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What to do in lockdown?


JohnD

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I love the light, NIck!    Looks like an old beacon fire basket!   I trust you will complete the restoration and re-install it?

The light outside our back door has to be original to the 1903 house, and might be my next restoration project, if I can learn how to fettle wrought iron!  I have to change the bulb ever so rarely, and it always makes me anxious.    I'm not great with heights and it needs a tall ladder, but also because the glass cover for the bulb is cracked.    I didn't imagine that I could ever get another, but I've just discovered that they are available as "barn lamp covers"!

 

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On my original post, I went back to the box I nicked  obtained the coat of arms from, to take pics of those enormous fuses.

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Here's one in my hand for scale

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That bar with the orange stripe is the fuse material, a quarter inch thick!

Edited by JohnD
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14 minutes ago, Nick Jones said:

Blimey..... need more than a 6” nail to replace that......:blink:

Sorry Nick, you've reminded me of an electrical incident on my neighbour's roof. We were up there with a power drill and extension cord, fitting something or other, when the 20 foot extension cord started to smoke and then burst into flame. Rushed to the fuse box and turned the power off.

Investigation revealed that the short was caused by a nail through the power line during the recent extension, missed the wire by .05 mm, but the current the drill drew melted through that, causing the short. The reason the fuse hadn't blown was because when the floor man had sanded the floor of the extension, to stop the frequent fuse blowing he usually suffered when he started the sander up, he had replaced the  fuse with a copper nail.

Forgot to replace it with the fuse when he went home.

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21 hours ago, Escadrille Ecosse said:

That's pretty heavy duty. Wouldn't like to be about when one blew. I suspect it would be pretty dramatic. 

 

Like this?  

The wiring (to the camera?) in the foreground is impressive, in the wrong way.

Edited by JohnD
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Knew I had a few master cylinders somewhere.

After losing a couple of lock-ups to developers several months ago, I've started to go through some of the long forgotten boxes and bags of spares I have gathered over 35 years of triumph ownership.

Don't know how many are salvageable, but I have some rebuild kits somewhere, yet to be found, a job for a rainy day or two.

20200609_120428.jpg

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On 6/10/2020 at 10:20 AM, JohnD said:

Like this?  

The wiring (to the camera?) in the foreground is impressive, in the wrong way.

Link box explosion. I work for a subsidiary to the London distribution network operator ('electricity board' as was) and this was a major issue a couple of years ago, as you can see! They ramped up inspections and started installing fire blankets on top of some of them. Also trialling thermal monitoring, which is the best solution but hugely expensive - they own thousands of these all over the place. 

On 6/9/2020 at 12:18 PM, JohnD said:

1285191471_IMG_20200608_1209331.thumb.jpg.becc5216933ce43bcc1defa192c4681f.jpg

That bar with the orange stripe is the fuse material, a quarter inch thick!

John I reckon that is a link, rather than a fuse, so not designed to blow. Used to isolate circuits rather than protect them. Low-voltage network is not my area of expertise so I could be wrong, but in our area those handles can be used to carry fuses or links. Even the ancient fuses I've seen look like fuses. If the thing in your hand was to blow, it would probably torch everything else in the box (feeder pillar) at the same time, like the video above!

Pete

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Thank you, Pete!      The porcelain handle was so like an old fashioned domestic fuse, just four times bigger. You strung those  with fine fuse wire to protect your house circuits, so I  assumed it was the same!

Edited by JohnD
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On 6/10/2020 at 1:17 PM, Mark said:

Knew I had a few master cylinders somewhere.

After losing a couple of lock-ups to developers several months ago, I've started to go through some of the long forgotten boxes and bags of spares I have gathered over 35 years of triumph ownership.

Don't know how many are salvageable, but I have some rebuild kits somewhere, yet to be found, a job for a rainy day or two.

20200609_120428.jpg

Any larger capacity master cylinders with canted reservoirs? I'm not sure what the bore's should be but one of my early Spifires is in effect running a small clutch cylinder on the brake lines!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update on that outside light.    Looked at it the other day, and it was crooked, looked again and the tube that is the main support is rusted, right through, in  two places! If it wasn't for the wrought iron, it would have fallen down.   Worse, after I got out the ladder and went to take it down, the screws that hold it to the wall were rusted to spikes.   don't think some rust remover or even eklectrolysis will cure that.     But the light may have been there for a century, so not bad!

I fear that it will need to be completely rebuilt, and it's taken me a couple of days to find a local metal works that can bend tube to that radius.    I have, but they are too busy to do it for now. (Wow!  In lockdown!  Good for them!)   I have another that can repair/remake that scrollwork, so eventually It'll go back up.   Meanwhile a cheap bulkhead light.

John

 

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But here's something else to do in lock down - being a poo detective!

Daughter discovered that an Owl sanctury offers sterilized owl pellets (they regurgitate them so they're not really poo!) for kids to dissect, looking for all the small animal bones that they contain, and learning about owl diet and ecology!   Isn't that wonderful?     Grandson No.1 is excited and so am I, as I will get my own pellet to dissect!    

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For any grandparents, or parents with 'interested' kids to entertain, see: https://www.owl-help.org.uk/shop/owl-pellet?fbclid=IwAR1PYTZDJu6HZv7RFSgUuxM2fkyDUgRpvKWKpL0k7BbReC3z_E6zTMs6slw

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we found an owl pellet while out for a walk with my granddaughter. 
Pulled it to pieces and made almost a complete mouse skeleton!

It wasn't sterilized and was a bit smelly and sticky but that seemed to add to the interest...

and get one of these for a really good look at the bits. Connects into your phone, tablet or PC. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06WD843ZM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

image.png.5e5855c152bc5163baf561cb29b80ae8.png

Mike

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  • 2 weeks later...

That was great fun!.

The pellets arrive wrapped in cooking foil, as they are sterilised in an oven.   Grandson No.1, for whose benefit this was, of course, not ours,  was delighted to open the first foil packet, but rather underwhelmed by the dry, dark brown thing inside.      The Owl Sanctuary provided a pair of plastic forceps, but I had my own metal ones, which were needed, as the pellet is quite tough, and the bones within are, some of them, very small and delicate.     Two optionswere suggested, dry and wet dissection, and we opted for the dry, although cleaning the small bones was easier if they were swished in a bowl of water.

The pellets are (surprisingly!) completely odourless, and about 75% comprised of fur!     The rest is the bones, which are the point of the exercise.    Some were visible on the surface, but that was quite hard and tough, so it was easier to get into the pellet and then peel away the furry remnants from the bones.  It was in fact easier to dissect by naked eye, but the microscope was useful to clean and identify the smallest bones.

Here's what we found:  GS1 was fascinated.    He even helped me label some of the bones, although when you're six, concentrating on Grandpa's anatomy lesson is difficult.     The pellets came with a chart showing the bones that were likely to be found, but I'm afraid that referring to online pictures was more helpful.    In one pellet, we found the skeleton of a vole, plus a lot of smaller bones, that might be vole or mouse.   Only one skull!     In another was a mixed bag, two skulls and the finest, tiny vertebrae and ribs.    They were stuck to card with Cellotape, and the plan is for GS1 to take them to school to show his friends with the gift of a third pellet, better than an apple, to his teacher!

If you have enquiring minded children or grandchildren, I recommend this to you.     Even without the yawning expance of summer hols after the Lockdown, this will interest, and educate, kids and  grown ups, about anatomy and wild life!

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Edited by JohnD
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