany I think... Apparently was losing 1000000 litres of water a day or something daft!
You know the rules Dan, No photos and it didn't happen
dan.taylor.1
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This was pre camera phones and not sure we took any, they were pretty high on security.You know the rules Dan, No photos and it didn't happen
They went round a few years back and there was mention of adding anti terrorism alarms to all the access hatches...
Sergei Slovenija
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Do not do that.
What, stronger spring or honing?
I say honing but wat I mean is fine emery cloth to smoothen the surface a little.
Spring seems a little weak but to find a fitting one that has the correct strength is going to be a challenge.
Cilinder is depressed (on-off) by a big air actuator so I don't think it is really critical.
Fintray
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Sergei Slovenija
Member
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from what I can see the rubber seals are worn out. Honing the cylinder with sandpaper is definitely not worth it. Flex-hone for manual work will give the necessary surface cleanliness. What is an amplifier, a pneumatic actuator or a vacuum amplifier, is not so important. If the main brake booster fails, either buy a new one or buy a complete repair kit. There may be wear and tear further down the hydraulic component chain. You need to audit the entire system.
This can cause pain in the wallet.
