Ronaldo47

No. Limestones vary in their chemical makeup. Some are highly resistant to erosion, others less so, and some can be used to make hydraulic lime, others not. Some extracts from the Department of the Environment leaflet No. 16 "Mortars for Brickwork and Blockwork" (1976) ' Ordinary Portland cement:lime:sand mortars combine the workability and plasticity of the old lime:sand mortars with the more rapid hardening and greater strength and durability of the cement:sand mortars.' 'BS 890 Building limes. Eminently hydraulic limes are now almost unobtainable, but magnesian limes may be available in some localities; use of these limes should conform to the manufacturers' recommendations. Semi-hydraulic limes can contribute some additional strength to mortars but mix proportions need not be varied on this account. Quicklimes are now rarely used on site.'

One reason for the switch to portland cements is that most of the sources of eminently hydraulic lime have become exhausted. Traditional eminently hydraulic lime is still svailable , but costs considerably more than portland.

The 1/2" and 3/4" pipe threads are the only ones where BSP and NPT have identical pitches (14tpi). My screw thread book gives the BSP/NPT pipe diameters for 1/2" as 0.8250"/ 0.840" and for 3/4" as 1.0410"/ 1.050". BSP/ NPT thread flank angles are 55°/ 60°. BSP threads have rounded crests and roots, those of NPT are flat. If the fit is tight, using a die/tap on/in the larger/smaller thread should provide a solution.

I used to use Plastic Padding Type Soft for car body repairs and general filling jobs, but I haven't been able to buy it for some years. I now use Ronson High Performance Wood Filler, a polystyrene-type filler that looks, smells, and behaves much the same as Plastic Padding Type Soft, apart from the colour.

It's not rocket science to make a new key for that type of lock. When I was a child, we inherited a box of assorted mismatched locks and keys, and I managed to modify some of the keys to fit some of the simple locks like the one in the photo, using a hacksaw and files from dad's toolbox.

Especially so when horses were the motive power.

My understanding is that, when canals were in their heyday, bargees were paid well enough to afford a house on land for their family, and that it was only later when competition from the railways led to lower wages, that living on board with your family became widespread. So the reference to three centuries of living afloat is arguably not entirely correct.

According to some of my geology text books, the temperatures in the UK during the Roman occupation and the Viking era were around 1.0 to 1.5 °C higher than they are now. When first colonised by the Vikings, the coastal areas of Greenland did have green vegetation and could support farming. Cooler weather later made the coastal farming communities unviable. The baseline date for the pre-industrial age seems to be in the middle of what was sometimes called a mini ice age, a period of around three centuries when temperatures in Europe were lower than they are now.

Thanks, I had missed the earlier thread.