Mixing it...

You join me half way through this project... Well, what turned into a 'half' project, if you like.

The story starts way back in the early 1980s when the younger version of me was doing a spot of DIY, well, rather a lot of DIY as it turned out. We had recently bought the house we still live in today. At the time we were slowly converting it back from a couple of flats to a single dwelling. Money was tight (when isn't it?) so laying out £145.00 for a cement mixer was a big decision. In those days it was relatively expensive to hire mixers, and it would not have taken very long to spend most of the cost of a new one. For once, I picked the correct path and parted with my £145.00.

We were laying a patio and building walls to retain the garden. That job alone repaid the investment in one go. We had weeks of use out of it mixing mortar and render. Since then, although it has had long periods of just sitting there, it has seen hours and hours of work over the past 35+ years.

It started life painted a bright orange colour, as all Belle mixers do. After several years of use, it was getting a bit tatty so one weekend it got a make-over in 'Buttercup yellow', I could not buy orange paint easily, and a bright yellow seemed like a good alternative at the time. From that point on, it became known as 'Buttercup'. I am not usually happy with giving inanimate objects names, but for some reason, this silly name just amused me at the time. That must have been well over twenty years ago. Since then it has lived outdoors more than it has been under cover.

16A IP44 plug and socket

For the past few years, the power lead has been missing. Not needing it, I had not had a reason to locate it, but while hunting through a box of 'stuff', as I cleared the workshop, I came across the plug devoid of its lead. For some reason, it must have been removed. I have no recollection of this heinous act. The only thing I can think of is that I had intended to upgrade it to the current 16A IP44 system of connection. This I will do, but for now, I just wanted to see if I could get it going so I have repaired the existing plug and rewired it to a length of three-core, blue 'Arctic' cord.

 

The bit I did not photograph...

Making the new lead led me to have a go at firing it up. Bearing in mind, it has been exposed to the worst of the weather for a decade I was not overly confident that it was even going to run. With the mixer connected to a supply, protected by an RCD, I gingerly switched it on. To my surprise, it ran well, if a bit 'dry' sounding.

Repaired, rusty and replacement fixings

Full of confidence I set about looking at stripping it down to give it a bit of a service. The first job was to attempt to undo the rusty and painted over fixings. Not only had I painted them with a good thick coat of brushed-on 'Buttercup' but it had been sprayed orange after its assembly by the workers at Belle. A touch of paint stripper and a good soaking with what Sue calls that "Magic Juice" (a twenty-year-old can of Plus-Gas) and I managed to remove all but one of the original bolts intact, all be it in poor condition.

The bit I did photograph...

Some of the metal work is in a bit of a sorry state having been ravished by the deep, destructive action of rust eating away at vulnerable steel and cast iron. This was cleaned and treated with Rust Remover (sold by Machine Mart) Although reasonably ugly looking, in all cases, there is enough good metal left to maintain strength, at least for now. I will probably fabricate a complete new bracket, I have always wanted to have a go at welding, now I have the perfect excuse - how hard can it be? Honestly? I have no idea, but I intend to do a bit of research, ask a few mates who have experience and, if I feel confident, I will give it a go. If that does not work out, I can always get one fabricated for me! I do intend to do a proper refurbishment of this faithful piece of mini-plant in the future, but for now, a coat of primer and the plant-rat look will have to do.

The cast iron gearbox seemed to shed a skin or two as the rust was peeled away, but was still solid and after being treated with a liberal application of Rust Remover, washed and dried off, it was given a couple of coats of Hammerite Smooth - great stuff for this sort of job! It can be seen in the picture below.

That will do for now - Where're the spanners?

Late in the day, I thought it might be worth photographing the progress so far. I found some replacement nuts and bolts (technically set screws, but the common description of bolts will do) of similar thread sizes, and just cut them to length. The large bold that is used to mount the motor bracket to the gearbox was in good enough condition to reuse as I did not have a suitable replacement to hand. It got a soak in the Rust Remover overnight and cleaned off to be paired with nice new full thickness washers and nut.

The original plug and socket - soon to be replaced with a modern 16A version

The motor got a good scrub with a wire brush and its internal residents, live and deceased, were 'encouraged' to evacuate with a blast from the air-line. I did not bother to repaint it for now.

It all went back together well, and a quick test proved the fact. Although not in too bad a state, the drum has some deposits of cement left inside. Ten years of rust took care of most of it, and a few clouts with a rubber hammer removed some more. Finally, I ran it for a while with a slurry of pea shingle, sharp-sand and water to polish off the inside. Although not perfect it is now very serviceable as it is, at least for the meantime.

