David Schweizer
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Posts posted by David Schweizer
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4 hours ago, David Mack said:
There is another option. Just bin the questionnaire and go to another insurer. Which is exactly what lots of their longstanding narrowboat customers have done since their canal insurance expert left and the marine department was taken over by people who know nothing about inland boating.
Wasn't that Michael Stimpson who, I believe, has recently set up independantly.
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3 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:
Trying to match a decorative edge on some wood trim, i'm hoping to find a router bit the same but at the minute i'm drawing a blank, probably due to inexperience.
As far as i can work out myself, its an "ovolo" bit, but i just can't match it
Have attached pic of what i measured which hopefully makes sense.
It is an Ovolo, (not an Ogee) or more correctly a Square Ovolo which indicates a quadrant with two shoulders. The cutter you have found will only produce one shoulder, the type you need is like the one shown here, but it is bigger than the size you require:- https://www.silverlinetools.com/en-GB/Product/ProductDetail?ModelName=793772
Axminster Tools sell a range or Ovolo router bits, they will be top quality but rather expensive. Nevertheless, it may be worth giving them a ring. https://www.axminstertools.com/instantsearch/result?q=ovalo router bit
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13 hours ago, LEO said:
Small world, I used to buy spares for my motorcycle from that store 1964/65, It was quite a big outlet, across Walton Street. Some of the canal buildings were taken up by Mick Riley who also dealt in Motor bikes.
Mick Riley was my Uncle Reg, although everyone called him Mick.
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An interesting film which brought back quite a few childhood meories. As a small matter of interest the hideous office block built opposite Harvey Taylor's old sheds was built on the site of my Uncle's Motor Cycle sales and servicing garage, which was purcashed by compulsory order for the road widening scheme.
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1 hour ago, Paul Charlton said:
Yes I have, supermarkets all over the word do it. Its a basic marketing technique.
So you are suggesting that what I was told by the French Lady, and my own experience, is outweighed by your "global" opinion.
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1 hour ago, Paul Charlton said:
Supermarkets put the items they want you to buy on the shelves that are at your eye level - so the middle two shelves. So they will be the products they make the most profit on or ones they have surplus stock and need to shift it.
Have you ever shopped in a French Supermarket? They operate very differently to UK Supermarkets, and my experience suggests that the French are far less likely to be fooled by simple marketing tricks.
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23 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:
Allegedly for "Grand Union" boats the highest recorded tonnage on a pair was 63 1/4 tons of wheat from Brentford to Wellingborough aboard Buckden & Brighton.
The split between motor and butty isn't recorded in the reference I am looking at.
Was the Captain's name recorded for that trip. Given his reputation for loading his boats very low, it could have been Jack Monk.
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2 hours ago, Tam & Di said:
BEngo's point is spot on. When we first took the boat to France others were saying how cheap the wine was, but we decided to spend the same money as in the UK and up the quality instead. Never regretted it 🍷🥂.
Our French base is now in Burgundy, so for us there is no other chardonnay that comes near to what we get locally - and buying direct from the vignerons means the price is as reasonable as it can be too. Even the village of Chardonnay is just down the road, so no Chilean bottles for us 😁
Tam
A few years ago we in a French Supermarket and were pondering the vast choice of wines from the same regions, and trying to decide which price band would secure a decent wine for a modest price. A French lady came up to us and gave us some advice. She suggested that we ignore the wine on the bottom two shelves, as that was cheap lower grade everyday wine, instead to make our choice from the middle two rows. When we asked about the top two rows, she suggested that was the best wine, but unless we were connoisseurs, we would probably not notice the difference. Whether we would have noticed went untested, but the middle two rows produced wines which were far superior to higher priced French wines available in UK Supermarkets.
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18 minutes ago, Orwellian said:
That could be a really useful precedent so please can you provide a link to where we can access a report of the actual case you are referring to?
I am sorry, I no longer have any details. It was at least twentyfive years ago, I do remember that there was a specific committee/ working group of the IWA which dealt with it. I can still remember the name of the person who was either the IWA chairman or negotiator at the time, but as he is no longer involved I am reluctant to identify him on a public web site. If you PM me I can give you his name and last known contact details.
