cuthound
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Posts posted by cuthound
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4 hours ago, Stroudwater1 said:
It’s noticeable too that the Coventry canal locks, Atherstone and Tamworth locks seem to fill at a slower rate than BCN locks.
That is because they originally relied on gate paddles in the top gate as well as relatively small ground paddles to fill. These were removed when pleasure boating became popular because at that time they were unshuttered, and could send a jet of water more than halfway along the lock, potentially sinking a boat, if they were opened before the lock had filled enough to cover the gate paddle.
There used to be lots of locks with unshuttered top gate paddles around, but these were all "sanitised" out by the early 1990's.
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2 hours ago, MtB said:
And
The more one reads up on fuses, the more one realises how complex and how misunderstood the subject is.
And that is before you include slow blow, motor rated and the various specialist fuses.
The largest one I have ever come across is a 5000 amp one, used to protect a 15,050Ah battery, similar to the one below.
A little known fact is that they can provide much tighter protection than circuit breakers.
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2 hours ago, Andrew Barnard said:
Has anyone had it done yet?
How much is the current cost of materials?
Thanks.
I would think that repairing the inevitable scratches would soon erode the initial cost-saving over a professional paint job.
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On 29/02/2024 at 13:27, nicknorman said:
Hmmm, you have never used an air fryer, have you?!The best roast beef I have ever tasted came out of our air fryer. It does mean steaks as well and the bacon cooked in it is divine.
Best kitchen gadget I have ever bought. Our traditional oven is rarely used now unless we have guests, and even then it is relegated to keeping the batches cooked in the air fryer warm.
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38 minutes ago, MtB said:
I thought it was all growing on the same Magic Money Tree that paid the £390bn (was it?) they spent on Covid.
Given the amount of money this government has "spent", there must be a veritable forest of magic money trees somewhere.
Does anyone know where I can get a cutting off one?
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6 minutes ago, JungleJames said:
Rishi has been splashing the savings since the day he scrapped it. Only problem, the plans he comes up with are pie in the sky, and last days before quietly being dropped.
Nobody will see any benefit. Anyway, we don't have the money as it hasn't been borrowed yet. It would have been borrowed when we needed it for HS2
Indeed, that is why I put "savings" in quotation marks in my post above.
6 minutes ago, MtB said:Seems to be a decimal point error going on. Your link says £47bn but the article itself has accidentally trimmed 90% off it and says £4.7bn.
I wonder where the missing £42.3bn went. What's that in that big bulging brown envelope in your other hand, Mark Harper?
What do expect. It will have been produced by The Treasury and they have never been good with numbers...
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13 hours ago, LadyG said:
We don't hear much about Northern Powerhouse and Levelling Up these days, lol.
PS, I don't know who decided to broadcast a few millions to random authorities along the forner H2S route. I can't believe anyone thinks thats a good idea!
A few random transport links [trains or buses, trams, or ring roads] wont make any difference to transport times, congestion, trade, and the Northern Economy.
A couple of days ago the government announced plans to spend the "savings" from cancelling the northern part of HS2 on upgrading transport in the North and Midlands.
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The Aylesbury Canal Society publish a Launderette List, detailing public launderettes close to the canal network.
http://aylesburycanal.org.uk/laundrette-list/
It is what we used to do before buying a washing machine for the boat.
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3 hours ago, David Mack said:
It could have happened. In 1931 Charles W. Glover proposed an airport at King's Cross.
https://darkestlondon.com/2011/10/23/kings-cross-airport-1931/
Are you sure he wasn't just re-inventing the wheel?
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15 minutes ago, MtB said:
Aren't all accidents always the other driver's fault?
"Reading' the road, anticipating collision opportunities and driving in a manner to avoid them happening is quite a subtle skill which only truly shows up in a driver's long term accident record.
I've always said you can judge how good (oe bad) a driver is by his no claims bonus...
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2 hours ago, Bee said:
Batteries are horrible things. If only they had a lid so you could open the top and have a look to see if they were full or empty. What most of us don't realise is just how long it takes to charge a couple or three batteries. On Bee we have 2 x 110 AH batteries - or that is what they were 4 years ago, it takes 4 or 5 hours to charge them from the engine and no doubt you could squeeze a bit more in from a decent charger. We look after them and don't flatten them or they will play tricks like saying they are charged when in fact they are scrap. We now have a bit of solar (not much, just one panel of 30 watts????) and I think it is brilliant, it saves batteries from death and although it cannot power the boat it works all the daylight hours. This summer I will add another one.
The ones I used to work on didn't have tops...
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3 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:
I believe that it is a legal requirement to have third party insurance for motor vehicles. Certainly GEC (when it was a large company!) only used to take out third party insurance for its company cars as the cost of fully comp insurance would have exceeded the cost of repairing or writing-off damaged vehicles. The Government does the same sort of thing in relation to insurance in general, which is why the disastrous fire at Windsor Castle a couple of decades ago was not covered by any insurance.
I adopt the same practice regarding breakdown insurance for domestic white goods, which are normally pretty reliable these days: I don't take any out.
Until fairly recently, if you were rich enough, you could leave a large cash deposit (£500,000 when it was revoked) with a high court rather than take out a motor insurance policy and still comply with the road traffic act.
IIRC it was £50,000 when I passed my driving test way back in 1971.
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4 hours ago, IanD said:
Just don't assume the locks at Grindley will be quick, we've had to wait between 1h and 3h to get through... 😞
Back in the days before Grindley Brook had a lock-keeper, I was stuck in a queue for over 4 hours. I dispatched Mrs Hound to see why we weren't moving. It turned out there were a lot of boats coming down, who just kept entering the staircase, so no one could go up.
