Member postings for Samsaranda

I am with Howard, as soon as is practical, rust starts with any moisture present in the air. Dave W

Have had two cars now with tinted rear windows my personal taste is I don’t like them and think they make the car look slightly ridiculous, unfortunately we have no choice now as they come as standard, something that manufacturers think we crave. Dave W

Jelly, Thanks for your very comprehensive information regarding the subject, it certain answers my enquiry, many thanks. Dave W

John Halfpenny, Robert summed up the situation accurately, I ordered an item that although hazardous can legitimately be sent by carriers with proper labelling and with carriers who are willing to carry such items and have systems to deal with them. In my case I had no knowledge which Carrier that the retailer was going to use, I assumed that he would be organising the carriage in a lawful manner with a carrier who had a system that catered for recognised hazardous materials, it transpired that did not happen. It appears that there are many cowboy outfits that are willing to put people at risk by not conforming to what legal constraints are in place for protection. Dave W

To make sense of the parts that you have you will need a full set of drawings to identify everything, I am currently making an Allchin and there are many small parts that you can only identify with decent drawings. It will be worth it when you finish it though, good luck. Dave W

The definition of Spirit of Salts is greater than 25% Hydrochloric acid, I wouldn’t rate exposure to that as trivial, the fumes are strong enough to cause serious respiratory problems and can also corrode metals when in confined spaces, so something that I would show a great deal of respect to how I handle it. Perhaps SOD would like to dip his hands in it to show it’s not that dangerous! Dave W

Hi Nick thanks for the reference I couldn’t find it, the reference is very clear it’s a definite No to the carriage of corrosives no matter how they are labelled and Spirit of Salts is definitely Hydrochloric Acid at greater than 25% concentration. I am amazed that Parcelforce actually delivered a package that is banned by their own regs but in their defence they probably rely on their customers to declare the contents of parcels truthfully. Highlights potential disasters waiting to occur. Dave W

Today I received a package containing 6 x 500 ml containers of Spirit of Salts, that’s 3 litres total volume, spirit of salts being a dilution of Hydrochloric Acid. The package arrived wrapped in black plastic with only an address label on the outside, there were no warning labels as to the contents being an acid, the interior wrapping consisted of some bubble wrap over a cardboard box. The carrier was Parcelforce and the supplier was a company on EBay. I was under the impression that the carriage of dangerous substances required certain conditions to be complied with and that Royal Mail particularly would refuse anything that they classify as dangerous, batteries, liquids etc. As Parcelforce is I understand an offshoot of Royal Mail do they have similar requirements, I know that they refuse to carry the small replacement rechargeable lithium batteries that my wife’s Cochlear Implant uses, they come via DPD and all other spares that she needs come Royal Mail or Parcelforce. Dave W

Point taken Neil and Nick but the £1,000 policy was in place at the bank she worked for, a big high street name, I would have assumed that the policy would have been common to all banks because they all go through the same clearing location.

My wife did have problems with her signature at our building society, one of the few remaining mutual societies, her signature did not match that in their records due to the fact that her hands are now crippled by arthritis and she is developing a tremor, the cashier that refused her signature was one that has known us for years but she said rules is rules! We overcame the problem by her carrying her driving licence with her if she visits the building society and they accept the photo ID to confirm identity. Dave W

My sister worked for one of the big banks all her working life from leaving school till early retirement was forced on her. She ended up working in a unit of the bank that dealt with the closing and winding up of deceased customers accounts, it used to be located in the town where she lived but a few years ago the bank decided to move it to a town some 35 miles away, my sister continued to work in the unit but travelling each day to the new location. Out of the blue the bank decided to move the unit from South East England to Wales, the staff were offered continuity of jobs if they moved with the unit or if appropriate they could take early retirement, my sister chose the retirement option. Her opinion of how the bank has treated both customers and staff over the years that she worked there was that it was going down an ever slippery slope, respect had no meaning to those who were in charge. Her opinion was that the training that staff used to receive had diminished to the bare minimum necessary to get by with some semblance of being able to provide a service to customers. Her opinions and experience of management was that they were being promoted to positions for which they lacked necessary banking knowledge and experience, a university degree was able to open a management route when candidates had little or no knowledge of people or the processes necessary to function. My sister was extremely glad to retire from what she regarded as a total shambles, posts on this thread are an indicator of how chaotic high street banking has become. One piece of information that I picked up from my sister is that when cheques are paid into the banking system, there is no check on the signatures if the cheque amount is for £1,000 or less, so any signature could be on a cheque as there is no check against the bank accounts signatory, a bit concerning as regards security of our accounts as anyone finding a cheque book could steal from us. Dave W

