Dave's Blog 2021
27 December 2021 - Christmas is over.
It's been a while since I updated this blog - I blame Christmas.
We've had some good shed meetings over the last month or so with high attendance and even some exciting new members thanks to our advertising at the Bitterne Shed Club stand in the Mercantile Flea.
Our new "clean and quiet" shed is due for delivery in January thanks to Hugh's brilliant efforts. We hope to use this for discussions, art, computing, jigsaws, music etc, but not hacking and bashing.
Our excellent team of rustic carpenters have been busy trying to maintain a steady flow of saleable items at The Flea. Keith is keeping a track of our takings and we are doing quite well. But, the great thing about the Flea is that it gives us a shop window to show off the achievements of our shed club and thereby gain new members.
Since I last updated this blog we have held our Christmas get-together at the Humble Plumb for a very pleasant Christmas lunch and a chat in late November. We are going there again on 29th December, Boris permitting. And, we have sold out of the special Shed Club Christmas cards featuring Keith Marsh's excellent photo of the church by night.
The great news for me at the Flea is to find that two of my paintings have been sold - that's a first for me. I'm delighted.
I also made a reindeer out of a limb from an apple tree in my garden. The limb was in the way and had to go. It's amazing how much work there is in such a simple idea. Sawing the damp, sappy wood is hard work then drilling sockets in the body for arms and legs is messy in a freshly cut lump of tree. I spent ages trying to find a red nose without having to buy a bottle of skimmed milk. Eventually I settled for a button from my wife's button box. I put Rudolf on sale at the Flea, but last time I checked he had not been sold.
I'm also making a few "woodpecker" toys using recycled struts from our old garden parasol and springs from out of old ballpoint pens.
Our new member, Russell, told us about his 3D printer and it will be good if we can get some demonstrations organised for our shedders. Last year I was given a hand-held 3D printer which is quite a different proposition from a computer-controlled one. The green shed below is an indication of what my shaky hand could achieve. More practice needed I think.
3D printed shed!
Woodpecker
22 November 2021
I parked in Botley and walked to Manor Farm for a coffee. This led me to think about which establishments make the best coffee.
I was pleasantly impressed by the coffee at Manor Farm. It has improved a lot over the years, and you have a good picnic area with some covered space for drizzly days.
I also recently tried out The Mercantile Flea again. I went on a quiet Monday afternoon and had my excellent flat white brought to my table. The added advantage of course was that afterwards I could visit the Bitterne Shed Club stand.
The Turkish Cafe is also very good. It's near the bus terminus at the end of the bridge in Woolston. You can sit out at a pavement table, but don't feel too close to road because the pavement is very wide there. Excellent place for people-watching. Good service from the chap who appears to own the place and a young waitress.
I also like Costa at Antelope House site. Yes, it's a regular Costa outlet, but their staff are friendly and, I guess, they recognise me. I've been going there since they opened and clearly remember one of the serving staff giving out free vouchers to passing motorists on the opening day. This was early in the morning too (about 7:15am).
8 November 2021
Our returns from The Mercantile Flea are looking good. Keith is please with the results so far.
Changing the topic completely. Have you been puzzled about whether a slightly food-soiled piece of cardboard can go into recycling? Well, puzzle no more because I heard a helpful term the other day on the radio. If the cardboard has 3D food on it then put it in general waste. If it's only 2D food then it's OK for recycling.
So, a greasy chip bag is OK. Lumps of pizza in a box is not!
Finally don't forget to vote for the best photograph by 11 November 2021 - Go here. Then email me your choice.
Many thanks Dave
10 October 2021
I've not done a regular blog entry for a while. But, we've been holding regular meetings with a good attendance and good weather. The big news of the week is our first sight of a stand space at the Mercantile Flea when it opens on Friday 22 October 2021. We have a space of 7ft by 8ft to fill. It can be left unattended, but we are hoping to supply a skeleton staff to man the stand in one hour shifts. There will be no compulsion to help at the stand, but if we could be there for a few hours a week it might just be fun. Keith and the committee hope to discuss this at a meeting next week and of course confer with the shedders on Wednesday.
