A Man With 2 Thermometers

Last September I bought a couple of infrared heating panels to use in the spare bedroom, rather than use the underfloor heating. This was because the spare bedroom is at the end of the underfloor heating circuit and is a) difficult to heat and b) is used only rarely, so heating the entire floor area would be wasteful.

In the last month I noticed that one of the heaters was registering an ambient temperature far in excess of the other by about 7 degrees. The room thermostat confirmed this. The result is that to obtain a reasonable and harmonious temperature, I had to set the faulty one to cut out at a temperature 7 degrees higher than the other one.

On the strength of this I contacted the manufacturer who kindly offered to replace the panel with the faulty thermostat. It duly arrived and I mounted it next to the old one, only to discover that it too was reading higher than the old one, but only by 4 degrees.

It would transpire that the thermostats are not that accurate. It's the classic man with two watches problem - he doesn't know the true time if both are showing slightly different times.

I put the original faulty one in the workshop where it doesn't really matter if I have to set it higher as, being only 700W it's unlikely to ever cut out anyway and I can set it really high to stay on permanently when I want to use it.

A Battle

A friend of mine from primary and grammar school died the week before last of cancer. His obituary, similar to others who have died of cancer, mentions his 'brave battle against cancer'.

I find it strange how one battles cancer, but not diabetes, kidney failure, Alzheimer's or any other of the myriad diseases that can carry us off.

How does one actually battle cancer? As far as I can see, you take your medication and hope for the best, just like any other disease. Is there anything particularly brave about it?

Granted that the treatment can involve taking you as close to death as possible without killing you, but so do the treatments for many diseases. It's not brave - it's the only course of action available to you if you want a chance of living longer.

We say people "fight cancer" or "lose their battle" with it. This hideously frames cancer as an enemy and the patient as a warrior. Research suggests these metaphors can be harmful. They might make patients feel like they have to fight super hard or blame themselves if the outcome isn't positive.

Over the Top?

Hay seems to think my idea of veneering the wood burner logs with burr walnut is going somewhat over the top. 

She simply doesn't understand art.... After my success with the dash panel I am curiously overcome with a desire to veneer everything in sight.

I have found the Triumph GT6 forum on Facebook to be invaluable. You can ask any question and you'll be bombarded with answers, some of them utterly mad, but many very creative.

Here's a couple of photos from a bloke who covered his dashboard top in red leather and the fascia in grey leather.

His GT6 is red, so it works wonderfully.

Guess what I found in my garage while tidying things up?

Walnut coloured leatherette with a felt backing! I bought it when I made a heat-resistant topper for our previous dining table. This offcut is too small to do the entire top of the dash, but I could easily get some more, giving it a thin foam backing to bring about the correct profile contours. It would go well with both the walnut veneered dash and the opalescent golden sand I'm intending to spray the car in.

A New Project

I really need doors on my new garage. Not just for warmth, but protection from the rain when the wind is in the wrong direction. I'll certainly need it for spraying the GT6 with some coats of primer.

Found this simple and yet elegant solution on YouTube.

OSB is relatively cheap, but plywood is lighter and stronger for the same thickness. It's also less prone to warping, so I'd prefer to use ply. I would probably face it with composite cladding in grey, to match the colour of the garage's oak cladding and provide weather protection. 

Perspex windows at the top would be beneficial for light, but not at the cost of strength or water integrity - any lips would allow rainwater to pool on the lip and possibly get into the ply. 

Not sure whether to do it myself or contract our tame builder, Colin, to do it. Knowing my wood butchery skills, Colin would probably be the better bet. He's a practitioner of the 'measure 3 times before cutting' school of woodworkology, whereas I go more by the 'well, it looks about right' school.

A job for summer.

Rwanda Flights

 So Sunak blames Labour Lords for the delay to the Rwanda Bill.

Based on the number of Tory Lords versus the Labour Lords he's either lying or doesn't have a clue about the real world.

So flights will take off in July. I doubt than very much because of a thing called UK law and that airlines have been told that if they participate they will he held accountable in International Law. 

