Disaster at the Angel of the North.

 

B.B’s attempt to ride the wings of the angel of the north ended in disaster today. It was his first try which he had nearly completed when there was a spine chilling loud creaking cracking noise as the wing he was riding on started to twist, followed by a snapping as the wing came away from the body of the angel.

Luckily the two spectators standing the closest to the the wing were pulled out of the way at the last minute by two of B.B’s support crew, as the edge of the wing hit the ground.

Emergency services were quick to arrive at the scene. Paramedics treated B.B at the scene before he was helicoptered to hospital. Suzanne and George Hackington were treated for shock, the two crew Sideways Jim and Melted Bert were also treated for minor injuries sustained in saving the Hackingtons from the falling wing.

The police and fire service are investigating how it was possible for the wing to come down. A spokes person for the council confirmed that an engineer had inspected the angel only two days before the stunt was to take place, giving the all clear for the attempt.

When asked a police spokes person said that they were keeping an open mind and would not be drawn on whether or not it had been sabotaged.

Dr Holingwood from the local hospital gave us a statement saying that Mr B.B Boots had had a miraculous escape stating that none of his injuries had been life threatening. He sustained a broken arm, fractured leg and a number of cuts with some heavy bruising. He is as comfortable as could be expected under the circumstances. It will be some time before he will be riding his bike again.

Mitch Dango event organiser said that they would cooperate with the investigation in any way they could and would like to thank and praise everyone involved for their quick responses. It could have ended very differently with several fatalities. He also said that he still cannot believe what had happened.

 

 

Flattened and Broken could it be saved.

Look away to painful to watch.

A very rare Kawasaki Z 400 battery cover turned up the other day. The cover managed to unclip itself from the bike while the owner was out for a spin. Before the owner could retrieve it from mortal danger he had the unhappy experience on seeing it crushed under the wheels of a car. So close and yet……

 

On unpacking the close to death part it was examined very carefully. Can it be saved? We rushed it into the workshop to start ‘life support’. There were a number of things that needed to be checked. Plastic of this age can suffer from age related symptoms – water retention and fishers in the surface when

Extensive damage shown from the inside.

heated. Also the material type had to be checked so it could be matched with one of our donor patches. Without this knowledge ‘life support’ would no longer be needed. Fortunately we had a good match, meaning the prognosis was good. In fact when we tested the material it was in excellent health if it was not for the crush ‘injuries’ and missing bits. So we could bring the panel back to full health but it would take time.

Damage from the outside. We were told not to rebuild the dummy air vent.

Before dealing with the breakages we slowly reformed it’s shape by heating the damaged areas that had not broken off. Slowly but surely heat and pressure was applied, bringing it back to its former shape. Then painstakingly we stitched together all the cracks. It is surprising how much stitching

Flattend area reformed. Showing missing lug.

was done – near on six metres! With a part this badly damaged it’s repair has to be staged so that it did not get over heated. Because of this it spent a lot of time in ‘recovery’.

Now that the panel was strong enough it was time to replace the areas that were missing.

Shaped and scraped

For this we used brand new plastic. All the parts were cut to a rough size and then tacked into place. Again taking care not to use to much heat. As we worked, it steadily regained its ‘health’.

New lug made from plastic. Also shows internal stitching together.

Now that the ‘surgery’ was complete the panel was placed in the recovery area to give the repairs time to settle in. Then the brutal task of flattening and shaping the welding and new material would begin. Once done it would be ready for a new paint graft.

Reformed and welded corner.

Rebuilt corner with new plastic. Shaped and scraped. The darker areas show where the new material has been added.

Green ear.

One night when the moon shone bright,

A ghost appeared

He walked the track

with a sack on his back

and his earol painted green.

The late F.W Avery.

A man named Paul

We are not amused.

There was a young man named Paul

Who grew terrifically tall

one night whilst in bed

he stretched out his leg

and turned out the light in the hall.

The late W.C Avery

A day of seduction?

This is the saucy minx of an F5 that I use to take most of my photographs with, coupled with the sexy little prime of a 28 mm lens. Add a roll of Agfa APX to caress the back of the focal plane shutter and I’m in for a sensual day of picture making.

With camera in hand I stroll out into a bright day with a gentle heat, fanned by a breeze that shifts the leaves on the trees. Now looking at the image in the view finder that is alive with dancing shadows I wait with finger poised touching the trigger in growing anticipation, waiting, waiting for the right breath of wind to push the shadows into place to complete the composition the eye so lusts for.

Click! anticipation spent, I turn away moving to the next flirtatious view to seduce my eye and so the day is flirted away click by click. Before I know where I am an entrancing morning has been teased away.

Not quite what I had in mind when I started writing this cheeky post but it does sex up the thought process behind the taking of each image made. A bit of fun at my expense. Believe it or not there was such a day and the pictures that illustrate this post are the results. A full days exposure and legal too!

Gordon Blue.

Trevor has a very particular way of writing and for the uninitiated can be difficult to get a handle on.   Please stick with it, it will get easier with time. The picture that appears with the text is related.

Thanks again Trev.

Gordon Blue Prints?

“From Past Life No Longer Seen Are Captured Moments As A Scene Showing A Loco And Tender Maid Of Mettle Kept For Service In Fine Fettle In loco Parentis She Endured M.A.D Cold War Until In S.A.N.E Common Sense She Saw Her N.U.T. House Pupils Cite Their Mind’s-Eye And Get Supervision From God On High? Cold Shivers She-Receives As In Awe And Splendour She-Believes Her S.A.N.E,Ventriloquist Of Garrison Bordon Trains M.A.D. Mankind As Blue Prince Gordon.”