2 October 2021
The history of mobile phones
I have summarised an interesting article from Professor Stephen Temple CBE FREng in the June 2021 issue 87 of Ingenia, a magazine from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
I’ve not seen this information so clearly laid out and in one place, so I decided I needed a summary of it for my files just to remind me of what science can achieve.
Maybe a few shedders will be interested. View it here.
29 August 2021
Moving on from retro computers. I can report that I took on the onerous duty of checking out the new Woodmill Cafe on Sunday. It's located at the very bottom of Mousehole Lane just behind the mill building with a great view of the river. I can report that they do a great Americano and appear to have lots of meals and snacks too. While I was there I noticed that along one side of the site there were some benches with planters all made out of pallets. There are also several picnic tables (not made from pallets) and I believe that in the future before the winter arrives they plan to offer seating inside the building. Highly recommended if, like me, you are always looking to extend your walking repertoire.
The only snag is that the loo, at the moment, is located in the lodge building across the road in the leisure sports complex, and is a fair walk from the cafe.
12 August 2021 - News of an amazing lockdown project!
A friend of mine, David, whom I've known for many years, decided (at the beginning of lock-down) to build the very simplest circuit that could be envisaged without using modern semiconductors, yet could still be called "a computer". After a few thousand wires he now has it working.
The result is an amazing collection of relays on a large board that both looks and sounds incredible.
He has written about his project here and it's well worth a read even if you are not an electronics expert.
The most amazing thing to me is when comparing and contrasting the scale of this machine with the much more capable computers to be found in, say, your modern phones.
Watch the very short video on YouTube here. (Be sure to turn up the sound) or the full overview from the inventor here.
30 July 2021
We’ve had a run of hot days, but we’re progressing. Some of us sheltered from the sun under our new gazebo and attendance rates have been excellent. We even had loads of shedders turn up for the AGM, which is unusual for AGMs. (They’re notorious for being boring!) But ours wasn’t.
We’re making good headway with tidying and organising. We now have some excellent racking in the new wood shed which makes finding a piece of wood a joy – thanks Joe and Keith especially.
Space in the main workshop is still constrained, but we have had serious tidy-ups and have, with regret, let a few items go. I think things are looking good.
We currently seem to have a lot of ongoing work with planters and other rustic woodwork and just need to put the finishing touches to them. Corne has been busy tweaking and painting the shelving to optimise our screw and nail storage which was valiantly started by Graham in the Spring. In fact there are so many activities I don’t think I can remember them all. Apologies for those I haven’t mentioned.
I’ve been reading “How to make the world add up” by Tim Harford of the BBC’s “More or Less” programme about statistics. He has some interesting ideas. Tim states that we should all carry a few ‘landmark numbers’ in our heads to allow easy calculations to be made when we are reading some outrageous newspaper headline. A few examples:
The population of the world is 7.5 billion (7,500 million).
The population of the United Kingdom is 65 million.
The population of the United States is 325 million.
There are 800,000 people of a particular age in the UK (Under sixty because then we start dying off). If a policy states all three year olds, there are 800,000 of them, and 800,000 seven year olds for example.
The circumference of the earth is 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometres) – a bit fatter around the equator than the poles, but not much.
The distance between John O’Groats to Land’s End is 837 miles by car and 603 miles as the crow flies.
The length of a bed is 2 metres or 7 feet, to help you visualise the size of a room perhaps.
The Gross Domestic Product, GDP, of the United States is 20,000 billion dollars. That would build a lot of Mexican walls.
The length of a medium-sized novel is approximately 100,000 words.
The United States defence budget is 2 billion dollars a day. And, could build Trump’s wall in a fortnight.
The UK contributes 1% of all global emmissions while America and China together account for a massive 45%.
Some buildings:
The Empire State - 381 metres (100 storeys)
The Eiffel Tower – 276 metres
The Shard – 310 metres.
Post Office Tower (BT) 188 metres
An average human lifetime is 30,000 days, a Mayfly’s is one day.
One day is 86,400 seconds , one year is 525,600 seconds.
A London bus is 30 feet long.
And finally, St Paul’s will hold 600 million tennis balls.