What it possibly does signify is a General Election just before the flights are meant to take off.

He's obviously aiming to stem the drift of numbskulls to Reform, hoping they'll vote Tory before they find out that not a single flight will take off. It's a tactic to retain a handful of seats.

However, Nigel Fuhrage has responded by telling his knuckle draggers that he also thinks there won't be a single flight, but fails to provide his Final Solution to the issue.

PACE

This situation with Gideon Falter, Chief Executive (some say Chairman) of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, whiffs to me of a setup and artifice. The fact Suella Braverman is echoing his call for Sir Mark Rowley to resign makes it doubly so. She's one of those faux Conservatives who believe government should be able to break the law to achieve its aims, so I can't trust a word she says and suspect her motives.

I heard an interview with Falter yesterday where he said he wasn't wearing a badge or anything indicating he was Jewish. He was wearing a kippah, for heaven's sake. Unless one is Orthodox, the kippah is usually only worn in a synagogue, not when walking the streets. The man is an activist and therefore has an agenda and his organisation has openly stated it the protest marches banned. He also has previous for antagonising protesters. He wanted to be identified as jewish.

He was walking across a pro-Palestine demonstration - a demonstration which, while peaceful, has elements within it which are anti-Semitic. Falter was potentially placing himself in danger. The protest, at the time, however, was peaceful and lawful.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984) allows a constable to arrest someone without a warrant if they have reasonable grounds to believe that arrest is necessary for one of several reasons, and being a danger to themselves is one of these.

Falter, during his interview on the radio, said that a black person walking in front of an EDL protests wouldn't have been similarly arrested. However, they would if there was a risk of a situation kicking off and that black person refused to obey a police request to get away from the area. It's far easier to take someone into protective custody than to tackle a crowd with limited numbers of police, which might lead to injuries or even deaths.

Strangely enough, we've become addicted to a Radio 4 comedy series called It's A Fair Cop, where a former police sergeant, Alfie Moore, does a hilarious comedy routine based on actual cases he's been involved with, changing the names, obviously. He polls his audience on what they would do in certain situations and one of his cases, which we listened to last week, was startlingly similar to this situation. The vast majority of the audience said they would not have arrested the person in his historic case, whereas he did, and he quoted the relevant section of PACE that allowed him to do so.

In 2017, 250 academics complained of the Israel lobby’s repeated attempts to link academic criticism of Israel, and support for the Palestinian people, with anti-semitism. These moves were “outrageous interferences with free expression” and “direct attacks on academic freedom”. The group said “we wish to express our dismay at this attempt to silence campus discussion about Israel, including its violation of the rights of Palestinians for more than 50 years. It is with disbelief that we witness explicit political interference in university affairs in the interests of Israel under the thin disguise of concern about anti-semitism”

In January 2015, the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism wrote: "We were somewhat disappointed to note that not all of the messages from that group (CAA) have been in line with CST's stated approach of seeking to avoid undue panic and alarm." They added "it is important that the leadership do not conflate concerns about activity legitimately protesting Israel's actions with anti-Semitism, as we have seen has been the case on some occasions."

Since 2017, Falter has been on the Executive Board of the Jewish National Fund. JNF UK claims to be "the UK’s leading humanitarian and environmental Israel charity, raising funds for the building blocks of everyday life in Israel such as reservoirs, irrigation systems, desalination plants, forest planting, recycling schemes, roads, housing and healthcare centres." It is the UK wing of the Jewish National Fund, which has been described by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe as "a colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing". The JNF supports Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

There are elements who want the Gaza protests banned. Braverman is one of them and she will do anything the Israeli government wants. If Braverman is involved, indeed any Conservative, then I smell a rat. In his radio interview, Falter called the protesters a lawless mob, which it wasn't.

Yes, anyone should be free to walk London's streets without fear, but there are circumstances under which that could give cause for concern among those charged with maintaining the peace. Maintaining the peace is sometimes more important than an individual's rights, which is why PACE contains that section. You are not free to walk the streets if the circumstances under which you do so could cause a breach of the peace that the police cannot handle, especially if you have an agenda.