In motion. The mixer is being run with a slurry of pea shingle, sharp-sand and water to polish off the inside. It might take a while

I have bought a new drive belt for it, but as the original is still going strong, I will save it as a spare for now, as there seems little point in replacing it for the sake of it. It is a simple five-minute replacement if it does break with use.

I will now use it for the couple of small projects I have to do here in the garden, but it will need the plug/socket replaced, and I would not mind giving it a bit of a cosmetic make-over one day.

Ralph.

Box-olagy

It is incredible how much stuff can be squirrelled away when you have space to do it. If that space is shared with a little brother who was never good at keeping his room tidy, you can imagine how much mess he can make in several hundred square feet!

My little brother (Tim, now in his 50s, but still referred to as LB) has just moved home and his new dwelling comes with the biggest single garage I have ever seen. This means that he has moved out of his lump of the space we share.Now I have more space than I know what to do with. To make things easier Tim has taken everything he wants and removed any rubbish leaving behind the rest for me to pick over and do with as I chose. This has been reasonably fruitful as he passed on a host of power tools and I managed to reclaim most of what he had 'borrowed' of my tools, power leads and fixings.

His stuff was scattered all over the place. Just like his childhood bedroom, it was impossible to find anything. This resulted in new tools being bought as it was easer and quicker than spending hours looking for stuff. I found at least three hacksaw frames and fixings of all shapes and sizes. In an old plastic tray that originally contained bulk chicken pieces, I found the remains of a box of 25mm, 18g narrow crown staples, along with an exploded box. The flimsy box had obviously given out under the less than careful handling it had received, during LBs tenure as custodian of said fixings.

Everything gets covered in dust down at the storage as the floor is loose chippings that are very dry. driving over them just kicks up fine dust that settles on everything that is not wrapped or covered. This open box of fixings had not escaped the layers of dust and just as the remains of Pompeii were eventually excavated, so it was for this little box of fixing.

At around £16.00 a box, it was worth collecting them up for recovery later. The box was loaded on to the van for transit back to the workshop. The first job was to brush and wash the dirt off of the fixings and see just what I had. It turned out to be thirty strips (3000 staples). That is just under a tenner's worth. The cardboard box was laying in the bottom of the open container with a flap hanging off and it had split down one of the corners rendering it useless as it was, laid flat. 

These fixing are very heavy for their size and the boxes they are supplied in, for the most part, are far too weak. I have often strengthened them with a wrap of 'Gaffa' tape. Just for the hell of it, I decided I would repair it and return it to a serviceable box. Yes, I know I am probably the only person to bother to do this, but If a fixing has an original box I much prefer to Keep them in it.

Repairing the box

The split box was washed off and left to dry overnight

The box had spilt down one of the folded corners and in order to be able to repair it properly I needed to separate the glued up seam. This I did with a scalpel.

As can be seen, part of the box remains on the flap, stuck to the original glue. This is no problem as it will be glued back together and become reunited making the same thickness as it was originally.

One of the flaps needed some repair as it was almost torn completely away

Water-resistant PVA glue is used to join it back together

More glue is added to the join where the box had been split.

Brown Gum-Arabic tape is used to reinforce the joint, the glue is activated with water painted on with a brush.

It is left for about 15 minutes before being burnished to remove any air bubles

The tape is trimmed to length before the glue has set completely

A final pat with a dry tea towel removes any excess moisture.

It is sandwiched between a couple of pieces of glass, weighted down and left overnight to dry

The repaired fold is scored using the handle of a scalpel and the box was assembled using PVA glue on the flap 

There we have it a serviceable box containing there best part of 3000 narrow crown staples ready for use. Note the additional strip of tape added to reinforce the outer corner where the box has been repaired

I know,I could have just put them in something else, but that would not be any fun. I have now achieved something and the original box will sit alongside the other couple of million air-nails/staples/brads that I have in stock.

Ralph.

And finally...

Not so smart, smart-phone.
I mentioned above that I refer to my little brother as LB. My current communication device has (as I assume most do) a talking mode. E.g. "Fred calling" I hardly ever use this feature but one day I was messing about with the settings and I must have inadvertently turned the voice on. A while later, the lady in the phone announced "Pound Calling!" ... What?  "Pound Calling!" It then dawned on me, I had entered 'LB' in the directory as the identifier for my brother's number. The dumb-phone thinks it is the abbreviation for pound weight (lb).

