Broithe

Phew! I think I managed to 'spoil myself' at 17:59. And, my mobile hasn't had a text from the bank yet, with their traditional "Is this really you?' alert, as usually happens when i deal with IRM...

They will be more than adequate for anything likely to be required on a model rail set-up - and they have the advantage that the wire isn't subject to the turning end of a screw as it is tightened up.

That should be fine. It's probably the best compromise for model rail use.

A good soldered connection will generally be a better bet than a screwed one. It can even be worth tinning multi-strand wire, if you do want to have screwed connections for the occasional disconnection. With a soldered joint, you do still have the potential for breakage where the solder ends and the multi-strand wire emerges - reasonable support will largely prevent the stress concentration there becoming a real issue. When I had a proper job, our control cabinets were arranged with large banks of screwed connector blocks, but the connections were not directly to the wire - the ends of the wire had crimped blades attached, to avoid the crushing/cutting of the wire strands that can occur as the screw is tightened. This sort of thing - the 'hook' on this sort means that you can 'feel' that the full end of the screw is on the blade, not just a bit of it catching the very end of the blade.

Perhaps it will expand enough to be renamed Ath na Tel?

From 68 to 71, I lived within sight of the dust plume from this asbestos mine, although we were almost always upwind - https://www.amiandos.eu/en/ Amusingly(?), 'amphibole' essentially means 'double entendre' in Greek... Registered UK deaths mentioning asbestos seem to have subsided very slightly in the last couple of years, but other events may be masking the reality to some extent, of course.

That's exactly right - it's nice to put a coat of solder on each part, if you can, then melt those coatings together - but cleanliness is the key and a 'new' surface will always be easier to get a decent attachment of the coating to. With experience, you can almost 'see' when a joint is sound - it's hard to describe, but you will see it if you do enough joints. 'Structural' and 'electrical' soldering are similar, but rather separate subjects.

It will usually say so, if it has flux incorporated - terms like 'cored' or, more usually, 'multicore', will refer to the hollow part of the solder, filled with flux. They will look like this, although you can't usually see the cores on a melted end.

Although it has been taken reasonably seriously for over forty years, we are only just now (possibly) passing the peak of the annual deaths from it.

With the recent surge in sales, they've been able to buy @Garfielda new chain for his bike.

John Kelly has just played this on (appropriately) Mystery Train on Lyric FM.

I've use wire in plastic tubing, as intended for model aircraft - probably a bit more reliable if you need to bend things.

The Japanese chap I worked with had only ever driven Japanese cars, but 'work' insisted that he had a hire car for a job, no more 'expenses' - they really hated employees potentially 'winning', they preferred to give money to anybody else but us. Anyway, he came back after a fortnight, rather unenamoured by the Vauxhall that he had been forced to use - "It not go to reverse!" - he had spent the fortnight parking it uphill and pushing it out of tight spots. He could see from the 'map' on the gear knob where reverse should be, but just couldn't persuade it to go in. He had tried 'everything' - pulling it up, pushing it down, just ramming it in - all failed, so he just gave up. He still had the car outside, so I showed him the secret GM trick of pulling the gaiter shroud up, to allow reverse to be selected. He was apoplectic with rage - "Why they not tell you?!"

Yeah, ticking 'over' at 2/3 of a rev in each direction. A friend of mine lovingly rebuilt a Suzuki 750 'kettle'. We still laugh about how he took out the back wall of his shed when he first got it going...

Some of the two-stroke bubble cars didn't have a reverse gear, but they had adjustable timing - this allowed the engine to be stopped, the timing altered, then restarted, running in the other direction. This left you with the possibility of all the gears in reverse, not just one - 70mph backwards, for those that felt up to it...

^ Well, at least those three posts are the right way up...

Tipperary? Does it run a bit over the border to the Centre of the Universe*? *Ballybrophy.

Has anybody modelled this? Possibly a use for an old Lima..?

A bit of a missed opportunity? Whilst it was in there, they could have weathered it a bit...