I think some activists are not doing the Jews any favours and it won't be long before the term 'playing the anti-Semitism card' will be as used as often as 'playing the race card' is. The police have an unenviable job and have my full support in this instance. Imagine if someone unknown to the police had run out from the crowd and stabbed Falter - he'd be dead and complaining even louder.

Contrasts

The burr walnut vinyl has arrived from China. Yuk!

There's no match whatsoever with the dash fascia I veneered and so I'm either going to have to veneer the dash top or else find another solution. 

I am tempted to go for leather in the same colour as the seats will be, which is either brown or beige.

Israel vs Iran & Government Nomenclature

Seems to me that the Israelis and Iranians are quite sensibly scaling down each tit-for-tat retaliatory action. It won't be long before they're exchanging paper planes, or simply calling each other names.

A lot of commentators are making much of the fact the Iranians could overwhelm Iron Dome with low cost drones, retaining the more expensive and highly destructive stuff for once Iron Dome runs out of ammo, which is estimated to be after 5 days of constant attacks. However, it's not as simple as that - Israel still have the upper hand, as it could nuke Tehran on day 4.

In another story, not content with changing the definition of an unsafe country into a safe country, legal immigrants (aka refugees) into illegal immigrants, they're now redefining the meaning of long term sick to fit for work, with political commissars in the DWP making the decisions, who will be set targets of the number of people who they have to force into work, regardless of their actual condition, rather than people who actually know about illnesses. Not only that, but using the numbers they're bandying about, they're redefining economically inactive, which means a host of things (including early retirement), as long term sick. One wonders, given the Parliamentary Tory Party's sleaze problem, when they'll change the definition of fraud to entrepreneurialism.

You know there's a crime called wasting police time? I think there should be another for governments - wasting the public's time. This government is not Conservative - they're ghouls wearing the clothes of true Conservatives and have hi-jacked the Conservative Party.

Chassis Front

Thought I'd tackle the front of the chassis where various critical bits required to mount the bonnet and protect the wheels in a crash had been cut off my the previous owner.

My original thought was to cut off the chassis rails and weld on the complete replacement section I'd purchased, but lengthening or shortening the chassis by even the slightest amount would result in enormous problems when fitting the bonnet, and welding on the complete section would be permanent.

I decided instead to simply remove the front crossmember that is attached to the car's chassis rails, replacing it with the same section from the replacement which has all the missing bits. This would require a bit of easy cutting on the car, but some very difficult cutting on the replacement section's chassis rails, as there were bits that are very hard to reach with a disc cutter.

The theory was that I would be able to tack the replacement crossmember (with attached bonnet hinge boxes) to the car's chassis rails when fitting the bonnet, facilitating minute adjustment in the instance of the positioning being slightly out. You can see in the photo below what's replacing what.

The old cross member came off without too much trouble, as access was easy for the disc cutter.

I removed the blanks that had been welded over the ends of the chassis rails, noting that someone had filled the rails with an anti-corrosion compound, which is why the chassis looks quite good. Having the ends open will facilitate a flush through and replacement of the anti-corrosion with something newer.

When it came to the replacement section I started with the cutting disc to remove the chassis rails, but eventually had to resort to my electric axe (plasma cutter), as I couldn't get the disc cutter between the branching arms of the chassis rails.

I knew I'd find a use for the plasma cutter eventually. It's a bit of a blunt instrument in my hands, but I dare say that with a bit of practice I'd be able to effect neat cuts; however, neat cuts weren't a requirement in this instance, as cutting and grinding with a disc would be required anyway to fair up the ends.

Once I'd finished the replacement I offered it up to the chassis rails, but it wouldn't go over them. Had a bit of a think and realised I hadn't ground the old crossmember remains from under the chassis rails, so it was no wonder the new crossmember wouldn't go over the rails. I, did a bit more cutting, grinding and air-chiseling and it finally fitted.