By Unsung Busking Poetess Lady Bird Avery’s Ghost Writer. Longmoor Military Railway Engine

No 600 Gordon, In Bordon Garrison, Liss, Hampshire; Photographed By Ladybird’s Son Birdcage Avery, At The Longmoor Military Railway Final Open Day On 5 July 1969 A.D..

The thinking man’s read by Trev the Rev.

The Cheltenham Flyer Ufology. Flying Sorceress Wren Lori Noyes [A Traction Engine Maid With Attraction?]; Aloudspeaker Of This Cheep Unsung Singing Telegram: Portrays Her Romantic Sects Cymbal New Ditty As:- “The Stripper”?. Patiently Make A Patient Profit From Viewing This FeeMail Of Lori Noyes [As Your Unsung Singing Telegram Maid For You To Cite]: By Optionally Giving The N.H.S. Swear Box Alms, For This Wren’s Fowl Language?. [ Phonetics Of N.H.S. Eulogist:- Ladyship Wren B.R.Avery Of Gravesend].

We Would like to Thank Trev  for this puzzlement.

Trouble in Orkney

It is a grey day as a young lad stands near the cliff edge on Hay one of the Orkney islands. He looks out over Scapa flow that is crowded with ships. The German fleet has been interned. He has heard that the war is over and that is why they are all here at the Navy’s most northerly base and guard to the North Sea.

While the boy is sat a top the cliff eating a bread and dripping sandwich, his eyes are drawn to some flashing lights, it looks like all the ships are winking at each other, little does he know that this is the order from rear admiral Von Reuter to his commanders confirming orders to scuttle the fleet. He looks on day dreaming about what life may be like now that the war has ended. He suddenly notices that all the ships he can see are flying the Imperial German Ensign from their main masts. While he looks on there are lots of small boats moving between the ships, if only he had a telescope he would be able to see what is going on in more detail but he still hasn’t got enough pocket money saved.

The German sailors had been preparing for the scuttling for some days by drilling holes in the bulk heads to help the passage of water through the ships. Once the order was given sea cocks and flood valves were opened, internal water pipes were smashed and all water tight doors and portholes left open. It was not until midday that the scuttling was noticed. Friedrich der Grosse was seen listing heavily to starboard. What remained of British naval forces at Scapa flow navel base sprang into action, but they were limited in the force they could take since the leaving of the British fleet the day before . It was not until twenty minuets after midday that Admiral Fremantle on manoeuvres with the fleet received a message that the German fleet was sinking. He immediate turned round and steamed back at full speed to Orkney. He radioed ahead to order all available boats to try and stop as many ships sinking as possible. By the time Admiral Fremantle returned it was only the large battle ships that were still partly afloat. The last ship to sink was the battle-cruiser Hindenburg at five o’clock.

The young boy up on the cliff had lost all track of time it was getting late, he would be ‘for it’ by the time he got home, with a clip round the ear from his mum. He had resigned himself to it but had a great story to tell his friends when he got to school the next day. On his way home he wondered what those faint popping sounds were. The tragedy of those sounds were that nine Germans were killed and sixteen wounded when the British boarded their ships to stop the sinking’s.

Plastic welding book.

We have just finished putting together a guide on plastic welding. This is an insight into what went on. 

Sometime a go it was suggested that we write a book. I cannot believe that it has been four years since. It is a guide and to be honest the amount of time and effort need to pull a mere twenty five pages together is astounding. So I take my hat off to all those who write ten time plus this. 

For starters this being a guide it needed pictures of the tools, welding equipment and the different stages you needed to go through to reach the finished article. So a plan was put in place to get the photos needed to illustrate what we were describing. Initially pictures were going to be taken of the various jobs we were doing for our customers at differing stages of completion. But after viewing a selection of these we changed our minds because it did not look right. While all that was being done the tools etc were being set up and photographed. At least this part of the job was going OK.

Then life through a spanner in the works making it impossible to continue with the project so it went on the back burner temporally. Some two year later yes I know two year. Anyway we now had time to complete the book. It is funny how time changes

things all the pictures we had taken in the past were scraped they no longer suited our purpose which meant starting all over again. It did make me wonder if they were the right pictures in the first place.

The guide now had a new structure all the headings had been finalised and out lines of what should be included set out. Great the book was coming on in leaps and bounds. Even so it took months to write such a small number of words. The pictures took no time at all to do this time because we set up a special job that we could be photographed at each stage when we had the time between other work. These pictures look no different from those we took first time round but there is a continuity that was missing from the first selection.

This was always going to be a self publish job and after looking on the net we decided to go with blurb.  A decision we are starting to regret. It is always difficult when doing something for the first time and involving new software. All the blurb said it was easy to use and you could be done in a couple of hours, to be honest I took that with a pinch of salt. Just as well I did. It was a pain to use even when I got the hang of it. One of the biggest pains was it would not accept the table of setting we had put together it did not matter what we did it went wrong even when I rewrote the whole thing into the page. Man the air was blue. But we got round it.

The best part of a month went by before the lay out of the book was alright. It was checked five times and each time we found that some of the text was a different point

size. Two of those times two of us checked it at the same time and found fault. It  is still not completely right but had a copy printed anyway.

A week or so later we received a book shaped package at the workshop. I have to say it was not what I was expecting. Having said that it is great little book for our first attempt. At this point I would like to thank all those who were involved and apologise for the blue air

.

 

Most of my Friends don’t know I Blog

This blog made me think. Some of my friend know I blog but take no notice of what I write or for that matter comment in any way. I write this blog for two reasons the first is simply to get the name known unadulterated advertising and the other is to allow me to get things off my chest if I need to.