Minesweeper

The grey floor of the body "tub" is an undercoat - it has still to be finished in the same brown/green as the sides of the body. Tony

Something which perhaps Michael Young could answer - maybe Tim might ask him? Tony

Thank you Ed! We have family in the USA and in the past, have bought square nuts and carriage bolts over there when we have been visiting - and brought them back as part of our luggage. The threads are UNC. Very difficult to get square nuts in the UK, too, but all readily available in the USA. I looked on USA Ebay yesterday and have found more than one Advertiser there selling them - in packs of 100 - prices are very reasonable - but of course, shipping costs are the unknown at the moment. I have written to enquire! We are short of 3 1/2" x 3/8" in particular - the Advertiser offers 3" and 4". We would prefer to get 3 1/2" ones but will cut 4" ones down if needs be. Tony

Well, it would be nice to have a bigger and taller shed - but that is not on! The Dennis' were fitted with two different types of cab - one sort being high, wooden and fixed and the other was of the folding canvas type. We shall go for the canvas type - with any "modifications" incorporated so that it can be taken down fairly easily. When we put the FWD back in the shed, all of the canvas has to be taken down so that it will go in and we envisage doing the same sort of thing with the Dennis. A bit of a nuisance but we can live with that! Tony

[QUOTE=robin craig;241049]In your run up to the Brighton run, what do you feel in what order are the biggest chances of mechanical failure? Well, we have tried to think of everything and just hope that all will be OK! I guess that our biggest worry is that with time so tight, we will not have had chance to give the lorry some good road-runs before hand to see if any real problems develope. And of course, we do not know yet if we have been accepted for the "Run". It is usually over-subscribed so we may not be given a place in any case. One thing that we do have to do before the "Brighton" and one that we did not want to do is to press the back tyres off the wheels again - they do not appear to be tight enough. We think that we shall have to insert some thin steel shim between the tyres and the wheels - for own peace of mind! It would be dreadful if the tyres started to move off the wheels when we were on the road! Tony

Our progress has been a bit interrupted by the Christmas festivities. However, Steve did get outside on Christmas Day and start to cut the angles which hold the body sides up. He drilled them and then bent them hot using snow to quench them as the outside tap was frozen up. He welded in the corners using his new auto-darkening mask and dressed them off to a nice radius. We have also done some of the woodwork in that we have cut the floor hatch and screwed the boards down. These are all grooved with the tongues knocked in and proved to be more time consuming than expected. However, we have completed them today (with assistance!) and have also fitted the kerb rails along the edges. These, rather unusually, sit on top of the floor planks and are bolted through the crossmembers at a slight angle.The side planks, in turn, sit on top of them and are supported by steel angles and the headboard. We hope to mount them tomorrow.

Well done for remembering it Alan! Tony

You got that quick. Well done. I had never seen one before. Sorry about the Lancaster quip. Christmas spirits and all that. Tim

Sounds like fun. There is a good museum there and there is a very good pie shop down the road from the Castle.

I got lots of loveley things and no socks. This data plate (from Steve) i found particularly interesting. As to what it came off, you might not be able to work that out until you read the last paragraph, when there is a very good clue. So, who wants to have a guess what it is off? Tim

Here is a nice line up of Locomobiles. It looks like the photographer thought that they did not have enough snow so added a bit more.

I guess like a lot of members of this forum, my first contact with military vehicles was when I joined the army. Maresfield Camp in 1959 - Austin Champs and two Bedford MW's - we always referred to them as Bedford 15cwts. The Bedfords were used for Driver Training - a two weeks course for those who could already drive - civilian instructors. There were just two Instructors - one was assigned to the Trainee for the whole two weeks and at the end of the Course, the Instructors changed over to assess the Trainee that they had not previously seen. If the then "Examiner" was happy, a military driving licence was then issued. I was under 21 at the time - before the days of the HGV licence and you were not allowed to drive civilian lorries of three tons and above at that time except in military service. My "new" driving licence issued on the completion of my army driving test was annotated that I was only able to drive lorries of three tons and above when in military service. The driving test was simple - I had to drive from Maresfield to Bognor Regis - I think that the run was about 50 miles . I always enjoyed driving the Champ - the Gear change seemed to be so smooth after the Bedfords!.