It's not perfect and there's still a bit of metal bending and gentle encouragement with a mallet before it fits like a glove, but I'm very happy with the result so far.

Having completed the job over a couple of days, I still can't help but think it might have been easier to simply remove the hinge boxes and outriggers from the new section and weld them to the stubs of the old chassis. That said, the method chosen does allow more fiddle room when finally fitting the bonnet.

It's interesting to note that two new bonnet hinges would have cost me £250, whereas the 2nd hand section I bought was £75, so I saved a packet and it only cost me my own free time. The outrigger aren't even available as separate items.

Trumpism

Arizona Republican Representative, Andy Briggs, who for some reason is a Trump supporter, said; "If they can come for Trump, then they can come for everyone." I don't think he really understood the truth of what he said.

Isn't that what happens when you're accused of committing a crime? Stating the bleeding obvious, innit, and it's exactly the point of the law.

What he missed out is that if they can come for you, then they should also be able to come for the an ex, or even sitting President, if accused of a crime. Reality is a bit more nuanced, as there are exceptions.

Smoking Ban, Prayer Ban & a Stormy in a teacup

Before I go into my three for one - I discovered why I was scammed by Kwik-Fit - they automatically charge for light bulb fitting, even if they don't fit them. The computer does it automatically.

The proposed smoking ban is in the news. While smoking is definitely a public health issue, there's one argument against the ban that I have not heard anyone articulate thus far.

Smoking nets £10.4bn in tax revenue, which represents 1% of all tax revenue. It's estimated smoking costs the NHS some £2.4bn per annum. It's therefore clear that smoking more than pays for the cost. However, this is not the issue.

If smoking were to be banned, the £10.4bn tax revenue would need to be raised through some other mechanism. The problem is that such a mechanism would probably involve everyone paying for it, whereas currently only smokers pay the tobacco tax.

VAT brings in £162.2bn, which is 15.3% of all tax revenue. To increase VAT by £10.4bn means VAT going up by 6.41%. Sobering, isn't it?

On another tack, A Muslim pupil at a school has lost her case for having prayer rituals. Keep religion out of schools. While not attending a prayer meeting is of no consequence among white british pupils, not attending a prayer meeting if you're a Muslim could lead to problems for you and your family from other Muslims, so it's highly divisive.

However, the fact Suella Braveram has defended the school head makes me want to support the pupil. I just can't believe I'm agreeing with Suella - about anything.

So Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels and allegedly paid her hush money.

What surprises me most is that she didn't pay him hush money. Who would actually want to be associated with the cretin?

On a more serious note, can anyone ever be truly impartial when it comes to high profile individuals? Trump challenges a lot of deeply held beliefs, such as ethics and morality for a start.

Perhaps we just have to accept that bias is part and parcel of choosing to be a high profile individual who is not averse to making his or her opinions and beliefs very visible. Make it your business to become high profile and the quid pro quo is that impartiality goes out of the window in a court of law - your choice.

Rip-Off Kwik Fit 2

Apropos of yesterday's post on the purchase of some automotive light bulbs, yesterday I went to my local car parts emporium in Chipping Sodbury and got 3 x 501 bulbs for £1.50, as opposed to one from Kwik-Fit for £12.95.

I can understand adding a quid, or even a couple of quid, but adding £12.45 to a small lightbulb is daylight robbery.

I immediately went to Kwik Fit and asked for a refund on all three bulbs I'd purchased (it transpired I already had a spare brake light). The chap in charge (who I know) told me that there'd be no problem, but I'd need to return on Thursday, as only the manager can refund cash payments. I shall be there at opening on Thursday to get my £40 back.

To be fair, it took the bloke who sold them to me about 20 minutes to produce the invoice, so I guess I was paying for his time....

Rip-Off Kwik Fit

I had occasion to replace some rear light cluster bulbs on my Ford Galaxy yesterday. A brake light has been out since my MoT in December and I've been putting off replacing it - I was determined to do it yesterday. It was Sunday, so the only place that was open and sold bulbs was Kwik-Fit in Yate.

