Leaderboard

The problem with all these "work for dole" schemes, which is what they are really, for the participants is that the dole you get isn't very much. You have no savings. So now you have to pay for travel to where you're working, pay for food, get suitable clothing - all without the funds to do it. You end up hugely worse off. Plus they'll probably find, when the scheme finishes, that their benefits get stopped because they haven't kept up with applying for real jobs. Sanctioned, they call it, and the offices have targets for how many benefit claimants they can shut down. Back in my dole days, the worst thing you could do was get a temporary job for a few weeks, because it then took you months to sort out your claim when the job ended and you nearly starved in the process. The benefit system is now infinitely worse and it was a nightmare then. I solved it by moving from Yorkshire to Sussex to try to find work (and living rough for a while), but that kind of mobility is not an option for most people. It's nice to think it will encourage the youth to get involved but it's more likely to breed huge resentment. I hope I'm wrong, and at least it might get a bit of towpath work done on the cheap for CRT, but I very much doubt it'll make much difference.

Yes maybe I wasn’t clear, there is a small bit of PCB with fuses adjacent to the battery terminals, then a further run of wires to the actual BMS PCB. So the only unprotected wires are the few inches from cell terminals to fuse board within the battery box. I suppose I could have had an individual micro-PCB with SM fuse for each terminal, but worst case scenario is some fairly thin wire vaporising itself - not really the same as a dead short with 75mm^2 cable!

Just this^^^^^^^ I am an educational volunteer for the CRT and have been for eight or so years. We talk about water safety, canal history and how and why the canals are there. As matty40s says if it just gets a couple of children interested, although with the amount of work that I and other volunteers put into it I hope it's a lot more, then it's work well worth the effort. What curmugeonly boaters who only seem to want to blast CRT, ESPECIALLY on this forum, is that we will not be around for much longer and it's the kids that WILL be taking over the running of the canals. In my time as a volunteer I haven't seen many boaters who volunteer to help out most (not all I will admit) it seems to me, just want to pootle up and down the canal system and leave the work to others. If we want our canals to survive and more importantly the lifestyle that boaters want, then EVERYBODY, boaters, fishers, walkers, cyclists and people and children who use our canals, MUST get together and help out. Yes I know as boaters we pay a lot of money to use the canals and I am still a boater paying my bit but it isn't enough, everybody must dive in, um not literally, to help. Once the canal system disappears you all will have to live in bricks and mortar. Think it wont happen? Think again, it can. it has and quite possibly will happen if we as a canal community don't do all we can to keep the inland waterways system in existance. We have already seen what happens when builders get their hands on canal land. Even where canals and canalia are retained the hoy poloy who buy the properties overlooking the water don't want boaters in their field of view and, occasionally when I see some boats, I don't blame them for that. Some canals have disappeared totally and have been replaced by cardboard housing complexes. That WILL be the fate of the inland waterways system unless we ALL do our bit and teaching children about safety, maintenance, heritage etc etc is the only way to go because, as I keep saying, we will all be dead and gone all too soon.

It could well be that your stern gland needs either tightening or repacking. If you keep greasing the gland, the grease will come out of the prop shaft end when running and spray on the sides and into the water below.

A very messy bilge. Your engine tray has a lot of oil in it looking at your picture. That mess elsewhere looks like a nasty mixture of water, oil, grease and degreaser or detergent that has created an emulsion. Could I suggest that you clean out the whole lot without polluting the canal then you may be able to see where it is coming from?

If crt were to actually ENGAGE with boaters instead of ignoring us and making our lives increasingly more difficult,maybe some of us would be more supportive.

Don't be daft - they won't get a complete set each ...

My solution to fitting a DC switch to a mains light pattress. Use a blank metal pattress cover, then drill a hole in it to take a proper DC toggle switch. This one is for the solar panels for my boat, between them and the charge controller. Rated at 20A, though there won't be that going in on a grey drizzly December day. Jen

if just a couple of these kids can make a difference and get interested in the Burnley, Walsall and Leicester sections, the money is well spent, very well. There's not many kids getting interested in canals other than a temporary cheap accommodation basis,so having kids on the bank able to relate to them will be good. In this kind of economy and potential recession, this is damn good news for kids and canals......all of us were kids once.

When I was working I expected at least two threads to show through a self-locking nut. I also expected a new self-locking nut every time. We had standards in railway land despite being sold off.

did you buy a gravy boat ?

December 2007, and Bingley 3-rise was being repaired. The main work was reflooring the wooden lock bottom on the lowest lock. In the photo, the middle lock has had a concrete floor put in at an earlier date, and the top lock has its original stone invert.

Jen that is exactly what I have done with those brass and wood switches pictured earlier, I reckon mine are probably more decorative (they are certainly a lot more work) but the same idea and they should work just the same. Not entirely sure about how accurate the current rating is, I took one apart and there is not a lot of contact area but you have to trust the manufacturer, My boat engine is supposed to be 43 HP and I'm not going to stick it on a dynamometer just to check it and I'm not going to run it flat out to get the whole 43 HP, nor would I recommend putting 20 amps or so through a little switch just because it says so.

Good Afternoon, I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to write. You've really made "canal enthusiast" smile! He has been really chatty since receiving your post and it's fantastic to see. Best wishes and (is it too early?) a very Merry Christmas to you all. Alison x

In actual fact it might be possible to make your very own antique lookin light switch. You would need to borrow one to copy. Make a mould with plaster of Paris, no plaster of Berlin as I think Doc Baekland might have been German. Dip the bits of the borrowed switch into the oozy plaster, leave until the plaster has set, a bit like how false teeth are made, dig out the bits of borrowed switch without busting the plaster mould. You can now make your own antique switch. Which cheese to use is a problem, but I think they all contain enough protein. A cream cheese would be best. I recommend the fine Swiss Primula cheese which is a bit runny and fine quality, the cheese always used by my mum to make cheese and tomato sandwiches to take to school and I still love it. It can be bought in cresent shaped little boxes or in a tube like toothpaste, get the original though as they do a Primula now flavoured with shrimps and things. Squirt the Primula into the moulds and pour some Elsan Blue over it it, dabbling it about a bit with a stick to mix it in. Leave to harden and then dig out of the mould. There you have it, your very own parts of an antique light switch made with your very own hands. I'll leave it up to you to fiddle about fitting the electrical bit's and pieces of copper and stuff, but to carry plenty of amps make proper knife action switching contacts. That's it . Lights out.

If it is not a Boxer then it is just a dog