The Night Mail

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

At least it's not made out of ticky-tacky....

 

....but then they all look just the same.

 

Dave

Edited March 7, 2023 by Dave Hunt

[Dave Hunt]

Jill’s birthday has been a great success and I’ve gained some brownie points as a bonus. Off to Haworth tomorrow but according to the seaweed twirlers we may need snow chains and ice axes once we get there; but then they were wrong about today so here’s hoping......

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Thank you for the heads up on the Hippo.

 

I've ordered one

 

Scale 3D have a sophisticated website that had noticed I'd looked at the angry charging hippo sent me an email reminding me of my apparent interest. I replied saying it wasn't for me but for an acquaintance who identifies as a hippopotamus.

 

I gather that they make much of their range by 3D scanning...

[Winslow Boy]

29 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Scale 3D have a sophisticated website that had noticed I'd looked at the angry charging hippo sent me an email reminding me of my apparent interest. I replied saying it wasn't for me but for an acquaintance who identifies as a hippopotamus.

 

I gather that they make much of their range by 3D scanning...

 

Ar ha the secrets out Big H all this melarchy you fed us about going away for a few days with the memsahib. That you needed a break so that you could recharge. It was a crock wasn't it. Go on you can admit it now. You were in fact getting yourself scanned by the folks from Scale 3D. So what's your cut on the earnings? Enough for a lifetime supply of LDC?

[Happy Hippo]

25 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Ar ha the secrets out Big H all this melarchy you fed us about going away for a few days with the memsahib. That you needed a break so that you could recharge. It was a crock wasn't it. Go on you can admit it now. You were in fact getting yourself scanned by the folks from Scale 3D. So what's your cut on the earnings? Enough for a lifetime supply of LDC?

Bear and the Crab are the LDC aficionados (aka cake commandos). 

 

My favourites are Welsh Cakes, Bara Brith and Bread Pudding.

 

As far as scanning is concerned, I think the only contributor to TNM who has been non medically scanned is the Sheep Bloke (NHY 581)

 

Because he's got a Baa Code.

[J. S. Bach]

After that one, goodbye!! Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[PhilJ W]

36 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

As far as scanning is concerned, I think the only contributor to TNM who has been non medically scanned is the Sheep Bloke (NHY 581)

 

Because he's got a Baa Code.

GROAN!

[Winslow Boy]

 

 

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Bear and the Crab are the LDC aficionados (aka cake commandos). 

 

My favourites are Welsh Cakes, Bara Brith and Bread Pudding.

 

As far as scanning is concerned, I think the only contributor to TNM who has been non medically scanned is the Sheep Bloke (NHY 581)

 

Because he's got a Baa Code.

 

What's going on here. Something's not right. I think the Big H has been replaced by an AI generated Hippo. Come back the real H.

[SM42]

Pada snieg! Pada snieg!

 

Snow is falling upon SM42 Towers. 

 

Fun and frolics ( and the great brick search) predicted for today

 

Andy

[jamie92208]

With all these S7 avatars to be produced, can someone produce an S7 scale bottle.  It could then be filled with proper artisan cognac to accompany an Eccles Cake, we would then be getting to a good place.

 

As I understand it Tony Wight has a modelU version of himself with a camera standing on the platform at Little Bytham.  Perhaps such an accessory is to become part of every layout to keep up with the Jones' or the Wrights.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

I was tempted by the Scale 3D springer spaniel figure. Robbie was a working cocker but the model looks rather like him. The only dogs featured on my layout are a couple of collies escorting some cows along a road. 

[Happy Hippo]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Scale 3D have a sophisticated website that had noticed I'd looked at the angry charging hippo sent me an email reminding me of my apparent interest. I replied saying it wasn't for me but for an acquaintance who identifies as a hippopotamus.

 

I gather that they make much of their range by 3D scanning...

Must have been fun scanning the angry charging hippo then!

[Happy Hippo]

Weather update:

 

Andy must have been exhaling rather hard during his brick hunt, as we now have a few snowflakes falling at the Hippodrome.  I suspect the headless chickens further south in upper and lower Telfland will now be out in their droves, buying up the counties entire stock of lav paper.  Although I am tempted to drift down to Lidl and get half a UK gallon of milk and a loaf of bread and a couple of their pastel de nata.

 

(Just been told if I do go out to get a couple of bars of the 70% cocoa Madagascan chocolate: We are allowed one single square a day as a treat.)

 

I've just checked the live webcam at Haworth station and can report that there is no snow and it's good visbility, so Dave and Jill  can currently arrive  under VFR.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Happy Hippo

[jjb1970]

On tolerances, and building things with precision, I remember a container ship I worked on which was stretched.

 

It's a general truism that retrofit/conversion is much more fraught with risk than new build for the simple reason that with something complex which has been around the world 50 times you can never be quite sure what you will find and true condition. People will say all it takes is to look at the drawings, it's so obvious! Well, yes, which drawings? And how do you know they've been controlled through life?