I ordered an item last week from a supplier and it was sent by Parcelforce, the tracking number showed it would reach me on the first day of their strike, it didn’t happen, the item was delayed by two days but was eventually delivered by Parcelforce two days late. Annoying when as a customer you pay a premium rate for Parcelforce deliveries, at least with them they knock the door and hand the item to the customer not like other carriers, and Amazon are probably one of the worst, just dump the parcel on the doorstep and run, don’t even knock the door, have watched them do it on my doorbell camera. Had a large parcel delivered the other day and the carrier, Yodel, dumped it on the doorstep in horrendous rain, despite having provided information where to leave the parcels when no one is home, a large plastic locker next to the front door, parcel was disintegrating when we arrived home it was so wet, fortunately the contents were unaffected by the water. Dave W

Geoff

Delete it, I received the same email a couple of days ago, it’s definitely a scam. Any payments that you are entitled to will be paid automatically by the govt, with your pensions or disability benefits if you receive them, also your energy supplier will be reducing your energy bill by the amount you are entitled to as energy price guarantee. Dave W

The heater panels that you can get for pets work well, the ones that I bought for my elderly Siamese cat are rated at 20 watts and are robust enough to prevent an animal from destroying it, the supply cables are well protected as well. They are flexible so if required could be wrapped around an item, it’s surprising how warm they get as only rated at 20 watts. Dave W

In my teenage years, like most youth of the 60’s, I was obsessed with motorcycles, I remember one particular vehicle that I owned was a 500 cc single cylinder Matchless. The big end failed and I had to strip the engine to replace it, when subsequently reassembling I think I was fitting the cylinder head and tightening the bolts with a ring spanner and suddenly one bolt sheared whilst I was tightening it, the top of the bolt took the spanner out of my hand and they both hit the garage ceiling as there was some considerable pent up force locked into the bolt when it let go. Needless to say that I didn’t possess or have access to the correct requisite torque wrench which might have saved the bolt from letting go in the manner that it did. Later in life I spent many years working on aircraft of all shapes and sizes, torque wrenches that were correctly calibrated became the norm, particularly when fitting the large main wheels on transport aircraft where the wheel bearing preload was critical to prevent embarrassing failures. Dave W

You say the washer is part of a cafetierre, is this part immersed in the coffee, if so is probably made out of some form of stainless so replacement should be a likewise material. Not sure how ordinary steel or zinc plated steel would hold up in that environment, probably not good to dissolve zinc coating into your coffee although according to doom merchants coffee is rated as toxic anyway. Dave W

Many years ago at one company I worked at we had a similar size granite surface plate in the inspection area that was mounted on a stout timber frame, never encountered any problems and it was easy to move by forklift, not that you would need to do that once set up. Dave W

Jelly

If the LNG that is being transported in the tankers is only there instead of being flared of as waste, how come the price of gas has rocketed, why are we paying so much for what is potentially a waste product and supposedly now in short supply? Dave W

Nigel

Public Utilities, that includes energy suppliers, have recently been pushing for vulnerable customers, that includes retired persons and of course those who have disabilities and or special needs to register with their suppliers. Have had our water supplier and energy supplier recently contacting us about registration, I assume this is to build a countrywide database so that when selective disconnection becomes a reality they have an idea of which customers should receive a continuity of service. Dave W

Jelly

What your basically insinuating is that why did we privatise our energy industry just to give private companies profit and making the end product more expensive, we are victims of political ideology. Dave W

Jelly

Unfortunately my solar is locked into the tariff system that the government devised for incentivising people to go solar, I joined right at the end of the programme so the return I get for energy that I send back to the grid is very low but then again the cost of my solar equipment was lower than previous years when the tariffs paid were more, swings and roundabouts. So if the energy companies come up with a better payment system for solar that customers send to the grid a lot of solar producers on the previous tariffs are locked into 25 year contracts like me. Dave W