No Signals

Fort George. The best preserved artillery fort in Europe. Nearly caused a divorce when I got in here (on my honeymoon).Pic courtesy of Google Earth. I'll put some of my own up if I get them scanned.

Add your pics of places you've been to which caught your mind for one reason or another. I'll start the ball rolling with a few. Tynemouth Battery. (Also got a castle and priory - these lads dont do things by halves !)

The water was particularly flat that morning, the shots out to sea show it pretty faithfully as to how it was. The photo is deceptive regarding showing the width of the estuary at that point. If you were to Google Earth Tynemouth castle & priory you will see a road at the left of the site. The shot was taken down the angle of that road and extended across you can see it is quite a distance, more than half a mile? The pilot boats, and most other small craft, at that point regularly increase their spped, I think it is something to do with having passsed a marker on the south bank. To me, as a fairly regular visitor, the speed of the outgoing craft was not out of the ordinary. I dont think there was a spring tide that day, it didnt get very high, but it was on its way in. The naval craft was creeping in at the very steady pace of most incoming craft. By way of a comparison regarding the water I post this pic taken about a year ago. Taken from a little further down the road in the first pic. You may see there is a lighthouse on both pier heads. It is just that the waves are higher than the lighthouse on the nearer pier!

I cant find the pic I was after but these might be of help. I accept my carb is probably a different model to yours but most of the plumbing looks prettty much the same. If you need the sizes/diagram of the bulkhead bracket I can supply the one Andy refers to

In general I would wholeheartedly agree with you on that assessment of the forum Lee. As an observer, but non contributor, to this debate I can easily see why John has got his hair off based on some of the replies. Bit surprised he didn't flip a bit sooner

No, no you've got that wrong; the American jeep has the higher rating than the British one because everything American is bigger.

Inspection of another shot of number two in the line shows a slighly different superstructure, less radar/whatever on the front end of the top of the bridge. A different paint pattern on the hull. This could be the action of light but I'm not convinced.

The 'other boat' in the background I think was one of the pilot boats on its way out to drop one off at one of the boats further back down the line. The speed he was going at seemed usual for pilot boats in that area. But I wouldn't argue with anyone who knew he was breaking the rules

I've had a look zoomed in on the original but it is still very unclear, possibly an F or P with three numerals. Obviously not F for frigate though. Yes Ted, it is taken looking across towards South Shields from Tynemouth

Minesweeper? Fishery protection? Foreign? Four of them came up the Tyne, line astern, early Friday morning. 'Scuse the crappy shot but they were a long way off!

Thanks Chris, pm sent.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding, although that is in effect what I meant; as surprisingly after all these years it is still on standard bores. No mark at all - other than a cylinder number, Y tolerance grade and an X, which I have yet to find a refence to anywhere (They might be quite a bit worn - but still on standard in theory)

Nominal 3 & 3/8" according to the manual and the tape measure. Not had chance to stick a dial in the cylinder to see just how worn it is. I have your Mr Cox and another company checking their stocks. Going away tomorrow for a few days so hopefully when I return I might have some positive news of a supplier. Cords dont do anything that is a direct replacement fit, but the range of data hurled at me by their two very efficient staff had me completely phased! Certainly I would try them again another time for different stuff, very helpful.

The engine is marked OY. I am currently awaiting a response from 3 different sources regarding supply of new rings. They do seem to be more difficult to track down than I had first assumed. It seems easier to get a full piston/ring set than just rings! I would go that way and a rebore but for the previously stated reasons. Number cast in to the piston looks to be 040363.

Cheers fellas, much appreciated.

Yes Richard, I did do a compression test and there was quite a bit of difference between the cylinders and against the spec. 6,5 and 1 were the worst in that order. I hadnt thought of the 'contact' you mention, but as ever you are right. I ran out of time this afternoon to measure anything up but hopefully will get this done, if not tomorrow, then Wednesday.