Look what I found!

I am almost there with the clean up of the workshop, boxes and boxes of 'stuff' have been examined and relocated. Amongst them, I found a box full of Meccano Steam engine parts awaiting refurbishment. Originally I had planned to do full-blown restorations on all of them, but after doing

several of them, the novelty wore off. I have sold all the ones I had completed, and I am not planning to do any more for the time being. Rather than just sell off the bits, I have decided to clean and rebuild as many as I can into shabby but fully working machines.

A box of chassis, fire boxes and boilers...

...and a tray full of more bits and pieces

I have already rebuilt and tested one. A really good clean, and a bit of a polish, makes them look so much better. Lapping and polishing the valve gear and piston, refitting missing or damaged washers and stripping the burner down to remove any debris that has accumulated over the years, soon had it working again.

From scrap to a runner - Serviced and working correctly, if a bit tatty around the edges

That will be my work for the next day or so. Getting them cleaned, serviced and working so that most of them can be sold through my internet shop, RalphsShop.com. I have another idea for some of them. Rather than do a full restoration job on them, but do a bit more than just cleaning them up I am thinking Rat-Rod, well rather Rat-Carno.

A Rod-Rat. Perfectly sound but deliberately built to look in need of restoration... Cool (Man!)

Ratcarno

Rat Rods originated as an alternative to the full-blown and expensive Hot Rods that were more intended to be looked at than driven. Rat Rods are built according to the owner's abilities and with the intention of being driven.The unfinished bodywork is all part of the look. Rust is stabilised but is not removed, dents are, and damage is rectified to a point, but there is nothing wrong with the odd bullet hole being left in place.

A similar concept can be taken with Meccano. There are the collectors, who seek pristine, unused parts and if they do build anything it is adorned with hundreds of brass washers to protect the paint and displayed with 'look, but don't touch' notices. I was always a builder and a great believer in using Meccano for what it was intended for - to build with. The idea of using old Meccano to build with is not new to us. We were doing it for years, albeit using Meccano that was in reasonably good condition. We do own a selection of old pre-war dark red and green Meccano and have built using it to build models from the period. Steam wagon a prime example.

The Steam Wagon from the 1929 steam engine manual, built in period dark red and green parts and in our favoured scheme using more modern light red and zinc parts

This, however, is altogether different. What I am planning to do is put together some pieces rescued from the scrap. Clean them up and try and get a 'uniform' degree of tastiness. Starting with old bent, creased, painted and tatty parts, the first job will be to select a few parts and begin to clean and straighten them out, see what I have, and attempt to unify the finish.

The seed that started all this was a ridiculously bent and buckled plate that had been severely mutilated with all its edges bent along their length as if it had been used as a screwdriver to tighten slotted bolts far beyond what they were designed for. The plate was also severely buckled and twisted. So bad was this plate, I had written it off as being destined for land-fill within days. It was so bad I did not bother to photograph it. Mistake. Below is a picture of the plate after a few minutes of 'percussive maintenance' Nobody was more surprised than me that not only had I managed to get the bends out of it, I also managed to flatten it and remove the twist (spring) without resorting to heating and cooling it.

You would not believe how buckled this plate was before I started to flatten it - I wish I had photographed it!

It may not be the prettiest part on the plaint, but it is now more or less flat and very usable. We have a considerable amount of very tatty scrap Meccano in all sorts of condition and colour. Lots of it is rusty with little original paint left. I think this will be the ideal material to experiment with. I will let you know how it goes.

Going back to the steam engines, what about this for the basis (mock-up made from bits found in the box) of a Ratcarno steam engine?

Hmmm... Has potential?

Have I got you interested in Meccano steam engines on a budget? If so you might be interested in a post I made a while ago showing how to prepare and fire one of these engines - See HERE.

Ralph.

The mighty sort out gets under way...

Stuff with the intention of sorting it out later...  Well, guess what? Later is here!

For the past few years the workshop has been badly neglected. A lot of 'stuff' has been dumped all over the place in various boxes with the intention of sorting it out later...  Well, guess what? Later is here!

The roof will get re-roofed as soon as we get some better weather and, if the weathermen can be believed, that will be this coming week. There are rolls of felt stacked and ready, felt nails awaiting a good bashing and all I need now is the odd sheet of structural ply to patch in any rotten bits where the water has been getting in. I will tell that story as it happens, but for now I have a bit of a mission on inside. Due to lack of use a lot of my tools have suffered from the lack of use. Nothing a spot of elbow grease and some polishing will not cure.