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16 hours ago, Loddon said:
And whether the land owner has done a deal with cart. My old mooring was subject to a BW fee as well as the landowners fee until the landowner did a deal with BW that he paid the BW fee at a discount and charged us. I hear he us buying the ransom strip from cart, it will be interesting to see if he still has to pay them after that.
Historically where there was a private wharf with exclusive mooring rights, those rights have usually been transferred in the deeds to any new owner. Anyone paying the adjoining landowner for a mooring against such an old wharf does not have to pay C&RT anything. BW tried to enforce charges in the past, but was challenged on the legality of any charges by the IWA and lost.
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4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
I've always been on farm moorings, and always paid a mooring fee to CRT (well, since they invented it about 25 years ago). The justification is that your licence lets you cruise, but the mooring fee lets you park up on their water for longer than the 14 days concession. Farm moorings get charged at what CRT consider half the going equivalent CRT mooring rate, which in my case is twice what I pay the farmer, much to my disgruntlement. I think they just make up a figure, to be honest.
Marinas just include this in what they charge you and make a bulk payment to CRT.
Not all mooings against private land incur a C&RT mooring fee. It depends upon the deeds applicable to the land.
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8 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:
Yeah, we are a weedy bunch of effete snowflakes now. Nothing like the tough 'uns of yore. Not so many have to give up the activity after getting housemaids knee either though.
Yes so it would seem, I started in the early 1970s and did a bit when I was living in Buxton, sometiomes with Dave Alsop who had a reputation of being a bit "hard", sadly no longer with us.
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30 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:
If there is one group of people who know a bit about knee pads, it is cavers. The most commonly used are made from neoprene, usually with a hard wearing coating on the ground side. Held on with either fixed, or velcro straps. https://starlessriver.com/shop/warmbac-warmtex-knee-pads-plain-strap/
I've used them for years and they mostly stay in place, except under the most extreme contortions through cave passages.
The old NCB miners knee pads are still made too and some cavers use them. https://lestersdirect.co.uk/knee-pads-14-c.asp
Jen
When I did a bit of Caving, neither I, nor anyone else that I caved with, used knee pads. In fact, I never knew that cavers used knee pads, just strong trousers and a heavy duty boiler suit.
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I have never found knee pads very comfortable. I use a cheap gardening kneeler to protect my knees when working.
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On 27/08/2022 at 09:43, alan_fincher said:
We can't find any neckerchiefs, but whilst I also don't have any bib and braces, I think it just possible my OH may be able to rustle some up, (although with floral designs, maybe not what Tracy had in mind).
You could always have taken the "Traditional" bowler hat I gifted you Alan. 😁
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2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Unless, of course, it actually is a private mooring and he pays for it even though he hasn't a boat. There are loads of towpath private moorings on the system, and no way of knowing if they really are authorised by CRT. One assumes they are, but who knows without phoning up and asking, which does seem a bit over the top.
Correct. I had one for a couple of years at Stockton on the northern GU , but every time I went off cruising someone had removed the Permitted mooring notice when I got back. I am pretty certain who was removing it, but was never able to prove it. After a couple of years of harrassment, I managed to get an offside private mooring at Wigrams.
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19 minutes ago, Mike Tee said:
There is a water shortage after all, not completely the fault of C&RT, so I think it quite reasonable for anyone using a double lock to wait for a time to share the lock, both up and down. What's a reasonable time? I guess it depends on the time of day, not a lot of point waiting long if its early evening but during the day, maybe half an hour or 45 minutes. If nobody turns up, go for it.
There will be selfish people who will not wait, that's up to them, but if the navigation is open It will be hard for a volunteer to stop someone who's on a mission.
However if an employee of C&RT says the use of locks is restricted for any reason, we have to comply.
And there is a back pump immediately below Bottom Lock, so there should not be a problem geting water back to the top of the flight.
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5 hours ago, Pluto said:
It does depend upon what you call literate. This is a report from 1816 done for the L&LC regarding coal on the Sankey Navigation. I have included one page of the original, which has a translation', plus a pdf of the full text.
That Letter, and the way the text has been overwritten was far from unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries. and comparted with others is easily read. Writing paper was extreemly expensive and various arrangements were adopted to capitalize on the space available. I have seen a letter written in the 1820's from a Quaker family to relatives in Canada where the original text has been overwritten diagonally in both directions and vertically, Reading it successfully was a real challenge.