To end on a light note Tim quotes from Terry Pratchett’s “The Reaper Man”:
The shortest living creatures on the Disc were mayflies, which barely make it through twenty-four hours. Two of the oldest zigzagged aimlessly over the waters of a trout stream, discussing history with some younger members of the evening hatching.
“You don’t get the kind of sun that you used to get,” said one of them.
“You’re right there. We had proper sun in the good old hours. It were all yellow. None of this red stuff.”
“It were higher too.”
“It was. You’re right.”
11 July 2021
My birthday has come and gone and one of my gifts was a tinplate model car from a charity shop in Woolston. I did a bit of digging and found my metal model car on the Internet (See 28 April blog). I'll be able to make a new bumper for the missing one now I can see from the photo how it's meant to look. The car is just an ornament in a retro style apparently. I'm trying to decide what metal to use for the bumper. I'll probably go for 2mm thick stainless steel although pure silver is not very expensive as I need very little. Great fun, I'm quite excited to have found out a bit of history.
http://www.ezbustoys.com/white-114-scale-retro-tinplate-1933-duesenberg-model-sj-car-p-4454.html
And this is the actual real car, it's American.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesenberg_Model_J
23 June 2021
We have now had a couple of well-attended club meetings with good weather and loads of chat and enthusiasm. The interior is still a "work in progress", but is starting to look more organised with major items installed and shelving getting stocked. Our first outing to The Humble Plumb since early 2020 was also a great success. More updates soon.
23 May 2021 - They say it's May
But I'm only just thawing out after walking down to the Veracity ground. The wild flower banks there are very pretty - see home page.
I did hear from the lady from the Friends of Riverside Park (FoRP) after leaving a letter in the church and have now paid my subscription. I think it's hopeful that there might be some synergy between the kind of support we can offer and the needs of the Riverside Park team. Might be fun.
It surprises me that this website has been handy several times: instead of explaining all about the Shed Club to someone new, it's very easy to just point them at the website.
The first face-to-face meeting for over a year happened on Wednesday 19 May. See News for more detail. Tea was drunk, biscuits were eaten, and we completed the screwing on of the roof bolts ready to be able to start loading up the new woodshed.
4 May 2021 - Zoom and Trawler
We had a good Zoom meeting this morning featuring an interview with Den, a quiz and lots of swapping of news. We only have one more Zoom meeting before we meet face-to-face at the shed on Wednesday 19th May. I can't wait.
Today I floated my trawler in the bath. The boat needed just over 1kg of tinned chopped tomatoes to make the prow sit low enough in the water, but no leaks evident. I'll therefore need 600 cm squared of about 5mm thick lead flashing fitted in the hull somehow. It's already got a huge lead-acid battery inside to weigh it down a bit. I don't think chopped tomatoes will be my permanent fix. I've weighed out the lead flashing ready!
I've realised, at the great age of 72, that I really cannot identify many types of tree and in particular the one I painted back in the winter. I'm waiting for its first leaves to mature sufficiently and I've borrowed a children's tree book from Woolston Library. I'm thinking it's a Maple/Acer/Sycamore which all seem to be interchangeable names. I found the contact email for the Friends of Riverside Park who apparently have a tree map and are going to put QR codes onto all the trees down there. I haven't heard back from them yet unfortunately. Their HQ is addressed care of the Baptist Church in Wellington Road so I might drop them a letter just in case their computer buff is otherwise engaged. I'll keep you posted.
28 April 2021 - Lockdown fun
Earlier this week I found this delightful metal sportscar in a charity shop in Woolston - it's about 40cm long. My wife is getting for me as a birthday present in July.
I hope to give it a clean up (pass me the cotton wool bud please) and mend the broken far side wing mirror. I can then use it as a still-life model for one of my pictures. Should be fun. It also needs a new chrome front bumper bar too. Has anyone tried the chrome paint that comes in aerosol tins?
It's number plate is 1933 which slightly predates the MGTA's dates. Does anyone have any idea which motor this is meant to be or is it a whimsical car in the style of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
On Tuesday I even had a coffee in the little Italian Café near to the Itchen Bridge bus turning area. It was quite a treat sitting out at a pavement table with waiter service. Good coffee too.