Before...

...and after a few minutes work with with a wire brush and wire-wool

A lack of use has allowed some of my steel tools to grow a light coat of rust, nothing serious but something that needs attention before it becomes so. Wooden shafts and handles have become dull and grubby. Even the resin handles of my joinery chisels have become dull and have a coat of grubby damp dust that feels horrible.

That's better, nice clean tools feel so much better in the hand

I started with some hammers. A couple of upholstery hammers had grown orange jackets. The handles were feeling very rough and somehow sticky where the previous finish had reacted badly to the cold and damp conditions. This process of decay is usually staved off with constant use. A long break away from the tools has allowed things to slip and I hate it when a tool feels unpleasant to hold, and look at for that matter. A few hours spent cleaning and polishing here and there will sort this out as I clear the floor and find a home for all this 'stuff'. Hmmm... Wanna buy some stuff? I think the listings of eBay might be swollen somewhat over the next few weeks.

The next job will be to evict the selection of squatters that have made it there job to make their home in every nook and cranny as well as covering the place with their waste - yes spiders do poo! At ground level the little fury fellows have been making nests out of anything they could find to chew on and make holes in the bags of stuff they can't actually eat. I picked up a bag of M6 bolts that poured out of several chew-holes all over the floor. That was an amusing moment, full of words I can't repeat here. The little fellows even found their way up the back of a chest and into the top drawer that was full of model railway scenery supplies in nice tidy packets awaiting use, by me not the department of mousing intent on providing accommodation for local transient rodent population. I am not sure what has happened but I have not seen any mice for months. I think the local cat and fox population may have wiped out our local chapter of little chewers. No evidence of their presence either. We never had a problem when we we were honoured serve our own cats, but since our last cat, Smokie, died back in 2012, we have been pestered by the little fellows on odd occasions.

The turning shed has not suffered the same amount of neglect. I have been in and out of there more regularly over the past few years and I re-roofed it last year as it was starting to let the water in. There is also not so much stuff in there to get damaged by the damp. The lathes are covered up and the tools are put away in boxes. There was the odd bit of rust here and there but nothing that would not have happened whatever the usage had been. The biggest problem here has been the damp making anything made of cardboard soft. The boxes for some of the jigs and accessories had become misshapen. A couple of days in the airing cupboard with make-shift formers inside soon got them back to shape and feeling solid again.

At the moment all this is ongoing. I am tidying and cleaning as I go, getting covered in dust, wire-wool shards, oil and other cleaning fluids and heaven knows what else, but it will be worth it in the end. Next job will be the bandsaw. Although this has seen regular use over the past few years it is time to give it a good clean, service and a blade change before it is press-ganged back into service.

Ralph.
   

It has been a while...

...Four and a half years! This blog was my first adventure into blogging and since then I have opened and closed a few others, as my involvement in my various interests have waxed and waned. This has meant some content has been taken away from this, my original concept. This, as well as life and other commitments, has also taken me away from spending any amount of time in the workshop or even writing about it. Our Meccano blog (now no longer updated, but still available to view) had taken the most content away from here, and other blogs such as our fishing blog and art blog take care of those areas of our life.

Our life is about to change rapidly. We are planning a move, having lived here since the late 1970's it will be a big change for us. Worst of all, we will have to leave the workshop and little 'turning' shed behind, but that means we will need new ones! To sell our current property, the workshop will be reconfigured as a home office (this was always the plan), and the turning shed will revert to being a garden shed with storage for mowers and other gardening stuff.

In the meantime, life goes on. The move is not going to happen overnight and we need to streamline our life. Sue and I were never lucky enough to have children and this has meant we have been able to peruse our interests without having the 'complication' of supporting a family. Don't misunderstand me, this was never the plan, it is just the way it turned out.

The first major decision was to heavily reduce our commitment to Meccano, both the company and the hobby. We have been collecting and building with Meccano most of our married life and it had got to the stage it was ruling our life. The perspective had become skewed and we were living our life around it. It got to the point, especially when we were working for and representing the company within the Meccano enthusiast fraternity, that it was taking up most of our weekends and limiting our freedom to peruse other interests.

What has a pepper and three mushrooms got to do with anything?
Nothing, it is just a nice picture!