The bastards charged me £40 (less a few pence) for 3 light bulbs. £12.95 for an indicator bulb, £13.95 for a brake light and £12.95 for a 501 bulb, plus some £6.64 in VAT. I wanted 4 x 501 bulbs, as there's a cluster of them which are not critical, but nevertheless need replacing, but luckily they didn't have them, else I would have been looking at paying a fortune. 

The galling thing is that one of the bulbs was a spare, which I didn't need urgently. I wish I'd waited till Monday when the local Car Components shop would be open.

The 501s are no more than £3 each on e-Bay, the brake light is £4.99 for two and the indicator light is £5.28 for two.

Kwik Fit are bona-fide Rip-off merchants. My own fault for paying - I know - should have refused, but the light clusters on the back of the car were already dismantled (took me a bloody hour) and I need the car today.

Cordless Pressure Washer

Spotted a Parkside cordless pressure washer in Lidl last week. 

Tool alert! Don't bother.

I bought one for £39.99, being was seduced by the 22 bar pressure tag, which translates to 319 psi, which is more than double what you get on a normal pressure washer - allegedly.

Got it home, attached it to the outside water tap and it worked, not very well, for about 2 minutes and then packed up. It being a cordless device, and being intimately familiar with cordless tools, I had neglected to read the instruction manual. 

The manual goes through all the usual warnings and steps and there - right at the end - is a warning that it's not designed for operating from a tap. You have to use it with a bucket and the syphon hose provided. No mention of this on the box and it comes with a normal hose attachment, so any reasonable person would think it would connect to a tap hose. Who bothers to read the instruction manual beyond the first couple of pages anyway? It's like reading the side effects of medication - you just don't bother.

Took it back to Lidl and explained what had happened and they kindly replaced it.

Got the replacement home and used the bucket of water, but it was as useless as the first one - very poor pressure than wouldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding. Took it back, along with the battery pack and charger I bought to power it, and got a full refund.

Total waste of money.

PSI is apparently totally misleading on a pressure washer for a couple of reasons: 

PSI only tells part of the story. It reflects the pressure of the water, but cleaning power also depends on the water flow rate, measured in litres per minute. A high PSI with a low throughput might sound impressive but means less water is actually hitting the surface, potentially reducing cleaning effectiveness. 

Many manufacturers advertise the pressure washer's peak PSI, which might only be achievable under specific conditions with a particular nozzle attachment. 

It's a bit like voltage and amps in an electrical circuit. Volts are the PSI (potential) and Amps are the litres per minute (throughput). The throughput on the cordless is 2.5 litres per minute - pitiful.

Yorkshire Pudding?

 Does anyone understand the purpose of Yorkshire puddings?

It may just be because I wasn't born in the UK, but their purpose completely eludes me. It's not even as if they're tasty. I guess they started as stodgy fillers for desperately poor people who couldn't afford much meat, but today? Some don't consider a Sunday roast to be complete without these cardboard accompaniments.  

I was raised in Lancashire and I can't remember my mother ever making Yorkshire puddings when I was a kid.

I can certainly understand them being dusted with icing sugar, a dollop of butter and perhaps drizzled with syrup as a dessert, like poffertjes in the Netherlands (although the dutch ones, above, are much smaller), but not with a main course.

Dash

Here's the fully renovated, original, right-hand side of the dashboard.

Ok, it has two speedometers in it and no tacho and the lefty-most speedo has a digital readout at the bottom, which is complete heresy in the eyes of the faithful, but I have the tacho somewhere in my box of bits, plus the other instruments. I've no idea where the 2nd speedo came from - must have been bought by the previous owner for some conversion plan he had.

Has a bugger of a job with the rocker hazard switch - it's a very specific model of switch and I managed to find one on e-Bay for £30 (expensive, I hear you say, but it's held on at the back with a very specific bracket that fits this model of switch and no other). 