The new woodshed is built now, but still empty. I expect we'll be moving the wood over to it sometime in May.
And, next time you see someone not smiling - give them one of yours.
17 April 2021
A good three minute poem from Mat Harvey on YouTube for all you technophobes!
8 April 2021
Back in March we were waiting for the new wood shed to arrive. The shed did, in fact, turn up on 25th March and it's now waiting to be assembled. The committee meeting next week is probably going to cautiously open up face-to-face shed meetings with a limit of 6 per session. We are hoping to get the strongest members along to one of the meetings to separate all the sections and get the shed assembled. Should be fun.
Meanwhile I've been fettling away at my model trawler. In true Repair Shop tradition I searched Amazon for a little plastic 1:50 scale lifeboat for planting on the top of the trawler, but then decided that rather than pay £5 and pollute the oceans I would make one out of a few offcuts of wood. Here it is. Just needs a bit more sanding.
We held a Zoom meeting on Tuesday which went rather well. I think we're getting the hang of it.
22 March 2021
I didn’t think we would still be operating under lockdown rules, but here we are - so better make the most of it.
Despite not having met face-to-face for a year or so we have augmented our actual shed and, indeed, we are starting to create a Shed Club Village(complete with handy church). In addition to the new workshop last March, we are now waiting for the delivery of a flat-pack metal wood shed, if you get what I mean. It’s due to be delivered on Thursday 25th March and will need to be assembled sometime. We are hoping that the sections are manageable (weight-wise) and it is likely to be erected somewhere near the new shed. In addition Hugh has somehow managed to fund the purchase of an industrial gazebo to protect us from vertical rain. That’s arriving soon, too, I think. Our thanks to Hugh for finding Mrs May's Magic Money Tree!
Of course the church grounds themselves are undergoing major changes, with the quite modern church rooms building getting the chop this month. Interesting times.
I have been continuing with my build of a 1:50 scale trawler. There are a couple of pods on the deck rather like those aerodynamic roof boxes you see on cars. Does anyone know what they are used for on a trawler?
The BBC programme, The Repair Shop, is still influencing me. There are about 40 new episodes waiting to be broadcast so you’ve not heard the last of this. Having watched them clean up old metal items I decided to try to renovate an old, metal tool tray. It’s going well so today I went to buy some aerosol paint cans, one primer and one gloss colour. On the show, they paint the items with gay abandon, but they don’t mention how expensive the paint cans are! It’s ok for them as they probably get to use all the paint up, but I am likely to store the cans on a shelf for months only to find that the nozzles are blocked with dry paint. Today at The Range I spent £15 on paint!
While I was at the Range I was thinking about the old Antelope House that used to occupy the site. Is it a coincidence that the song “Home, home on the Range, where the deer and the Antelope play” brings together both “Range” and “Antelope”?
When I’m not fettling my boat or wasting paint I have been reading lots. Has anyone else resorted to books during the lockdown?
Since Christmas I have read several modern books including a new biography of the Beatles entitled “One Two Three Four, The Beatles in Time” but on Monday I decided to download Charles Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop and give myself a treat. (I've never read it) It was good to read well-crafted prose although the start of the story explaining how this spooky guy roamed the streets of London at night was a bit unnerving.
With so much time on my hands I was also compelled to re-read and update a list of inventions I had compiled that have happened in my lifetime. As an engineer and scientist I think I was born into a wonderful era for innovation and novelty. I’ll therefore leave you with my list so far: (Beware, it's very long)
Stuff that has happened or been invented or changed or became widely available since I was born in 1948: And I thought things were modern when I was little!
(Warning: it's a long list)
• The National Health Service.
• Antibiotics.
• Polio vaccination. Then measles, whooping cough, German measles and influenza.
• Better anaesthetics.
• Medicine improvements in general
• Gene therapy
• Person-specific medicine.
• The EU.
• Advanced computers.
• Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Crumbles.
• The Internet.
• Post codes.
• Credit cards and unlimited borrowing.
• Contactless purchasing.
• Reliable cars that don't rust at all.
• Power steering and braking.
• Flashing indicators on cars rather than semaphore arms.
• Tubeless tyres.