Because of our domestic situation, we had nothing to check our long-standing involvement in all things Meccano. It was not until the new owners of the company started to move away from the product we knew and loved, and we realised there was no young-blood coming into the hobby, that we realised the end was nigh as far as the hobby we knew was concerned. Our enjoyment was beginning to become commitment and we knew this had to change. At the beginning of last year (2017) we finally gave in and announced to the rest of the Meccano world that we were getting out and selling our collection lock stock and barrel.

This is something we have never done before. We have always had a selection of interests that we have pursued with various degrees of enthusiasm from time to time. Never before have we decided to completely give up on something we have been so deeply involved with. The result has been life-changing. No more commitment to attend shows, and meetings, and a complete freedom as to what we do at the weekend. It was not until we did it, we realised just how much of our life it was eating up.

Most of our interests have been with us as long as I can remember. We have never been into 'five-minute wonders', you know the sort of thing I mean, get interested in something, buy all the gear and sell it a few months down the road to fund the next pastime. Meccano was our main interest, one that we both were heavily involved in. With one exception, all our other interests have been things we have built up a love for, and knowledge of, over decades. That exception is fishing, or should I say, more correctly, angling. If someone had told me I would become fascinated by fishing a few years ago, I would have laughed at them.

When I was a child I was a stay at home, model building, collecting sort of kid. I was never really interested in sport of any kind. My dad was a record collector and outings were usually to a record shop, thinly disguised as a trip to 'the West End' (of London) or some out of the way place that just happened to support a record shop or Hi-Fi show. The Rediffusion show, held at Earls Court, was one such outing that graced the early years of the 1960s. 

First pike... and me!

I have lived in this area, only moving a few (single figure) miles from where I was born, in all of those 60+ years. Fishing was one of those things that was not common amongst my mates, so I never got close to it. There was not the opportunity either. They filled in the Surrey Canal when I was a kid but even before that it was a dead lifeless ribbon of urban decay threading its way from the very much run-down Surrey Docks to its destinations at Walworth Road and Peckham Basin. The local rivers are very small, the only park to offer fishing was Crystal Palace Park and that was not on our doorstep. All this meant that until I was well into my fifty-ninth year, I had never held a fishing rod let alone a live fish. 

My brother, Tim, who is ten years (well, 9 years, six months, 27 days, 4 hours and 37 minutes) younger than me, had done a bit of fishing as my parents owned a holiday chalet on the North Kent coast and he had done a bit of sea fishing there. He had also dabbled in fishing with one of our cousins in his youth. He now lives a good fifty miles away and we hardly see much of each other. One day, during one of our occasional long telephone conversations we were discussing the idea of finding an interest we could pursue jointly and get to spend some time together, something we have never rally done that much of, even as kids. The ten years between us meant there was very little common ground when I lived at home.

We settled on the idea of going fishing. I had an idyllic idea that I would be sitting on a sunny bank somewhere chatting and sinking the odd pint while Tim was demonstrating to me how to fish. As it has turned out, now three and a half years later, it is me who is doing all the fishing. For the first time in my adult life I have found something new to do that I had never had any inkling to do before. The story of our interest in fishing is documented on my other blog How to Drown Maggots. 

The model I built for the Royal Mail stamp

My other interests are still bubbling along. Last year a series of stamps was released to celebrate classic toys. One of the stamps was to depict a Meccano model and I was lucky enough to be commissioned by Royal Mail to build it and discuss the look of the stamp with the designer. How is that for a culmination of my interests to come together, to get the satisfaction of seeing one of my models immortalised on a stamp and to get paid for it! It just does not get any better than that! 

1:48 scale (American O-scale) Narrow gauge Climax loco, On30

Where does that leave us with this blog? Well, the answer to that is right here. As Sue and I peruse our other interests we find ourselves back in the workshop rekindling our love of woodworking and combining that with art and design mixed in with a spot of creative woodturning. There is also room for a spot of narrow gauge railway modelling, some electronics and even a rummage through the stamp collections in the evenings. That is so long as we don't get too bogged down with the big flower shows. We decided to give Chelsea a miss again this year because of our impending move, but there is always next year. 

Sue at the Chelsea Flower show

Enough bashing of keys, time to get the workshop sorted and do something worth writing about. That could very well be the recovering of the roof of said workshop - Yes, due to some of next-doors trees rubbing on the roof and the roofing felt getting towards the end of its life expectancy it looks like that job can wait no longer...

Ralph.