davidg

It's not Simon's baby, it's Steve's. There are quite a few parts to make some more in the stores though I'm not sure if there is a complete set of castings. Whether any more get produced depends on Steve having sufficient time & motivation.

It has a new and sympathetic owner. Currently tied at Brinklow Boat Services though normally resides at Alvecote.

"The stern section is as true to the shape of an original small Woolwich as you can get, both above and below the waterline." That's a bold claim.

Not if one can use…. (Drum roll) The PowerBoat https://www.facebook.com/100056765809653/posts/pfbid04DLJ5KWkU5o2EqpG5VPhyBaiBpcfAyLaWhVGDyyhXv3kmzcPcFKihB3z3T7YynyFl/ Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Lockwood viaduct is the long stone viaduct crossing the Holme valley. Continuing the cricket theme, Lockwood cricket club was in the shadow of the viaduct and local legend had it that only one person had ever managed to throw a cricket ball over the viaduct. The one in the photo is Paddock viaduct over the Colne (and the canal).

My dad used to use the term “Holmfirthing” meaning cheating; this referred to the rules of the Huddersfield & District Cricket League which allowed one professional player per team. Holmfirth CC had a large number of players who didn’t live in Holmfirth and they kept winning the league. The Colne valley and Holme valley were worlds apart.

Wrong valley

Easy, but I grew up there so it would be

When I worked at BT most of the custom chips were designed by us and fabbed by Plessey. One of mine had a quote from Dante Gabriel Rossetti on it.

It ain’t Victory. And to answer the question a CE2

Is that not a Class1c(sic), the Midland Chandlers Classic/Epping lookalike? The firebox on them is waaaaay too big unless you put extra firebricks in.

Another of theirs, the Craven Arms in Gough Street (behind The Mailbox) is worth a visit in the city centre. With the demise of The Woodman it has become my go-to place for a quiet pint before/after an afternoon of disappointment & disillusionment at Villa Park.

Taking a punt of being accused of pedantry again, but if the charge on the electron is that I wouldn't want to be around one of those when it got out in the wild😊

Nope. Consider the difference between “My solar panels are generating 1 mWh each day” and “My solar panels are generating 1MWh each day” Case matters😊

If it was a pair in the late 80s it could have also been Yeoford & Ash or Achilles with Rod & Don. Graham ( on Collingwood) tended to go single motor in my memory, though not always. Did the boat have the shark's teeth on the fore end? Don painted some on the Yeoford for one season...Graham did not approve.😀 They also had a magnificent can painted in the style of a coke can for a while.

Hi Stijn, I wrote my earlier reply in something of a hurry on my phone before my plane took off ealier today. It's twenty years since mine fell apart and I hadn't remembered it all correctly (i could really do with my spare gearbox in front of me to remember how it all goes together) Having looked at your youtube video, some of it is coming back to me... There isn't a bearing between the case and the input shaft, the input shaft relies on whatever it is coupled to and the register between the adaptor plate and the engine for correct location. As a result, if you have nothing coupled to the input shaft the only thing holding it in place is the oil seal so some up & down or side to side movement will be possible. It's the arangement around the output shaft bearing which should stop the fore & aft movement. I would say that oil seal needs replacing but that's an easy job. Fixing the oil thrower is a problem as if you don't get it central it will vibrate itself to bits and the clearances in there are quite tight. Looking at your video the oil thrower is pop riveted on which suggests an ealier repair; on the two gearboxes I have these rivets are brass? or maybe copper. It depends how badly the oil thrower is damaged as to whether you can simply drill out the old rivets and refit it but I'm thinking you're goin to have to take the front plate off the gearcage to sort it out which from memory means taking the whole cage out and in turn that means dismantling the operating mechanism. When I get hom I'll take another look at my spare which is bits. David

Mine lost its oil thrower. It should be secured by (blind?) rivets to the front of the bevel gear cage. The input shaft shouldn’t have any fore and aft movement; it will be this movement which has worn the rivets away, if you look at the front cover plate you should see where the oil thrower has been rubbing on it. The movement should be prevented by the big nut in the middle of the output coupling (or reduction box input gear) being tight and locking the forward & aft bearings against their respective shoulders.

Welsh steam coal, not anthracite. The washery/grading plant at Ffos y fran (the last available source of Welsh steam coal) broke down in January and overnight Welsh steam coal was set to disappear*. Tata at Port Talbot bought up the remaining stocks/output as they burn dust so don’t require lump coal. In the summer Ffos y fran had second thoughts and repaired the grading plant, but the price went up from ~£200 per ton to north of £500. At my railway the scramble for alternatives led us through a product which shall remain nameless (I’m a fireman so suffered through that particular experiment) to where we are now, which is using Wildfire at around £350 a ton. We are managing with Wildfire but as the locomotives get a spanking rather than pootling around it is only just sometimes. I think anthracite is still being produced in the west of the coalfield (FyF is near Merthyr in the middle where the best steam coal came from, Middle Dyffryn anyone?) and permission has been granted for new anthracite extraction somewhere over there - Onllwyn? Wildfire uses crushed anthracite as one of its ingredients along with a binding agent (molasses?) and pixie dust. It produces horrible clinker which clogs the grate. *back in the spring a little girl was watching fascinated as I was coaling up so I presented her with a lump of Welsh steam coal saying take a good look at it as it was among the last welsh steam coal she would see.

Hi Ian, The Smiffs are obviously not keeping you busy enough.😊 A couple of questions I've been asking myself since you first put photos/drawings up of your rudder on this/other threads: How do you drop the rudder out should the need arise? Normally there is enough play in the rudder tube to angle the rudder stock sideways so that the rudder can drop down one side of the skeg but with the wide flat plates top & bottom (& a wide skeg compared to a cast one) is this still possible? And sort of related, should the rudder get knocked out of the bottom cup by the inevitable shopping trolley (or Vauxhall Astra bonnet in one memorable case I experienced - it was attached to the rest of the Astra) is it light enough so you can lift it back in? It looks as if there is a fair weight of steel involved in that fabrication compared to a flat plate. The performance improvements look good and it will be intersting to hear how you find it; I wouldn't do it to my boat since it's one of god's own boats and handles like a dream but having steered other boats where it feels as if you are waving a bit of wet lettuce around in the water I can see the motivation. David

There's a village nearby?

Several, but in each case only from one end😊

Because the cottage is at the lock where the canal commonly called the Huddersfield Broad Canal joins the C&H. The name of the canal when it was built was Sir John Ramsden’s Canal. In the same way that the canal commonly called the Huddersfield Narrow Canal was the Huddersfield Canal when it was built, later the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway and Canal Company. Sir John Ramsden was a major player in 18th century Huddersfield, commemorated in Ramsden Street among other places. I learned to swim at Ramsden Street baths.

Well I know where you're coming from. Maybe it's a Golcar thing. 😊

For those interested there is a rather lovely evocation of this area in “Black Lion Crossing”, a model railway based on the area though not of a specific location, built by Geoff Kent. There are buildings modelled on ones Geoff photographed back in the fifties. https://www.flickriver.com/photos/simage61/33936559678/

Well, as the true expert (the owner) is on holiday, I'll tell you it is indeed Bingley.