• Buses that you can glide a pushchair or wheelchair into - they used to have two or three steep steps.
• Electric bicycles.
• Radial tyres became widely available to replace cross-plys.
• Moving from multi-casting wireless to unicast streaming of content over the Internet.
• Transistors and semiconductor technology
• Digital cameras. High quality and everywhere.
• Microwave ovens.
• Barcode scanners.
• Contactless payment cards.
• Payment cards inside a smartphone.
• Cash machines
• Semiconductor memory.
• Lasers and their millions of applications
• High capacity disk drives.
• Single lens reflex cameras.
• The transistor radio portable.
• Television
• Colour television
• Remote controls.
• Video hire shops came and went
• Satellite transmission of TV programmes around the world.
• Flat, semiconductor TV screens.
• Laptop miniaturisation of computers
• Tablet computers.
• Microlink
• Mobile phones with massive processing power.
• Streaming television.
• Noise cancelling headphones.
• Power tools.
• Cordless power tools.
• Electromagnetic compatibility legislation.
• Safety at work legislation.
• Loft insulation.
• Plasterboard.
• Motorways. M6 and M27 in particular.
• Slip roads.
• Bus lanes.
• Photo copiers and in particular the Xerox technology.
• Fax machines for everyone not just newspaper editors. Then they went.
• Service stations.
• Felt tip pens.
• Biros.
• Acrylic paint for artists.
• Air travel for the masses.
• Jet-powered passenger planes.
• Supersonic air travel on Concord.
• Synthetic wood glue.
• Evostik
• PVA wood glues.
• Silicone sealants and handy dispensers.
• The adoption of metric measurement (in Britain at least).
• Synthetic fabrics.
• Rotary clothes lines.
• Plastic.
• Graphene - a carbon isotope.
• Nanotechnology, and nano particles.
• Supermarkets and self-service.
• Out of town shopping centres.
• Traffic light sensors contactless to replace the old rubber sensor pads.
• Traffic light controlled pedestrian crossings.
• Jet engines.
• Electronic pianos and guitars.
• The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The pop revolution in music.
• Mp3 coding.
• Jpg coding.
• Mp3 players.
• Sony Walkman.
• CDs
• DVDs
• Memory sticks.
• Emails.
• Subscriber trunk dialling.
• Spam messages.
• Electric hand tools for DIY and gardening.
• Satellites for communication and GPS
• Sat navs.
• Online tutorials.
• Skype.
• Led lighting.
• Artificial intelligence generally.
• Decent coffee houses.
• Lego.
• Soft ice cream sold in vans.
• Amazon
• Affordable freezers.
• Spin driers.
• Twin tub washing machines.
• Automatic washing machines.
• Tumble driers.
• Self service launderettes.
• Automatic car washes.
• Space travel.
• Moon landing.
• A multitude of satellites.
• Electric powered cars.
• Self driving cars.
• Instant coffee.
• Super tankers
• Container ships
• Containers for shipping.
• Digital watches.
• Rubik's cube.
• Loyalty cards.
• 3D printers.
• Call centres.
• Double glazing
• Polio, flu and Covid vaccines.
Phew! - End of list – feel free to send me more entries.
Dave
Not that boat again!
10 February 2021
Years ago when I needed to draw a neat waterline on a boat I would park it on my messy bench and try to draw a waterline by resting a pencil on an object like a match box. The boat wouldn't be quite level and I needed to skirt around obstacles on the cramped bench. But, it was quick.
Now, thanks to BBC's Repair Shop and lockdown, I made a nice little stand for the boat and spent ages getting it level with a ruler and a spirit level on a clear table. Then I firmly fixed a Sharpie to a block of wood using strong cable ties. It was then just a matter of moments to drag the Sharpie around the hull to mark the waterline.
It's amazing how the Repair Shop, and maybe the Shed Club has changed my approach!
I've definitely slowed down (for the better) and it's not just old age.
I'm even contemplating finishing the deck with some nice varnished planking strips rather than just daubing a flat paint job on it. It's going to take forever, but who cares?
The next task after painting is to trim the boat with lead and try to get the waterline parallel to the surface of the water.
