[Expanding a tube, to fit onto a 25mm male thread. For an ariel mount.]

5 hours ago, Tigerr said:

I have in fact already cut off the bottom metre as the tube was too wide by far.

 

Shame that, because somewhere between too wide and too narrow would have been just right if it's a tapered pole.

 

Are we related? It's the sort of thing I do far too often!

[Problems with payments]

9 minutes ago, Ex Brummie said:

You have to do an awful lot of work if you have little 'cost of sales' (materials etc) to breach the vat threshold.

 

Particularly as it's just gone up to £90,000 ...

[Problems with payments]

1 hour ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

I got under charged on bus the other day,

paid by contactless,

charged me 10p instead of £2!

didn’t realise til later in evening. 

 

Was it one of the capped fares things?  If you'd already done one or more journeys that day paying by the same card some bus companies cap the total for the day.

[Diagonal on the HNC]

12 minutes ago, PeterScott said:

But surely nobody of right mind would join a long-and-thin canal to a short-and-fat one ??

 

Nobody in their right mind would build a narrow canal, never mind join it to a sensible width one!

[Another canal side property for sale]

6 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

"Characterful Stone Detached Residence": characterful = semi derelict

 

"For many, the dream of living with the peace and serenity" - fails to mention that it is v close to motorway and dual carriageway roads and shares a site/access with a former industrial activity of undisclosed nature

 

Who'd be an Estate Agent? 

 

It was previously offered at £400k so at least it is getting cheaper. 

 

The previous estate agent very carefully cropped out the large substation at one side and the Biffa skip at the other side.

 

Took plenty of pics of the boats that are the other side of the boundary though.

 

I wouldn't pay for one of the moorings there though never mind a property.

[Castleford to Leicester]

5 minutes ago, IanD said:

So it's that route of 200 miles and 224 locks in at least 2.5 weeks (as a new boater) or a truck, hmmm... 😉 

 

After a delivery trip like that including big and little locks and a few rivers he won't be a new boater anymore.

 

There's many boat owners who haven't managed that lot in twenty years ...

 

Sounds like a fairly strenuous fortnight but the old lock wheeling muscles will be in tip top shape after doing it.  Or worn out!

[Samsung Galaxy tablet]

3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Excellent. Cables are weirdly important. I've got a Kobo reader that will charge ok with two cables but won't connect to the computer with either of them, but will with a third. And its wifi will connect via my phone hot-spot but not with the house WiFi. These things are designed with built in irritations.

 

Some cheap charging cables only have the power cables but not the data cables inside them.  can you connect anything else to the computer using those two cables?

 

The house wifi router might be blocking the connection if the wifi works via hotspot.  Or the house router might be set to only use a type of wifi the reader doesn't support.

[Boat survey finding]

14 minutes ago, blackrose said:

So the bottom line is that unless it's a dedicated underwater hull penetration with a proper seacock, all waste outlets, skin fittings and welded-in pipes should be a certain height above the waterline.

 

@DRP had one of those fall off Ribble, fortunately while in a dry dock and not on the big rivers they'd just been on!

 

[Narrow lock chamber construction]

2 hours ago, Ian Mac said:

To bring it all back to canals the length of canal going east from Ellesmere is lined with Oaks which were planted to supply the canal Co with timber in the future. Can you image the shouting that harvesting them now would generate.

 

Shows a lack of forward planning these days. 

 

Was it Ely cathedral that when the roof timbers needed replacing the trees in the grounds were the perfect age and size to replace the trusses with?

 

Of course they were subject to tree preservation orders so couldn't actually get used for the exact purpose they had been planted there for ...

[Excel issues]

2 hours ago, john6767 said:

I too am rather disappointed that this in not a spreadsheet issue, been brushing up my skills updating my BCN Challenge spreadsheet.

 

Less spreadsheet and more locks, that's the ticket 🤣

[Drift Diary: An app for Continuous Cruisers to log and prove their distance travelled]

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I Don't know about that - but it is certainly apt ...............

 

Cant - noun

1. hypocritical and sanctimonious talk,

 

I thought cant was an Essex swearword.

 

Typically used as "You fah'in cant"

 

The guttural Northern U always sounds more genuinely Anglo Saxon to me ...

 

 

 

[Cash for used Leisure Batteries?]

