Member postings for Martin Dilly 2

I did two years National Service in the 1950s; neither RAF West Kirby nor Locking were renowned for their cuisine, but I don't recall the dining hall floors being strewn with those apparently intolerant to celery, gluten, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, mustard, peanuts or soybeans. I remember at some parades "Fall out the Catholics and Jews", but I'm sure I'd have remembered a call at our messes to "Fall out the gluten or lupin intolerant". Despite that, as far as I know, nobody died.

What has changed in the intervening 70 years? Are kids so over-cosetted by parents concerned that they might have an allergy that they are never allowed to build up a natural resistance to all these things? During the War if we were lucky enough to get a jar of peanut butter from Canada I don't think it carried a health warning ("Caution - contents may contain peanuts"; we ate it and it sure as heck beat starving.

How on earth can anyone opening a small restaurant be expected to research which of the endless list of awful allergens a recipe they've used for decades might contain, so they can list them on their menus?

Those small conical Turkish coffee pots that are heated directly over a flame are brass and the coffee they produce is pretty strong, so if that doesn't react I doubt if a 'mere' espresso would.

Many thanks to all who suggested ways to use the old scanner. However, I already have a new one, hence the need to dispose of the G3010. Just seems a shame to bin it.

I have an HP Scanjet G3010 that worked with Windows XP but doesn't seem to want to do so with Windows 10. If anybody can use it then it's yours for the picking up. It and I live in the Croydon/Bromley area.

For files up to 2Gb I've used WeTransfer for years, which is free and has never given me any problems. Alerting the recipient in advance to how you're sending the files avoids him zapping it as an unknown.

Many thanks for all the suggestions. Starlock washer now Dremelled off by a very small reverse cone mounted stone. The suspected grooves turned out to be where the tabs on the washer had dug slightly into the surface of the fitting.

Samsaranda, yes it's immersed in the coffee but I have in mind to make the replacement from brass. Those small conical pots used to make real Turkish coffee are brass; it's strong stuff and it doesn't seem to kill many of the Turks.

Circlip, it's a pretty basic cafetierre, but the shaft is grooved, which rules out Hopper's cunning plan. I'm away for a while now but it sounds like a bit of light Dremelling will do the trick when I'm home again.

Thanks, mgnbuk. I'd done a bit of sleuthing too and found the same site, so my normal cynicism for once was unfounded.

Many thanks gentlemen. Is there a speed record for replies I wonder? I'll hold fire for a while in case someone with magic powers comes up with a solution but I can see my next step will be trying to buy a single StarLock push on fastener after butchering the current one, and being told there's a £25 minimum order (+postage and packing...).

I'm not even sure what the offending item is actually called. However, it is a washer about 10 thou thick and 14mm in diameter, with four tabs on the inner edge that are sprung upwards and engage in a groove on a shaft about 6mm diameter so as to lock it to a large metal disk. It's actually part of a cafetierre and has a stripped thread. The intention is to make a new part and replace it, preferably using the same lock washer.

So far I've tried sliding dressmaker's pins under the tabs in the hope that this will force them apart enough to free the washer. The first pin works fine but later ones will only go below the washer rather than above it when they emerge from the other tabs, as the washer is distorted by the first pin.

Any bright ideas?

+1 for Andy and Nealab. I use a Dualit for espresso as well and it seems fine. As somebody mentioned earlier, blade grinders seem to produce more heat and thus a change of taste in the resultant grind. The Dualit has a multiple grind setting and can also be adjusted to give whatever portion size you want. The 'footprint' is only about 5 inches square. Not sure of the current cost but mine was about 50 quid maybe 7-8 years ago.

Not sure if this is quite the right place for this, but mods please move if not.

I have several hundred copies of Aeroplane Monthly magazine that are too good to bin. They go back to the 1980s and are free to a good home. Collection only. I'm in the Croydon/Bromley area. PM me if you might be that good home and they're yours.

I have had passed on to me about a hundredweight of back numbers of Aeroplane Magazine, going back to the Richard Riding editorship. They are too interesting to bin and would be free to a good home. I'm in the Croydon/Bromley area, as they'd need to be collected. PM me if that sounds interesting, and they're yours..

Try the dental technician suppliers. They have a vast range of disks and all sorts of handy cutters and burrs.

Hollow, I have an unused 6 ft length of white Formica kitchen work surface which you, or anyone else, are welcome to, f.o.c. I'm in the Bromley/Croydon area if that's any help.

Blimey! How long have we got?

During the War we lived in a cottage on the Hampshire/Berkshire border. There was only cold water and I presumably bathed in a movable bath in the scullery, though I have no recollection of this. There was an outside earth closet, the contents of which were kindly emptied periodically into a pit at the bottom of the garden by a neighbour. The exposed ceiling beams of the cottage were old ship's timbers and the wall plaster was bound with horsehair, some of which I occasionally was tempted to pull loose, resulting in pits in the wall by my bed.

