Saturday 5 January 2013

Google picture files woes

Help, I am stuck!

I can not access my pictures files as I normally can by selecting Pictures when I need to add one to my Blog text. I can access some of my pictures from past Blogs or from a Picassa option, also from  the web but not from my own down loaded pictures in the PC.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Roy


Roy and Jean, photo taken by Ken Pollard, off Fast Forward, a Simonis 60 in alloy, using my Sony Cybershot digital camera. 


This was taken from pictures in my Blog files. 

Friday 4 January 2013

i550 boat and White Elephant news

The man has been busy over the past week!

Will was waiting for us to deliver his i550 plywood kit, we got it packed off just before closing for the annual holidays, look what he has done this far!



 
This is from my so called Picasa Web Albums files.
 
Nothing to do with Wills i550 just now but does show you what a Shake in Meranti wood looks like. Said to be a result of lightening in the forests of Malaysia?
 
 
As you can see, it will break clean through and quite easily.
 
 

The pictures are from an earlier blog on the subjects of shakes, beware building them into your boat, just cut and scarph the plank back to one piece again.

Roy

Wills words,

I’m not sure where to start. It’s been a long couple of days. Made longer by not being sure how to move forward. And by the heat! It’s usually 34 degrees (93.5 fahrenheit) by about 9am. So hot in fact that I have decided only to glass at night when it gets down to a tolerable 25 degrees.
So there are two ways to attack this filleting and taping thing. 1, tape the chnes without the frames in and 2, tape after the frames are in. I worry that if I go route 1 my boat may go out of square and my frams might not fit. While if I go route 2 I will miss out on the added strength of a single chine tape all along the hull and at the same time have to remove frames in order to wet out.
The hull is built, the pictures will be loaded later when Google allows me access to my pictures files!

For now try   i550 white elephant     in Googles search box, then click on Hull in the section to the right.

Roy
Roy

Thursday 3 January 2013

Singer Chamois for sale

This is our own car, we have owned it around twenty years, its great runner and can be used for everyday use, in fact Jean did just that for thirteen years!

Based on the Hillman Imp, the later model Singer Chamois were the more upmarket cars with better trim and wood trims on the dash and doors.


Singer Chamois 1967 so now some 46 years old.


Click on the picture for a larger view.

This is no standard Singer Chamois, the engine is part Sport with twin Strombergs and an oil cooler.


The car has a great and clean interior, the standard road wheels, with new tyres, chrome hub caps and road springs will be supplied as part of the deal.

 The car is in Cape Town,South Africa.

Roy

A Captains position

Actually two captains but Charles the captain of the yacht Umande, is hidden in the aft locker and doing some spanner works to secure his new emergency outboard bracket.


Captain Tojan, sort of crossed up, note his Scotty dog on the dock, he also wonders what his master is trying to do?


One of the nicer sides of the HBYC marina is the social side and the fact we are always ready to help others.


Job nearly done, in the end Tojan was doing the tightening and Charles was securing the other end inside the boat. Even I had a hand in this job as I made the 15mm plywood backer plates!


This stainless steel bracket is rated for 20hp but even with an 8hp motor on it the yeallow mount pad bends!

Roy

Tuesday 1 January 2013

Happy New Year, we have a runner!

For the first day of 2013 I decided to see what we could do about starting the rebuilt 50 year old Mk1 Hillman Imp engine?

Note the 18mm thick chipboard support frame, there is another one at the rear of the engine. MDF (supawood) will make a better job of it really as its harder and stronger, 16mm thick will work fine.
The support jigs are secured to the bench to stop it wandering off!



Click on the picture and check out the spinning flywheel!

 
The same flywheel, stopped dead in time by my Canon G11 camera, how does it do this!
 
 
At the actual speed we can see with the naked eye.
 
 
 
Note the engines temp gauge, the coolant water circulates well and does its job, a 74c thermostadt is fitted.
 
 
The engine is running in this picture.
 

There were a few false starts caused by a leaking water theromodstadt housing and the pully on the waterpump needed a spacer, now we have had the engine nice and hot, some oil leaks are being checked out.

This very early Mk1 Imp engine has not run for decades!

The engine was gifted to me by fellow Imp Club member Eric Wells, it had seen better days and had lost the top of one bore which caused the head gasket to fail. This was fixed with JB Weld (find an earlier blog on the process) the job so far has worked.

Pistons on this engine are 0.030"oversize, the rings were well and truly seized into the piston ring grooves, this was cured by two weeks soaking in an oxalic acid mixture, a week in petrol and diesel mix having done nothing.

The engine number on this motor is very early B41/1/501572 and I assume will be one of the first Imp motors to be imported to South Africa?

The Imp Club has quite a few members in South Africa, more Imps are being worked on and driven each year.  www.theimpclub.co.uk

Roy

Hillman Imp for sale

This is here and in Cape Town, South Africa, the papers for it are dated January 1st 1973 and in England, Great Btitain, the owner was a Mrs French.  The car was built in the Ryton factory, its a rare late model Imp and not many from the Ryton factory exist?

 
This car is now forty years old!

The car is straight and I doubt ever in an accident, its the last of a line of Imps built by Rootes and finaly Chrysler who handed it all over to Puegeot.

The dashboard has the later round dials, there is a transaxle (gearbox) and a Mk1 engine can be supplied by the seller.

I have Mk2 engines ready built up as an option, plus spares for much of this car.

The car will be sold as is but with an option for a full rebuild to any specification relating to the Hillman Imp, this includes sport engine, suspension and disc brakes.

Contact me for info.

Roy

Monday 31 December 2012

Frans Loots Barlow Wadley, RDF

Mails have been coming and going about a radio my mate Notty once owned, he seems to have misplaced it these days but it does bring up a memory or two.

This was my first real intro to amateur  radio and when Dennis on Brer Terrapin bought an Atlas X12 ham radio, plus the Yeasu FRG7 receiver, that had the Wadley Loop in it, said to give a stable reception from start up so you do not have to re tune when the sets warm. Wadley was a doctor from Durban.

 From Wikepedia
In a traditional superheterodyne radio receiver, most oscillator drift and instability occurs in the first frequency converter stage, because it is tunable and operating at a high frequency. In theory, if one can eliminate this drift, the receiver will be stable.
Unlike other drift-reducing techniques (such as crystal control or frequency synthesis), the Wadley Loop does not attempt to stabilize the oscillator. Instead, it cancels the drift mathematically.

 


 
The Barlow Wadley radio

Notty,

 There is a connection with the St Helena race winner, well will be in a day or so?

 Check the fleets progress here: http://www.governorscup.co.za/race-live

Banjo has just 400 nm to go and is creaming along at plus 10 knots right now, Banjo was built by one Frans Loots,its a Farrier tri

As I mentioned, he built the boat himself and won the same race two years back in it.

 Frans is from PE and either runs or owns Penny Pinchers up there, maybe both? He is ex Navy and Simonstown, also one of my

Blog readers and saw an entry on the Barlow Wadley radio last year (2012) it reminded him of a single handed trip back as a delivery from Rio

After one Cape to Rio races.
 
He did nav with a sextant and checked position with passing ships when he could (remember those days?) he had his Barlow Wadley for time signals but also used it as an RDF when he was near CPT and found Radio Good Hope, that signal was decent enough for him to check on Cape Towns postion!

 Frans has emailed me on the subject, he had also given the radio to his son to try out but was going to claim it back when he realised just what a great radio it was!


 http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2009/03/barlow-wadley-portable-radio.html

I never did find myself a set, who has one at a sensible price!

Roy