Castle Combe Steam Fair

We went to the Castle Combe Steam Fair on Sunday - I've lived here some 16 years and have never been before - it's only about 20 minutes away from us.

It was quite small and we saw everything within a couple of hours, but the small size may be because it's recovering from the Covid years.

It's not just steam engines - there are quite a few classic cars. Saw two GT6s - a Mk3 and a Mk2, as well as some other nice ironmongery. There's a healthy trade in old tools and I managed to get myself a mallett.

One of the GT6s I saw had a beautiful, burr walnut dash with lots of dials and switches, but lacking any heater controls whatsoever.

I queried the owner who said he'd never connected the heater up, as he only uses the car in summer (face-palm).

The switches and switch plinth I ordered about a months ago never turned up. I phoned the supplier and the address for the order was correct, but I'd forgotten to click UK on the country drop-down and they went to my address, but in Argentina. Hopefully they'll be returned to the supplier, who can then forward them to me.

I contacted the guy in America who had made his own plinth on a 3D printer and he kindly sent me his 3D print file, so I gave it a try on the 3D printer. He's unfortunately lost the original CAD file.

First, he'd used ABS, which is tougher and requires higher print temperatures than PLA. I managed to tune the printer accordingly; however, then came the next issue - it was longer than my print bed, which is limited to 20cm, resulting in it being cut off at one end.

It's meant to look like this:

Had the object been printed slantywise on the print bed, it would have printed fully. Given he'd lost the CAD file and I only had the print file, there's no way I could adjust the orientation; however, there are programmes available which will re-orientate Gcode print files or even online services, but it requires more research on my part.