The road outside saw frequent military convoys, specially just before D-Day, when DUKWs, Churchill and Sherman tanks, jeeps, 25-pounder guns and limbers and all sorts of exciting military hardware passed the cottage. About ten years ago, when I passed through Eversley, the kerb outside the cottage still bore a series of regular chips in it from a tank's tracks where the driver had taken things a bit close.

There were regular Army manoeuvres, centering on the bridge over the Blackwater, which was believed locally to be mined in case of invasion; sockets for cylindrical concrete tank stoppers crossed the road on the village side of the bridge. After the Army left each week I collected any discarded Thunderflashes and blank ammunition, as well as the black bakelite caps that covered the fuse igniting tapes from practice grenades. Opening the blanks produced a useful pile of small diamond-shaped flakes of cordite which could be lit to produce a satisfying flash. I was once found having lunch with a group of Canadian troops, who shared with me their baked beans from a mess tin.

There was only cold water and I presumably bathed in a movable bath in the scullery, though I have no recollection of this. There was an outside earth closet, the contents of which were kindly emptied periodically into a pit at the bottom of the garden by Mr Leversuch.

The exposed ceiling beams of the cottage were old ship's timbers and the wall plaster was bound with horsehair, some of which I occasionally was tempted to pull loose, resulting in pits in the wall by my bed.

The road outside saw frequent milirtary convoys, specially just before D-Day, when DUKWs, Churchill and Sherman tanks, jeeps, 25-pounder guns and limbers and all sorts of exciting military hardware passed the cottage. About ten years ago, when I passed through Eversley, the kerb outside Spindle Cottage still bore a series of regular chips in it from a tank's tracks where the driver had taken things a bit close.

Christmas decoration chains could be made from aluminium strips of 'window', about half an inch wide, dropped from aircraft; occasionally whole rolls of this could be found. Warning notices describing butterfly anti-personnel bombs made one careful about strange-looking objects, but I never found one; other notices offered rewards (I forget how much) for those finding Colorado beetles that were a threat to potatoes.

Almost opposite Spindle Cottage Miss Andrews ran the post office and delivered the telegram to my mother informing her that my father was missing, and the subsequent series of POW mail from Stalag Luft III. In the evenings one could hear the regular thump-thump, thump-thump as she banged the franking stamp on the ink pad and the letters she franked by hand.

The proximity of RAF Hartford Bridge, now Blackbushe, was what got me permanently hooked on aviation. It was probably 1942 when I saw rows of Hotspur training gliders and Whitley tugs up there; the smell of cellulose dope and 'proper' aromatic high octane aviation fuel was magic and quite unlike today's car petrol. My mother and I cycled up there very often, me on a large bike with wood blocks screwed to the pedals so I could reach them; while she collected blackberries I wandered pretty freely round the airfield and would sometimes be allowed into cockpits of Mitchells, Dakotas, Warwicks and Mosquitoes. Like most boys then, I could recognise any aircraft likely to be seen, allied or enemy, and could tell several by sound. I recall being most disappointed, when I won first prize for English at St. Neots school to find that I received a copy of Peter Pan; what I really wanted was R.A. Saville-Sneath's Penguin Aircraft Recognition, Part 1.

I'd echo the positive experiences most have had. I had two cataracts replaced (or rather lenses inserted in place of the cataracts) about a year apart; I doubt if any surgeon would do two at the same time. I'm a grade A needlephobe but as far as I know no needles were involved, or at least none seen or felt by me. A few drops of, I presume, a local anaesthetic, a very bright light for probably less than five minutes and off I trotted with an eye patch and a pack of eye drops. Didn't feel a thing. "Easy-peasy", said the extremely dishy young surgeon when I thanked her; "Easy-peasy after seven years training", said I. "Twenty-five", said she. The cops all look about eighteen too....

Only slight down side is that I previously used bi-focal glasses which stayed on to provide some protection when doing any machining, and now I forget they're not there any more so try to remember to use eye protection.

Barrie,

Is that really a bar stock crankcase? It looks like a very nice bit of pressure die castng to me, but what do I know? Next year's Euro CL Championships should be interesting with one or two of those in the mix anyway.

Martin (omnipresent but not omniscient).

The reason people fly control-line and free-flight isn't because RC equipment is too expensive for them; it's because they enjoy a different challenge in a different type of man-and-machine sport and doing so while competing with other people adds to the enjoyment. The fact that control-line speed and free-flight duration competitions are purely objective, with a stopwatch to decide the result instead of some judge's opinion, adds to the appeal for many of us. No 'halo factors' involved!

Wow! What an engine; I look forward to seeing some figures when it gets let loose in an F2A model.