Member postings for Mike

As a man who lives within a few miles of Speyside I wouldn't insult any whisky, or even what passes for whisky in the USA, by diluting it with Coke. A little water if you must....

Unlike some, I enjoyed the awful rhyming voice-over. It made me smile - sounded like somebody trying to copy Sir John Betjeman, but failing dismally!

Anthony: The same rough calculation works in my home in the rooms which are totally LED lit, which is most of them. Better light from one third the electricity. I have not calculated the overall financial advantage properly, but our electricity bills after the usual dark winter here in north Scotland are noticeably lower - and that's despite the regular use of washing machine and new A-rated dish washer. I've also just bought LED lights for my "tadpole" tricycle, and cannot believe how much light I get from a couple of AAA batteries front and rear.

Personally, I find Corel Paintshop Pro much easier to learn than Photoshop. It does what I want it to do, and the results are acceptable to a leading magazine group.

Edited By Mike on 19/04/2017 06:21:55

Yes, Mike, I've just unearthed a load of vinyl records, as well as some old 78s which are of historical interest to me. Now I'm looking for something not too expensive to play them on. Any recommendations?

Neil: In the same foraging expedition I unearthed some long-expired Fuji 400 asa 35mm transparency cassettes. Admittedly not the best film, but the one preferred a magazine customer I had. I'm tempted to blow the dust off one of the old film Nikons, but I don't know anyone who has an E6 processing line any more. The one I used to use in Aberdeen shut up shot when the press turned digital.

During World War 2 my father was an RAF electrician, and he was seconded to the Americans to fit British radios to the B17 bombers. For this purpose they gave him the B17 toolkit, and they refused to take it back when the task was finished - so he brought it home. I still have some of it, mainly ring spanners and a couple of screwdrivers, but my favourite item was a hand drill with a gearbox, on one setting of which the chuck always turned clockwise no matter in which direction the hand wheel was turned. This was very handy for drilling holes in awkward corners. Alas, it wore out some time in the 1990s, after serving my dad, then me, for around 50 years. This was a favourite tool, and I wish I could get another one.

Harry, I know just what you mean. Can you remember falling off your bike when you were a kid? You seemed to be in the air, hovering over the hard road surface for ages - certainly long enough to think "this is going to hurt." And hurt it always did! I also remember the same phenomenon when falling off a motorbike, and that hurt, too!

There must be many different grades with different qualities. Back in the 1970s I was involved in tuning model aircraft diesels, and I wanted a highly heat conductive material for contra-pistons. I asked a friend who worked in the BRM F1 team workshops at Bourne, Lincs, and he recommended the aluminium-bronze they used for valve guides. They allowed me to buy a length of bar from their stores, and it was lovely stuff to work with if you treated it like steel but machined it dry. As it was quite a length of one-inch bar I had to buy to make three components each about a quarter of an inch long, I also used it for the internal bits of the fishing reels I used to make in the era, and it was also very easy to tap. Wish I could get some stuff of the same grade now.

Whenever I've got a job like that to do I use one of my wife's very slim diamond nail files. I don't think she reads this forum, but if I suddenly disappear off the scene you will know why.............

Time was when, for working on shotguns, I always used to make my own screwdrivers. Then I got lazy, and used to buy good ones from Britool or Snap-on. Now I just buy the best Chinese make I can find. The thing is, I always re-grind the points to hollow ground, no matter what they are to be used for.. When working on finely-engraved gun actions, you just can't allow a screwdriver to jump out of its slot, or you could cause hundreds, or even thousand poundsworth of damage. When working on stuff like this it makes sense to re-grind a screwdriver to fit an individual screw. I just can't think why all screwdrivers aren't supplied with hollow-ground points. Screwdriver bits for electric screwdrivers are, in my experience, always hollow ground - not that anyone would be daft enough to use an electric screwdriver on a shotgun.

OuBallie, let me echo Howard Lewis's comment - you do put us armchair angineers to shame!

Surely it was not beyond the wit of science and engineering to create a bi-metallic, forge-resistant circular coin the same size and weight as the old £1 coin, thereby saving the millions being spent on modifying every coin-operated machine in the UK? There is only one set of people who will be picking up this bill, and thats us - the customers.

Wow! I'm off to buy a lottery ticket right now!

Hi Clarihew: I live about 12 miles from the Moray Motor Museum, and a few months back I took the group of stroke survivors with which I am a volunteer on a visit. Not only were the staff very helpful to us, but the displays are great and you can actually see the cars up close and in detail. And how I would love to own that Lister-Jaguar! We have also taken our stroke survivors grpup to the Knockando Wool Mill - wish I could afford to ask them to make me a tweed shooting suit!

There are lots of words ending in "proof" which really are a load of rubbish. My favourite is "bulletproof." In practice, you can break anything if you hit it hard enough. That should be written into the basic laws of physics. Maybe it is somewhere, and it is me who is not well enough educated.

Can be the result of a stroke. Since mine, I have a size 8 right foot, and a size 9 right. One of these bits of kit might be the answer to my problem!

Duncan: We have similar trouble with Historic Scotland up here - preventing changes to listed buildings so that they cannot be brought into a condition in which they can be used - so instead they decay and on occasions have to be demolished because they are so dangerous. Mind you, I had a laugh at their expense when I was the editor of the local paper in Banff. They sent someone all the way from Edinburgh to explain to a local chap why he couldn't paint the name of his business on "a historic wooden beam" which ran across the front of his property. When the guy arrived, the local chap gave the "wooden" bean a sharp tap, and it rang like a bell. Yes, it was an RSJ!

And yes, Andrew, I have bugs in my satnav software which leads me to purveyors of bottles of real ale, fine wines, single-malt whiskies and venison steaks! Fortunately, it being a French car, updates have no effect on anything that would spoil one's appreciation of fine food and drink.

Has anyone visited the Glasgow Riverside (formerly Transport) museum lately? They have some very fine cars and bikes, but they have mounted most of them on shelves on the walls, so you can't see them in detail. Looks terribly arty-farty from a distance, but useless to anyone really interested in the exhibits. Next time I'm in the city I'll be giving the place a miss...

My house is made of sandstone, and I have drilled lots of holes in the walls with an ordinary masonry drill. It works fine if the drill is kept sharp, and I do have a "green" wheel. A lot of masonry drills aren't very sharp even when new.

Or, for an entertaining version of it, read "The Fist of God" by Frederick Forsyth - one of his better novels.

Mick Charity: I found the link you provided very interesting - it reminded me of the campfire bread we were taught to make in the Scouts in the 1950s. This was all derived from Baden-Powell's instructions for Scouts, so perhaps bread baked by the British army, when on the march or under siege conditions in the Boer War era, was very similar to the Roman army's bread. Just a thought, anyway...