Steve hasn't been able to go into work today so he has put the time to good use by making up the second lever needed for the throttle linkage. We are fortunate to have an original which Steve has been able to copy (See photo above). First, he cut a piece of flat strip and turned some bosses. These were silver soldered on Then he filed it to profile Finally, he filed the section to more closely represent the original forging. Back to work tomorrow.

Thanks Barry - the last sentence made me chuckle! Tony

There is a Bakelite Museum somewhere in Somerset - not sure where but maybe Bridgwater area? I heard that it was about to close because of a lack of interest in it............

The picture of the plywood is a bit of an optical illusion, Barry! It is a large picture of tiny bits! Those are not the planks wrapped up in the polyphene but the "tongues" cut out of 1/2" thick ply to go into grooves machined in the edges of the floor planks and also in the edges of the side planks! Instead of the planks being machined with tongues on one edge and grooves on the other to inter-lock, they have been machined with grooves on both edges with the ply-wood tongues designed to slip into the grooves in the adjacent planks. The end or outside planks are only grooved on one edge. Our woodworker friend Mark arranged for these plywood strips to be cut for us with a special fine saw that would not splinter the plywood as it was cut - which could easily happen if it was cut with an ordinary saw. Ply with a splintered edge would be difficult to use for that purpose. The Steering Wheel has come on further since these last pictures were taken and I will see if I can get another picture to show you the further progress. It is not easy to get a polished finish around the roots of the spokes of the wheel as you will well know! Tony

Some of the filming here in the West Country was completed a month or two ago!

Quote - I feel rather guilty for recommending the B and D Power File to Tony now. However I have only had 2 in twenty years with my last one now being 5 years old. Just unlucky perhaps. Oh, don't feel guilty, Barry - just my bad luck! Am always glad to have help and advice! Tony I

Thanks for the tip! Tony

Many thanks for that super and helpful reply, Q! Steve will not have picked it up yet as he will be at work - or still trying to get there! No doubt he will come back to you later in the day. You may have picked up from previous postings that we both do a bit of Model Engineering as well - and in our Club Shed, there is a very heavy, oil-filled Oxford Welder that is unused - the guys who do weld are a bit put off by it because of its weight in moving it around. We shall undoubtedly need to weld over the Christmas/New Year break and I will bring the thing home to see how we get on with it - and will of course, let you know! So many thanks once again! Tony

Wonderful how ladies' minds seem to be on the same wavelength - Steve's mother said exactly the same thing as Trish! Tony

Interesting to read in Kivell's advert that the Steam Wagon now up for sale was part of the Alexis Dreye Collection in France - our 1917 Military Autocar was also part of the Alexis Dreye Collection and we understand that it only came back to England to be offered for sale at auction when M.Dreye died. Tony

Yes, Ray - so many things trigger off memories. You mention the Naafi and I remember that well - the largest one that I had ever seen. The night before all my group finally departed from Blandford, we went there for a final "celebration". One guy got really "p***** out of his mind and we had to put him to bed - he was totally out. And some of the guys (I was not one and could not be so cruel) got two Fire Buckets full of water - put one each side of his bed and left him asleep on his back with his hands in the buckets of water. You will know what the result was! There was a book written about National Service called "Two years to do" - I have it somewhere and the Author had spent most of his time at Blandford Camp. So many episodes in that, that I could relate to. Tony

I was at Blandford Camp - Jan-Feb 1959 - Army School of P.T. That was in the REME Lines. What a vast place the Camp was! I remember coming back late one Sunday night from a "48" on a bus from Salisbury and trying to find my (Spider) Hut in the dark. I knew it was not too far from the Army Cinema on the main road through the Camp and was peering through the Bus Window as we drove through the Camp, looking for the Cinema! Saw it - jumped off the bus and then couldn't find my bearings - only to find that there were two Cinemas on the Camp and not one and of course, I got the wrong one. Mine was some way away. Wondered around until I found "Howe" Lines - and I was there! As Ray says, happy memories now! Tony

Tim will soon correct me if I am wrong but there is a running Latil in this country that looks very similar......... Tony