 

Anyway, I'm rambling. I was part of the crew that took the ship into the dry dock, where they cut it in two, re-floated each section and towed them into the basin, then slid a new hull section in, welded up enough to put it back on the blocks and back into drydock for completion.

 

In its own way that might not be so impressive, but the new hull section was fully completed. All the pipework, cabling, cell guides, ladders, watertight doors and everything else. Light fittings, the lot. The new section was slid in and everything lined up and was just connected up. And it all fitted together. I found that impressive, it takes a lot of skill to do that,

 

Interestingly, the Japanese yard that did it lost out on earlier bids because of the time they needed. MSE did a proper job and provided a realistic proposal in which their engineers went on-board and spent the necessary time to prepare, and then with the new hull section again quoted a realistic time to get it right, but the whole thing went like clockwork and the ship left the yard bang on when MSE said it would.

 

Other yards did a similar conversion and it was shocking. 

[Happy Hippo]

On a much smaller scale, Marshalls at Cambridge, stretched some of the RAF C130 fleet some years back by removing the cockpit and tail sections and inserting two plugs forward and aft of the wing spar.

 

More of a disaster was the Nimrod debacle, although in the Nimrod's defence they were already very old airframes having originally been sourced from retired Comet 4 passenger aircraft.

[PMP]

34 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

On a much smaller scale, Marshalls at Cambridge, stretched some of the RAF C130 fleet some years back by removing the cockpit and tail sections and inserting two plugs forward and aft of the wing spar.

 

More of a disaster was the Nimrod debacle, although in the Nimrod's defence they were already very old airframes having originally been sourced from retired Comet 4 passenger aircraft.

The Nimrods, apart from the first prototypes were all new build airframes at Chadderton in manchester. They were developed from the core comet structure but they weren’t conversions of existing aircraft. There’s a interesting story regarding part of the wing and fuel bay structure, in that a number of replacement fuel tanks were built. Unfortunately as the original aircraft were ‘hand built’ the replacement tanks when offered up to other aircraft wouldn’t fit, and had to be scrapped with new build, or massively modified to fit others in the fleet. The Shorts built Tucano’s were the same, theoretically identical but in practice…..

Fuselage stretches were also done on the BAe146, one of the prototypes was sectioned at Hatfield to have the plugs fitted. To fit it in whilst the production line was running was impractical, so it was done in product support which meant the hanger doors were modified so the tail was outside while the rest of the aircraft was inside.

 

pic copyright Steve Sutton

 

[jamie92208]

There were similar stories about the first batch of trams for Manchester Metrolink, built, IIRC by Ansaldo in Italy. Apparently the first job after each was delivered was to put it over a pit and then make a plan of where all the various bits were fitted as each was apparently different.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

Our Renault Clio didn’t look like any of the ones in the Haynes manual…

[SM42]

Still snowing, but not settling yet on the  SM42 Towers Estate. 

 

Bricks found  ordered and delivery expected before the end of the week. 

Cheaper than expected too as a bonus. 

 

All other jobs listed for today completed too and so to bed to prep for more night shifts. 

 

Andy

Edited March 8, 2023 by SM42

[AndyID]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

 Although I am tempted to drift down to Lidl

 

 

Like this

 

[Happy Hippo]

I'm now cutting out closed cell foam to see if it will work and scribe to create the bridge abutments I need.  Early experimentation looked ok, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

I've also tried the Squires Tools online order form.  It's been a long time coming and is supposed to save hanging around on the phone etc.

 

I will report back on this once my order has been processed.

 

Back to the bridge!

[bbishop]

Closed cell foam is NOT cake!  Or pudding!!

[AndyID]

4 hours ago, PMP said:

The Nimrods, apart from the first prototypes were all new build airframes at Chadderton in manchester. They were developed from the core comet structure but they weren’t conversions of existing aircraft.

 

Flew to the Balearics on Dan Dare Comets quite a few times. I don't imagine too many are still airworthy 🙂

[AndyID]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

There were similar stories about the first batch of trams for Manchester Metrolink, built, IIRC by Ansaldo in Italy. Apparently the first job after each was delivered was to put it over a pit and then make a plan of where all the various bits were fitted as each was apparently different.

 

Jamie

 

A friend who worked at Babcock and Wilcox told me that on one occasion they built a rather spendy power station boiler. When it was completed it was discovered that the left and right plumbing bits were reversed.

 

I guess it was a cork-up associated with first/third angle projection.

 

[Happy Hippo]

11 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Flew to the Balearics on Dan Dare Comets quite a few times. I don't imagine too many are still airworthy 🙂

G-CDPA was the last flying Comet and was based at the RAE.

 

It's last flight was in 1977 when it was flown into Bruntingthorpe where it is now part of the historic cold war jets collection.  As with most of the collection it has been maintained in a taxiable condition.