Minesweeper

Great workmanship, Ben! Tony

Quite right David - not as straight forward as you might think to get accuracy! I skimmed and squared the bottom of the casting with the inside bottom bolting face so that I had two true faces to work from. No way could I accurately drill right through from one end to the other with one long drill - which I did not have in any case, as that would have wandered. So centres for the holes in each end were marked off with a Height Gauge, working from the two machined true faces - and then each just drilled through separately from their separate ends and reamed. It seemed to work! Tony

Lovely useful information, John - and thank you! And I enjoyed your last sentence! Plenty of Llamas and Alpacos down this way - would they be any good? Tony

This looks like a post-war civilian version of the "J" with a low level radiator - and not a former military one. Notice that the Starting Handle passes through the radiator and is not underneath the radiator as on the military version with a high level radiator!

A wonderful story - well done to you all!

Very funny - enjoyed that!

Well, I still have mine - or at least most of it! Issued to me in January 1959 when I joined up for my National Service. This is one of the items of your kit that you were allowed to keep when you were discharged. It was an item that I always used when travelling around - on Exercise or Courses and so on, for my Washing Kit. In fact I continued to use for many years after I came out of the Army but my wife hated it and after many years bought me something more "civilised"! I do not recollect that there was any instruction to keep certain items in it - or in any particular order. I do not remember anybody wanting to see it or inspect it after Basic Training. Perfect for the job! Tony

Mark uses Cascamite - same as used on the Dennis and the FWD Bows. If you Google Cascamite, you will read that it is highly thought of and is good for exterior woodwork. Tony

Have just finished reading it - a good mix of articles, I thought and well done!

[QUOTE=Sean N;483173]Papier mache? Would be easy to do, easily mouldable and if made with the right glue and sealed would be just as resistant and mechanically strong. You could make up some bucks out of dowel or tube which you could arrange so they could be pulled apart to get them out of the finished tube. Alternatively, plastic pipe cut and glued - you could use filler to reproduce any curves etc. and might be able to flare it by warming and moulding gently? More difficult to paint though. Thanks for that, Sean! Steve tells me this morning that in fact, the Thorny one was made of steel and was not similar to the Dennis one - so we shall have to tackle this one differently! Tony

Yes, that is always a good way to do it. In this case though, the end panels are so heavy that I was having trouble just handling one and still being able to see the line! I did make a template to draw the curves so they match at least. As usual, we are stretching our equipment to the limit and the sander might not have handled the combined weight anyway! Cheers! Steve :-)

A wonderful thing to do. Tony

Thank you - that is very kind and of course we very warmly reciprocate your Christmas Greetings! Steve arrived here today so the team is now complete - Tim arrived here on Thursday! Big Mark has delivered all of the prepared timber for the Thorny seat this afternoon so we are ready to get on with it! He has done a very nice job for us - as he always does - it is great to have such a skilled woodworker for a friend who is also so highly interested in the project. And of course, a very Happy Christmas to all who read this! Tony

Welcome! That really is impressive!

There won't be a "Thorny No. 2" - certainly not enough to do that - and we are now pushing ourselves to get this one finished by 2018. You may recall that we pushed ourselves to finish the Dennis by 2014 - the centenary year of the commencement of WW1 and we thought that it would be pleasing if we could finish "Thorny" by the centenary year of the end of the War - and we shall have to go some to do that! We will give it our best shot! We are already giving the Peerless some thought as our "follow-on" project but it would be foolish to do anything to that until the "Thorny" is completed. Tony

Funny you should say that, Gordon- the timber for seat has been ordered and that will be the Christmas Break project - amongst other things! Tony

Pleased to see you - try again! Tony

An absolutely wonderful find - well done! The Side Panels on our engine were cut down to half size and we had new ones made. I am sure that Steve must have the Drawings for those somewhere - and if we still have the drawings and you would like them, then we shall be pleased to send them to you! Steve is correct - overheating did appear to be a problem with this truck and that is why we assumed that those Side Panels on ours when we got it were cut back - to allow more air to circulate over the engine. The later rebuilt ones from the British FWD Factory were fitted with bigger radiators - same shape to look at from the front but deeper with additional tubes. We wish you well ! Tony