I once weighed in half a dozen leisure batteries and the chap at the scrapyard pressed the wrong button on the computer.

 

I genuinely didn't notice at the time that he'd selected "Lead" rather than "Lead acid batteries."

 

Then I looked at my bank balance a few days later ... 

[Ellesmere Port to Liverpool - across the Mersey]

13 minutes ago, haggis said:

We always seemed to be next to the lock wall and it was some distance to throw a rope up! Ours had a monkey paw on the end then a length of thin rope then the proper mooring rope.  

 

If you had a proper heaving line, it probably wasn't coincidence you were one of the nominated line throwers!

 

 

[Hunting for a Lucas Starter solenoid for a Lister Petter lpws4]

On 16/03/2024 at 12:17, Alan de Enfield said:

 

That was the way I started my old 3C JCB (no ignition wiring) - but - using a screwdriver. The sparks make you jump but you get used to it.

 

Ah, you jump started it then?

 

[Historic Boats for sale online]

Pauline has sold, she's heading back over to Yorkshire.

 

 

[Bingley 5-Rise celebrates 250 years of use.]

4 hours ago, David Mack said:

Taller than those at Tuel Lane

 

Local press, innit.  They're not even the tallest gates in the county, never mind the country!

[Travel power - doesn’t work, can anyone help?]

7 hours ago, dmr said:

There you go, working under a bit of influence can be quite productive as long as you don't overdo it. 😀

 

I've had some of my best ideas in the pub.

 

Admittedly some of my worst ones too!

[Wigan Flight Top Lock. Pub recommendation.]

Yes, the Swan and Railway is probably the finest architecture of a pub in Wigan.

 

Pretty good beers too.

 

And it's only about thirty yards from the best beer in Wigan, under the railway line in the arches:

Wigan Central https://wigancentral.bar/

 

 

[Internet / WiFi]

On 19/02/2024 at 08:29, IanD said:

Same data speed, no registration -- just plug the SIM in and go.

 

I've recently switched from Three to iD Mobile - a Three piggyback MVNO - and in the same device in the same location I get considerably higher data speeds on iD than on Three!

 

[No knowledge and buying a project boat!]

2 hours ago, StephenA said:

We have a spider in the prop coupling

 

You used to move Mintball more often than that ...

[Liverpool, Salthouse Dock moorings.]

On 08/03/2024 at 15:45, ditchcrawler said:

Most places provide a clean bed, hot water and showering accessories for the money as well, they don't expect you to turn up with your own room for which you have already paid a grand to CRT for.  Mind you looking at it that way makes the CC surcharge look cheep   

 

The Liverpool Hilton (30 yards and up a bit from where I usually moor in Salthouse Dock) charge around £200 a night.

 

The first time I went in, Sid was concerned there was something wrong with the free electric because I didn't bother plugging in. (CCer so not used to having mains hookup available.)

 

Some boaters apparently connect their shore power cable before their mooring lines!

 

I preferred free for a week, but £15 a night isn't unreasonable.

[No knowledge and buying a project boat!]

2 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

WHAT? 🤣🤣🤣

 

Haven't you ever seen a 12 foot wide bathroom on a narrow boat before?  It's like those big Winnebago RVs where the sides poke out to give more space inside!

[Below gunwale wall angle.]

12 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

One upon a time I was chatting to a diy fitter who had a "fantastic" idea to cut all his bulkheads in one go, "save time" he said, fortunately for him  someone  pointed out  the variations in a hull, the look on his face was classic. 

 

I like standing next to bonfires on boatyards, and when the ripped out bulkheads are well alight I ask if the keen novice boat owner used them as templates for the new bulkheads.

 

I usually learn some new bad words about then ...

[Below gunwale wall angle.]

Usually between 0 and 45 degrees if that helps ...

[Liverpool, Salthouse Dock moorings.]

1 hour ago, Alway Swilby said:

We did think of taking a winter mooring in Liverpool and saving all our heating costs.

 

Expensive in anodes though!

 

I was speaking with a boater who got stuck in Salthouse after the end of their winter mooring a few years ago due to the lockdowns starting before the link opened.  They got an eye watering quote from the only crane on the dock, and ended up getting a diver to replace anodes in the water ...

 

Others who planned ahead switched to zinc anodes before being moored in brackish water for a planned five months!