When I unscrewed the hazard switch bracket before renovation, I put the tiny screws on the top of my drill press, knowing they'd be safe there. Well, then weren't - during some tidying up a couple of weeks ago, one of them fell on the workbench and through a crack between the planks, never to be found again. However, using a powerful welding magnet I found it a couple of days ago.

The hazard switch itself is a very fine fit, having minimal tolerances in order for it to rock. It took a bit of fiddly paring of the square hole to make it fit properly.

The spare I made from scratch is also finished, although it's not much use to me now.

The search for a centre and left-hand panel continues - snipes thus far failed. I do, however, have hopes of buying a plastic dash from a MkIV Spitfire. While I guess it may be impossible to glue veneer to it, it would make a good template for some ply panels.

E-Bay, in their wisdom, have refused to refund me for the missing centre section I bought on e-Bay and I have complained about the decision. I dare say that Evri still maintain they delivered it, but it they did then it wasn't to my address.

As for the dashboard top, which was ripped in parts, I used a heat gun to remove the black vinyl cover. The foam underneath the vinyl wasn't much cop either, so I took that off with a rotary wire brush on the grinder (made a helluva mess, just after I'd swept the garage floor). 

The problem was that the metal panel underneath now didn't match the contours of the foam covering - the foam had been moulded on the metal base in a certain shape. There was sure there was no way I could recreate that.

I have to find a way of moulding some foam into the correct shape. Rimmer's do a skin that's meant to go over the original foam and vinyl as a bodge, but £90 is a lot. 

I have no idea what it's made of or how it's contoured, but have asked. If it's fairly rigid I dare say I can put something underneath it to support it. Being plastic, it would take burr walnut vinyl, but I doubt I could get wood veneer to stick.

Having asked on a GT6 Facebook forum, it would seem some people simply used thin foam rubber and vinyl, with the result looking fine. The vent and ashtray surrounds appear to nip the foam into the correct shape. I'll wait for the burr walnut vinyl to arrive and try this method before paying £90 for one of Rimmer's skins.

Another option is to use expanding spray foam and cut it to shape with a rasp before covering it with vinyl. The problem with that is that it will dent if bashed when dry, as it has no memory. Not sure it's a good idea, except for fixing patches.

Of course, all this work on the dash, while enjoyable and instructive, is displacement activity that enables me to avoid having to either take the engine and gearbox out or lift the tub off the chassis. That said, they are jobs I'd prefer to do in warmer weather.

Tasting Notes

Came across a novelty beer in Waitrose the other day, although I didn't know it was a novelty beer at the time of purchase - Badger's Master Stoat.

It's a dark beer, but heavily flavoured with coffee - and it works. I love it.

Apparently Badger Brewery, which is owned by Hall & Woodhouse, do a whole range of novelty beers and is quite an old company.

A Pain 2

 Yesterday just took the cake in the Lidl queue.

Not only could the woman in front of me at Lidl not find her loyalty card App nor her payment App, she couldn't remember her car's registration for the parking permit machine. 

It's not even as if she was old - she was early middle age - say late 30s.

A Pain

I haven't moaned about anything for a while, but have you noticed how some people, and it's predominantly women, I have to say, take an age to pay for their shopping when it's contactless? The whole purpose was to make it faster at the checkout, for God's sake.

They don't have their loyalty App ready and only start to dig it out of their phones after every item has been scanned through the till (I'm talking about Lidl here). Heaven alone knows where they keep it on their phones - it's as if they have never heard of App Drawers for similar Apps, or Google Wallet for other loyalty cards.

Then they have to search for their contactless payment App, again taking up to a minute to find the bloody thing.

Camo Conundrum

 Why do some fishermen wear camouflage?

It's not as if fish are renowned for their eyesight in water, let alone seeing something standing on a riverbank.

Dash Update

I'm not happy at all with the speed of progress on the GT6 dashboard, although I'm very happy with the result and have learned a lot about veneering on the journey.