In a similar vein, this paint is/was alleged to be one of "our oranges". https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2147372468/Macharius-Solar-Orange But, it may not be available any more...

https://shop.princeaugust.ie/

On its way from Minsk to Tianjin again today - so, a possibility of another run to Shannon on Wednesday?

Ah, I thought it would tell you where your school tie was...

Mmm, I'm sat here thinking about him now... He was a man who actually understood everything, to the point of being able to 'abuse' his knowledge, when it was necessary. They bought a house, but the only means of heating the water was by a back-boiler behind the sitting room fireplace. The hot tank had no fitting for an immersion heater and any modification meant destroying a lot of the bathroom - so, it could wait. For kitchen matters, boiling a large kettle was OK in the summer months, but heating enough water for a bath was an issue during the summer months. So, Harry devised a plan to suspend copper plates in the cold bath and pass fairly large currents directly through the water to heat it up. He made an insulated frame with the means to raise and lower the plates, to control the current, measured on his trusty AVOmeter. This could be achieved in 'reasonable' safety as the plates would 'gas up' as things progressed, reducing the current - the main risk was blowing the main supply fuse, so he kept the current well below that. There were no earth leakage devices back then, so blowing wire fuses was the only real issue - as long as he didn't blow the 'supply fuse' then he could just replace any wire as necessary. Sixty amps through the water soon heated it up... He built some really superb speakers, occupying the alcoves either side of the chimney breast. Things were designed with great regard to resonances, bass-reflex tube lengths, etc - and some regard to reducing noise through to next door. He wanted to experiment with different quantities and arrangements of wadding for damping purposes. He discovered a marvellous source of wadding, in small equal-sized quantities, that would allow him to create various arrangements and tweak the layout to achieve optimum acoustic performance. He negotiated with the manufacturer of this product and they agreed to deliver a consignment direct to him, so he didn't have to purchase large quantities in retail shops - there was quite a cost advantage to doing it this way, too. As much as Harry would understand everything, he would sometimes miss a small detail, that might be of no immediate concern to him - this is what led to him and his (long-suffering) wife carrying industrial quantities of 'sanitary items' into the house, from a lorry emblazoned with a "Tampax" logo - in front of all the neighbours out washing their cars on a Saturday morning.

Talk elsewhere of "suspect devices" reminded me of a couple of events of that nature in the factory. The 'Tank Shop' where the tanks for the transformers were fabricated had made actual military tanks during the war - hiding in plain view. The lads to the east clearly knew about this, though, and the factory was recorded, along with the adjacent RAF sites. The factory was subjected to one attack by a lone aircraft - whether it was deliberate or a fluke as somebody dumped his bombs having been 'jumped' on his way to Liverpool, or wherever, was not ever established. Three bombs went off, causing some damage and considerable excitement - also one bomb came to rest gently enough to not detonate itself, and was subsequently defused. However, it was never established if this four was the entire delivery - the ground was notoriously 'soft' - and we actually lost quite large items ejected by our own explosions in the 1970s and 80s. Not having a delivery note from the pilot, there has always been a possibility that the consignment may still have one or two unrecorded items... Anyway, one day, excavating a pit in a part of the building that went back to 1917 an 'unknown cylindrical metal object' was exposed by the digger. This caused some consternation and it was proposed to call the Bomb Squad in. Whilst a posse of suits discussed this and the potential for further damage and disruption that this might cause, someone had the presence of mind to get one of our endoscopes and gingerly shove it in through a crack in the casing. This revealed it to be an empty cylinder, about four feet long - so, it was dug out and revealed to be just a short section of broken cast-iron pipe, possibly just buried there after being broken - but not recorded anywhere - Phew! We also got the odd bomb scare in 'those days' and on one occasion we were all out by the railway, being recorded as 'safe', when it was realised that one person was missing - "Where's Harry?" - "He's definitely in, I've seen him!". So, the delegated Fire Warden was sent back into our shed to see if he could be located and brought to safety. Harry was found, determinedly sitting at his desk, wearing ear plugs, a WW2 gas mask and a genuine WW2 ARP* helmet. *Air Raid Precautions. I never really worked with Harry much, but he was my 'mentor', I learned all my scavenging and scrounging from him.