Second opinions invited. Bedford MW. Blue smoking a bit at the end of last season so took head off to inspect. Replaced all valves, guides and had seats re-cut. Dodgy exhaust seats look to have been the main culprit. While head was off decided to drop sump and check for big end play –everything seems ok. Paraffin tested rings overnight- all of them seeped, 1,5 &6 worse than others. There is a lip on all cylinders. Options are 1) Put it all back together as it is without touching cylinders etc. 2) Try and source some new std size rings and just replace them (after deglazing bores). Anyone know a part number? Or know any modern equivalents. Cant find anything in any of the limited manuals I’ve got. Reboring isn’t an option at the moment, as I don’t have the lifting facilities to take out the engine where it is. I have heard of re-bore equipment which can be put on a motor in situ, but not having seen any I am still pretty sure it would not be able to do at least No 6 and maybe No.5 due to the shape of the bulkhead. Useful input invited regarding which way to go

An end to this piece of the saga. I was in the yard today and the Hippo is gone - cut up fairly recently!!!!!! As I said previously the body was in dropping to pieces condition. One of the lads in the yard though said that when they had ripped the cab off, just to see what was what, he put a battery on it. No 'easy start', no priming, no new fuel, nothing. It started first try and scared the living daylights out of him. Not bad after 30/40 years standing. He tells me nothing now remains of it except the radiator and the badge. What can you say?

I must confess I wasn't aware of the existence/survival of this veteran of the Battle of Jutland until very recently, so maybe it might be new/ of interest to a few others. A pretty good potted history of her here. The oldest commisioned warship still afloat and the last of the triple funnelled ships. The Wikipedia refers to a possibility of it being moved to Portsmouth in 2011, any of you locals know anything about any such plans? The image courtesy of Google Earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Caroline_(1914)

Years ago I identified such a hide on the coast in Yorkshire. It is fair to say that they were designed and located to be difficult to find and the entrances were ingenious. If you can find a copy of David Lampes 'Last Ditch' it is an incredible read, especially the parts about the 'hides', of which there were a variety of different types. From information I have come up with since it seems it was often the case that the digging was done under the cover of the locating of an anti-aircraft gun , or some other temporary mobile item, which was then 'moved on' after the real job was done. It will have been located near an established track or other line of approach so that there would be no obvious out of the ordinary sets of footprints leading to it. The one I identified was built adjacent to a tumbled down dry stone wall and allowed the occupants the ability to get to it along the line of the wall and leave no trail. The entrance lid to the access shaft was covered with rubble/stones from this wall cemented in to it and so to any one passing by, even looking very closely, it is very difficult to discerne from the rest of the area. The lid was raised by means of a counterbalance system, now lost, which was operated by the simple insertion of a glass marble into a tube built in to the lid which rolled down inside, this upset the balance and opened it up. If some thing such as this is the setup on your farm you just wont find it after all this time. The book lists lots of other equally ingenious access doors. Information available suggests a lot of the hides were destroyed after the war but a surprising number do still survive. The Defence of Britain Project located and listed a number of them, both lost and surviving and these are listed on the searchable project database. As has been pointed out you might find something by looking on Google Earth but this really will be a long shot and will require a very lucky set of conditions. I've done a lot of research over the years using aerial photos and the conditions need to be just right to show up many things. even when you know they are there. E.g Google Earth shows nothing in a location I have an aerial photo of, taken at just the right time of year and in the right ground conditions, which shows a huge complex of buildings. Picking out a small deep bunker would be very lucky. Are you willing to give a grid reference for the farm so that those of us sad enough to be interested can lend and extra pair of search eyes? If there are local records, or local memories, which suggest temporary military fixtures such as AA batteries, or more often just a single gun or searchlight, then that might be a better route to go down. Local libraries may have documents referring to such things. Best of luck with the search!

Cheers! Will try all.

Since yesterday I've found that some threads that obviously have pics in them are not showing them. Some still are. Linked pictures still work. Even pics by the same poster, one post shows - the next doesn't. Next time I'm on sometimes its the other way round, but certain threads still no joy. To the best of my knowledge, - that bit is stressed . I have changed no settings on my machine and I am still logged in. Suggestions?

And there was me thinking number three was a Mamod!

I really am no expert on this and if you do a Google search I'm sure you will find some articles on the Turbinia that explain it much more accurately than I can. It is something to do with the speed at which the turbine is capable of spinning and if the props go too fast then they waste a lot of their energy making bubbles rather than pushing the craft forward. I think the multiple smaller props were a method of reducing this problem. But I accept I could be completely wrong on that. You need to understand that this was the worlds first successful steam turbine vessel and for a lot of things there was 'no book' at the time. It was all pioneering work and tackling lots of different elements all at the same time. All said Mr Parsons did it quite well! I dont know about whether the long central shaft would interfere with the rudder. From the way it ran rings around everything that was sent out to chase it at Spithead I reckon it wasnt an immediate problem.