I left the right-hand panel covered in some half dozen coats of polyurethane lacquer while we went on holiday to Yorkshire for a few days, hoping it would be thoroughly dry on our return - which is was. However, the polyurethane didn't take at all well to sanding with 120 grit sandpaper. Additionally, there were still a few steps in the veneer (reflecting steps on the substrate, which was well worn) as well as a couple of chips.

I had another go with 320 grit wet and dry, to good effect, but went through the polyurethane in order to get a reasonably flat surface and had to apply more coats.

I finally got to something passable (above), but still not to my exacting standard. I buffed it up with some rubbing compound, but then applied polyurethane solely to the low areas and steps, using a dibber dipped in the lacquer, slowly building the dents up. Then after air drying for several hours, it went into the fan oven for an hour at 50 degrees C, just to ensure it was fully cured. I finally sanded with two different grades of wet and dry and buffed with cutting compound to achieve a very good result, as shown below, which is a 100% improvement on the original veneer.

While it is possible, as demonstrated, to build up to a flat surface with lacquer, it's not ideal and a perfectly flat and smooth substrate to start with is preferable. It simply wasn't possible in this case and I had to do the best I could with the tatty original (below) that was available.

There are two very tiny chips that you can hardly see on one edge, plus some small dips in the lacquer, but they give it the air of a restoration, rather than a complete replacement. I do so wish I had the two other, original panels.

I even went to the extent of making another right-hand panel yesterday from the bought ply, accidentally chipping off some of the veneer while cutting it back, but successfully inserting replacement sections using marquetry techniques.

I need some brown stain for the edges, but I can make one in a day now.

If I make a totally new one (which I'm tempted to do, just for the experience) I'm not sure how to handle the instrument holes. The main hole for the tacho and speedo are 100mm, which can easily be cut out with a hole saw, but the rebate that takes it out to 105mm on the facia, and caters for the instrument bezels, is giving me pause for thought. What I really need is a small palm router, which I don't have. That said, the rebates aren't strictly necessary, in my opinion, as the bezel of an instrument protruding above the surface is not exactly aesthetic heresy, but it may well be heresy in terms of originality.

The middle section of the dash, which I bought on e-Bay, still hasn't arrived, so I don't yet have a workable template for a new one. Evri reckon they've delivered it, but certainly not to my address; however, that's a story in itself, as an attempt was made to scam me. I received a text from a spurious mobile number saying my Evri parcel wasn't delivered due to the label being damaged, despite me having previously been notified it was delivered (just not to my address), and I was provided a link where I could enter my delivery address, but it also requested £0.23 for the redelivery, meaning I had to enter my bank details for the payment, which immediately raised my scam antenna.

Now Evri never ask for money via text and this is a well documented scam; the scammer asks for a plausible amount but then empties your bank account. One wonders how they got my phone number to send me a text in the first place, unless it was one of thousands of similar texts sent randomly every day, hoping to hit someone who is expecting an Evri parcel, like I was. There's certainly no way Evri would have access to my number as the recipient, only my address.

The search for another centre section continues and I have my eye on a complete Spitfire Mk IV dashboard on an e-Bay auction, which has been sanded and stained, but not veneered. Perfect for my purposes.

It's currently listed at £10, which is a bargain, but it's bound to climb. I have a snipe on it at an undisclosed amount.

I did think about spraying the lacquer, rather than using a paintbrush, as a brush tends to leave some tiny bubbles that need exploding with a hot air gun while wet (shades of my resin skills). Spraying would leave a perfectly smooth finish, although making sufficient to go through a sprayer would be incredibly wasteful of polyurethane. There again, using a very thinned out solution of polyurethane with a sponge might produce an even better result that won't need as much finishing, although it would take many applications. I'm learning as I go along by trial-and-error.

Part of me wishes I'd gone back to my resin days, as that is certainly hard as nails and forgiving of substrate imperfections. I'm not sure, however, if it would yellow in UV.

The panel that runs across the top of the dash, between the windscreen and the dash facia, is covered in black vinyl that's seen better days. 