Mrs Hound sorted it out eventually, and since then I always try to overnight at Grindley Brook and go through first thing in the morning.
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On 17/02/2024 at 09:06, Sea Dog said:
I'd echo the sentiments of @blackrose above.
Eberspacher had a bit of a reputation for early failures some years ago and did their own investigation. Their ensuing report is a available on the web (Google is your friend), but essentially they found that when lightly loaded they coked up and eventually failed. The key is to work it hard then shut it down which is to say have a keen ear for it going into the low power mode - you can hear it run down and the dose pump ticking go slow. I tend to use mine in 1hr bursts which allows me to warm the boat on a morning whilst the solid fuel stove comes back up to speed and gives a tank of hot water. Even in that hour half an ear is listening for short cycling. This usage pattern appears not too dissimilar to how @Rob-M got 20 years out of his.
Additionally, my own regime is to use "Reliability Centred Maintenance" principles and leave the damned thing alone if it's happy. Mine is 15 years old and has never been interfered with - others have had different experiences. I
That Is the advice I was given when I bought my boat 10 years ago, run the Webasto (very similar to the Eberspacher) for an hour on and an hour off, don't let it run at half power and only get it serviced when it goes wrong.
To date I've had no problems with it.
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On 16/02/2024 at 15:01, john6767 said:
I thought the CRT said there was no widebeam mooring on the narrow North Oxford when accessing the marinas there, but this booking is to spend two nights on the canal while making the passage. I know the North Oxford is shut further north so there will not be a lot of traffic, but seems a bit off.
Oxford Canal
Location: Wide beam passage, Braunston to Dunchurch Pools
Starts At: Bridge 93/94, Braunston Junction
Ends At: Bridge 81, Borstal BridgeSunday 18 February 2024 09:00 until Tuesday 20 February 2024 10:00
Type: Advice
Reason: Information
Original message:
Please be advised a wide beam boat will be passing through Braunston to Dunchurch Pool from Sunday 18th February to Tuesday 20th February morning.
We kindly remind boating customers to be aware of the wide-beam boat and take extra care whilst passing through this section of the canal.
I've been forced to follow really slow widebeams in that area a couple of times, but fortunately none travelling that slowly...
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16 hours ago, MtB said:
And a new one just now!!
I had that yesterday, but it worked straight away after I pressed "Try again".
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On 15/02/2024 at 14:16, jonathanA said:
what ever who ever installed it decided ..... Alan very kindly provided the ISO spec for AC wiring, I was actually wondering what the DC spec was if it exists.
if was me blue would 12V neg, brown would be 'live' so 12v pos. and green yellow i would not use or at a push might use it for a switch wire, but sleeved or marked.
it probably didn't matter as much in those days as the old telecom wiring codes used a solid colour and a tracer or had a cotton outer sheath. i think they also learned about colour blindness and when i had my PO engineering interview the interviewer had a cable sample and asked me to identify the colour of each core. At the time i thought it odd, until someone told me it was a colour blindness test. I suspect you would not be able to discriminate against someone like that now...
When I joined Post Office Telephones (International Branch), back in 1972 I and all of the other entrants I joined with were subjected to a pretty comprehensive medical, which included tens of charts with multi-coloured splodges on them. Each one had a number hidden in it, which was only visible if you didn't have colour blindness of the colours the chart was looking for.
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13 hours ago, Richard T said:
That looks like Kimberley. I hired Lindsey in 1976 with a group of scouts.
Yes that is Kimberley. Sadly I didn't take any photos which show the name and can't remember which camping boats we hired from UCC (2 boats for the scouting holiday and a single boat the following year for myself and a group of friends).
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On 14/02/2024 at 23:29, MtB said:
Especially in the world of light commercial vans. There are only about three available nowadays apparently, despite the wide range of brands.
Posh Mercedes Vito vans are for example, identical to those ghastly cheap Renault vans when viewed from underneath and/or under bonnet.
As are Mercedes A Class. Much cheaper to buy the exact same spares for a Renault for your A Class.
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On 15/02/2024 at 03:03, tree monkey said:
Have you seen the price of booze nowadays, it's not that bad if I'm honest, add a dash of lime...
You can get green coolant now. Saves having to add lime...
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That seems pretty cheap to me. Five years ago I enquired about having my 60 foot boat repainted and the quotes varies from £130 per foot plus signwriting to remove windows & other external fittings and rub down the existing paint and put more coats on (three colours including coach lines) to £210 per foot plus signwriting for a back to the metal job.
I chose the cheaper option as the original paint was sound but faded and it still looks good five years later.
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A self drive UCC camping boat similar to this was my first experience of canalling back in July 1973, courtesy of my local mixed venture scout group.
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I think that Allen's built the hulls for the all steel hire fleet once Peter and Linda Millward took over Teddesley in the mid to late 70's.
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On 11/02/2024 at 17:51, IanD said:
That's usually recommended to be set around 55C, much too hot for a shower (around 40C).
I think you are talking at cross purposes to @rusty69.
Most domestic calorifiers are thermostatically controlled to 65 degrees to save enregy and avoid legionella problems, not an issue with boats where the calorifier is heated by the engine coolant (typically 80 degrees or a diesel boiler such as a Webasto). Fitting a thermostatic mixer valve set to around 40 degrees to the outlet of a boat's calorifier ensures that no one can get accidentally scalded AND effectively increases the useable capacity of the calorifier.
Countryfile
in General Boating
Posted
Not on the Ashby it isn't... 😂😅