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2 hours ago, Heartland said:
I noted recently, looking through old notes, that in 1790 the BCN made various staff changes moving some staff and disposing of others. That year marked an important extensions being made to Fazeley, the Smethwick Summit reduction and the extension to Broadwaters. New locks were made and new lock keepers were needed. To be a lock keeper required a certain literacy and the BCN promoted a few carpenters to lock keepers. To be a carpenter presumably needed a certain literacy to measure and fashion wood and the promotions seem to be in keeping with this trend. General labourers may not have been literate, but those that worked up to surveyors also needed literacy, but unless the person chose to become literate, they presumably spent their life in the classes such as the labourer.
Historically, Carpenters and Joiners were one of the top trades, and most were both numerate and literate, which probably explains why a good number ended up running their own building companies or trade supply businesses.
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1 hour ago, MtB said:
Yes I was thinking about this, and the same effect is happening where townie buys cute thatched country cottage in village next to the church, then sets about getting the church bells silenced and complaining about the mud on the roads from the farmers' tractors.
But then looking at the architecture, I reckon those houses were built in the early 1970s, when there was probably little canal traffic and every expectation of the canal closing. Even so, I bet most of the current owners of those houses bought later, well after the canal had been 'saved' and there was plenty of traffic.
That would be correct, they certainly were not there in the mid 1960's when we moored Pisces there for nearly a week whilst the engine was stripped down and the connecting rods taken back to London to be re-metalled.
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4 hours ago, Victor Vectis said:
Specificially the 'Private Mooring' (or perhaps 'No Mooring') signs on the towpath side of the GU just before the bridge at Wigram's Turn.
3 hours ago, Victor Vectis said:Its on the genuine GU bit, not the joint GU/Oxford stretch, on the LHS if heading south just short of the junction.
If you are talking about the towpath that runs in front of Wigrams House together with the long garden to the side, I am fairly certain that it is not, and never was a wharf. The Wharf was on the opposite side on the non towpath side and was sold by BW along with Wigrams house when they disposed of it. When Peter sold Wigrams House, he retained ownership of the wharf and the fields behind it, I used to moor there.
I do not remember any "No mooring" signs, although I do recollect an old small black and white on the fence gate, which was not legible from the canal, I always assumed it said "Wigrams House". To be honest, if there are no mooring signs there, they are somewhat superflouous, the canal is so shallow on that side, hardly any boats would be able to get into the bank.
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6 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:
FWIW I have always found longer boats to be easier to handle than shorter ones. I would suggest something in the 50 to 57 ft size is optimum.
Agreed. I learnt my boating on a full length Northwich Motor, and also spent a couple of years captaining a 70 ft Hancock and Lane trip boat. When I bought Helvetia, I was quite surprised how less easy a 52 ft boat was to handle.
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A lot of talk about dismantling various components, why don't you just change the fuel filter and see if that solves the problem. I have met several people who have had the same issue and resolved it by changing the fuel filter. My only concern about that diagnosis is that Tony Brooks has not suggested it.
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2 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:
When cruising, fully warmed up, not overheating, every 10 to 15 minutes the revs will rise from the 1200 rpm cruising speed to around 1500 rpm for 4 to 8 seconds. Then it settles back to normal. If it is dropped to tickover in or out of gear it is too high at around 800 rpm and will not slow down further.
The BMC 1.5 in Helvetia did exactly the same about 300/350 hours after the fuel filter had been changed. Changed filter and everything was back to normal.
Fridge problem
in Boat Equipment
Posted
I realise this is an old thread which has been revived, but I thought that my experience of a fridge working erraticly may be of some help. We had quite an old Bosch Fridge, which five years ago, started over cooling, but adjusting the thermostat made no difference. We decided to replace it with a tall Fridge Freezer (which Jan had wanted for ages!) and moved the old fridge into the garage/workshop. Whilst moving it, I noticed a lot of dust on the coils on the back of the fridge, so I dusted it all of with a soft brush, and suprisingle[y the fridge started to work normally. It is still working perfectly and now serves as an ideal beer/wine fridge.