It requires stripping and new vinyl applying with a heat gun, but I wondered whether it was feasible to co-ordinate it with the dash, using burr walnut. Now it has a very sharp curve over the dash, so I didn't think veneer was possible, as it would snap, and using a whole piece of solid burr walnut would be too expensive, but you can get burr walnut patterned vinyl - and I've ordered a suitable sized roll from China (UK suppliers didn't have sufficient length) for £13. There might be enough to do door cappings too.

Might still be worth an attempt. However, I did wet an offcut of veneer, bent it over the sharp angle and held it in place with clamps till it dried.

It took on the shape quite nicely. It would be difficult bending a large sheet of veneer over the entire dash top, especially getting it into the small indents and recesses, but I dare say it's possible if sufficiently wet and pliable. Some V shapes would need careful cutting out for a good fit. I may give it a go, as vinyl might be a tad too garish, although encouraging vinyl around bends and corners with a heat gun would be relatively simple. 

Pressing such a huge piece of veneer while drying, or after applying the glue, would be very difficult and would, I think, need to be done in stages. The very sharp edge at the front needn't be catered for, as that's hidden under the windscreen, but the glueing and lacquering would need to be very good to prevent lifting in the instance of condensation on the windscreen dripping down. 

A suitable piece of veneer would be about £60, if I can get one 1.2m long - most pieces for sale on e-Bay are well short of this length, although that's not to say I couldn't use two smaller pieces split from the same thicker sheet, so there was a match at the seam, and have that seam right in the middle of the top of the dash - in what's called a book match seam (below)

Next I'll be investigating burr walnut wrap for the entire car!

While I was tackling some wood butchery, I made a drinks holder for the motorhome out of eome excess ply, as the ones in the lid of the glove compartment are useless.

The front ones are for Hay's camping cups and the rear ones are for those cardboard cups you get from the likes of Costa. It nestles on the armrests, held at the back by a thin piece of wood and at the sides by two more pieces of wood on the outside of each arm rest. I removed the corner on the driver side to as to not interfere with changing gear. 

It's totally secure, yet comes off in half a second and can be stowed behind one of the seats. I left it without veneer as the colour of the natural ply matches the interior wood of the motorhome almost perfectly.

Tackling Putin

If the West abandons Ukraine then we have learned, from Putin himself, that he'll be sufficiently emboldened to start picking off countries that were once part of the Russian Empire, one by one, sequentially.

However, what would happen if the countries that were formerly part of the Russian Empire openly invited Putin in - simultaneously?

While Putin could probably handle sequential insurrection, he certainly couldn't handle insurrections, which would surely follow, on all fronts simultaneously, leading to his regime's implosion. Political ju-jitsu.

Purely hypothetical, of course, as Latvia is a Nato member now.

That said, the election results show that he's inflated the number supporting him because whatever he's planning needs more than the usual 70% he fixes election wins at. He needs to create, through this election ritual, the impression internally that there's almost total unanimity for his actions. The audience is internal, not external and it's not just a piece of amateur theatrics - there's a purpose.

You can bet your bottom dollar that whatever he's planning involves terror and a significant escalation of military activity. Remember that democratic politicians love using a war as an election tool; Putin uses elections, albeit ritualised ones, as a war tools.

The Girl's Bike in Manchester

Earlier this week I took a trip to the Manchester car auction to collect a car, taking the train from Bristol Parkway and changing at Newport in Wales.

The train from Newport was a Welsh one and the announcements were in both English and Welsh, despite the vast majority of the journey being in England and almost all the passengers having boarded in England. I noticed that the Welsh word for Manchester in the announcements was Manceinion. 

Now here's some useless information - "Manceinion" literally translates as "the bike of the girl" in Welsh. It's important to note that "Manceinion" is not the actual Welsh name for Manchester. It's a result of a misspelling or misunderstanding of Welsh grammar. 

Here's a breakdown of the words: 

"Man" - girl (singular feminine mutation of " merch") 

"cein" - bike (mutation of "beic") 

"ion" - feminine singular definite article (the)