What a funny old world it is ! You will have read above that one of our Peerless' originated from "Middlezoy", a Somerset village. Only last Friday week, we were at the Great Dorset and Tim and his daughter accidentally met up with a close friend who was with a man that we had not met before and the four of them got talking about our next project - the Peerless. The stranger very unexpectedly said that he knew where there were a set of Peerless Chains and offered to make contact with the owner of them for us but we should phone that new friend when we got home for more information about the history of the chains. Well, I phoned yesterday and spoke to that new friend myself for the first time and he told me that as far as he remembered, the owner of the chains sold the Peerless lorry back in the 1960's but the buyer of the lorry never took the chains at the time and never came back for them. So he was left with them and has been holding on to them all these years! And where are those chains now? Middlezoy would you believe! Is this yet another example of "Meant to be"? Tony

Everybody will be smiling for you, Ben! Tony

Just got back from a day there. Very impressive WW1 lineup. Great to see your CB Duncan. Looked fantastic. Had a ride in the Saurer and took the AEC Y Type for a drive up the hill and back (thanks Seb for trusting me not to wreck it). Lots of interesting things to see and great to meet so many old friends. Will post some photos on my machine when I get home. Tim

Hedd - your Dad always said that there is still "stuff" out there - so absolutely brilliant - he was right! Ben - keeping my fingers crossed for you with this one! Tony

I have always been inclined to believe in the saying "Meant to be" and this is another example of that............The Goslings' part of this story started with a letter received in Axminster all those years ago from Nigel W telling us that he had acquired a chassis of an early Dennis and that he wanted to find a good home for it where it could be used. Nigel explained in his letter to us that he himself was in the Recovery business and that his friend Laurence F in Cornwall had been asked to demolish an old Chalet. Much to Laurence's surprise, he found an old Dennis chassis underneath the Chalet when it came down and that Laurence knowing of Nigel's interest in such things, contacted Nigel to say that he had found the chassis and that if Nigel wanted it, he must come down from Nigel's base near Winchester to collect it that very day as otherwise it would go to the "Scrappy". It was another case of "Meant to be" as on that very day, Nigel was unusually free and being in the Recovery business, he was already fully "tooled up" to collect it and so he went straight down to Cornwall to pick it up, to bring back to Winchester. So Nigel was then left wondering what to do with it as he did not restore anything himself. Just at that time, the book "The Leyland Man" written by Mike Sutcliffe had been published so Nigel contacted Mike S to ask him if he wanted the chassis. Mike said that he did not want a Dennis but suggested that he contacted the Goslings in Axminster as they might be interested as they were working on one. So that was when Nigel wrote to us. At this stage in our restoration of our Dennis, we had all the major parts except a Differential and from the photographs which Nigel included in his letter to us, it did appear that the "Diff" might still be in the Back Axle. It was not easy to see as it was upside down - and furthermore, the chassis was not instantly recognisable as a "Subsidy" until I realised that part of the back end of the chassis had been cut off! So I was instantly on the phone to Nigel and arranged to call on him that day to have a look. At that time, our Postman always called quite early in the morning - any time after 6 a.m. so by the time my wife had appeared for breakfast and where I always get up early, the arrangement for the Winchester visit had been made for that day. I asked my wife if she would like to go out for lunch, that day - she said "That would be nice, where are we going?" I said I thought that she might like to go to Winchester - which of course caused some raised eyebrows! Anyhow, we found Nigel, and sure enough, the complete "Diff" was still in the back axle and it was just what we were looking for. It seemed to be a very common arrangement some years ago for old lorry chassis' to be used in the construction of these sort of small buildings, and whether that was a method of getting around Planning Permission where any such building could still be deemed to be portable as it would be on wheels and not a fixed and permanent structure, I do not know. It was not usual for a "Diff" to be left in a back axle, and these old chassis' are still turning up and almost always, the valuable "Diff" has been removed. Nigel readily agreed that we should have the chassis - he did not want anything for it other than that his transport costs be covered including delivery to Axminster - and of course we were pleased to agree. We have never seen another one and would have been left with a difficulty in finishing off the Dennis with original parts! What do you think - "Meant to be?"

45BP90 was mine - and I was given it for nothing - all I had to do was sign for it - but that was in 1959!

That made me laugh! Yes - silver steel rod hardened out with two concentric diameters - the larger outside diameter to be the same as the required finished outside diameter of the work piece but with a smaller round concentric section to fit in the hole in the work piece to hold it in place. Two Buttons required - one to go each side of the work piece. Ideally, the buttons should be able to rotate - but not too loosely in the hole, so as the file goes over the buttons, the hardened silver steel buttons rotates and do not blunt your file! Tony