I've not been out for so long
1 February 2021
Can anyone tell me whether Woolworths is still open on a Sunday?
I heard this poem in BBC World Service last night at about 1am on Poetry Please. I thought it was quite good.
....
Negative thoughts by Murray Lachlan Young
Oh, they come and they go
And sometimes they come
A lot more than they go
For thoughts create feelings
And feelings then feel
And that’s why it's easy
To feel that they're real
Because when they arrive
They suggest they’re you
And you should do just
What they say you should do
Then slowly the negative
Thoughts can begin
To widen that door
And let themselves in
Then do what they like
And say what they please
To stifle your life
With their negative squeeze
So why not breathe in
And exercise choice
Why not breathe out
and say "No" to the voice
And say “I’m worth more
much, much, more than all that
And that negative voices
Are uncool and old hat”
And get used to calling
The negative out
And slowly it turns
From a scream to a shout
To a murmur, a whisper
And then best of all
The voice will one day
Become nothing at all
Unless it speaks nicely
And says let’s have fun
Or suggests quite warm-heartedly
What might be done
For why would-you-possibly
Talk to yourself
In a way that you’d not
Talk to anyone else?
So why not decide
That it’s time to get free
And stand up to the (deeply uncool) voice
Of Neg-a-tiv-ity.
The End
19 January 2021
Fighting lockdown
Like everyone else I'm struggling to stay upbeat during this interminable lockdown. I like to get out of the house, but places are either too far away, too crowded or best reached by public transport, which we are supposed to shun. As a consequence my outings, apart from a weekly collection of shopping, comprise daily exercise walks from home to Bitterne, Miller's Pond, Hinkler Road, Woolston or the Veracity Ground. I'm immensely grateful for Southampton's provision of green spaces and hidden gems.
What have you been doing to combat Covid weariness? Do let me know and we can put it on this blog.
What have I done you ask? I have dabbled with some oil painting - see my earlier blogs, and also unearthed two Billings radio-control model boat kits. The first of them, a deep sea tug 'Smit Rotterdam' and the second a trawler 'Nordkap 476'. The former was left to me in a partially completed state by my dad who died some 36 years ago. I've kept it in the attic and in moments of enthusiasm purchased motors, radio-control gear, paint, lead ballast and accessories for it. Unfortunately real work got in the way and I never came around to finishing it. Lockdown provided a good opportunity to complete the project, which I did. (It's the boat at the back of the bench in the attached photograph.)
You never really finish a boat. Once the basics are done it's then a matter of making sure all the details are attended to. There are oddments of deck furniture and clutter to be fabricated and added, paint to be touched up, and ballast to be trimmed. This is a never-ending process so you just have to decide when, in your opinion, it is COMPLETE.
I finished the Smit Rotterdam just after Christmas (See the short video here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/uoikvQ6XQ89HKdCt9 ) and decided to tackle my own Nordkap 476 of a similar vintage which was in a much more embryonic state. I examined the work I had done to the hull while our children were little (yes it's that long ago!), and reviewed the contents of the kit which hadn't seemed to have suffered from its holiday in the roof. The timber parts were in amazingly good nick and not dried out or brittle in any way, and all the plans were intact.
There are probably a few hundred hour's work to be done on Nordkap before it is ready for its maiden voyage and then 'sea' trials. I'm hoping to find a couple of shedders to help me check out her lake-worthiness one day. My lake of choice is the boating lake in Gosport right next to a very handy public car park and a cafe. All totally fanciful at the moment given the Covid travel and mingling restrictions. Eastleigh lakeside is a possibility of course, but the prevailing wind would only blow a stricken boat towards the reeds on the other side of the lake. Model boats do suffer from wireless failure or flat batteries so I'd rather not risk it unless I had a small dinghy. Southampton Common's boating lake is a sad affair being totally clogged with propeller-stopping weed. It's been like that for fifty years and I've never seen a boat on it.
But, were starting to see freedom - shedders getting their vaccinations and I'm booked in for Thursday, so let's hope I can report back on progress through this blog sometime in the not too distant future. Dave
1 January 2021
Riverside Park
I've just finished a painting of a tree in Riverside Park (The Woodmill end). Luckily it didn't blow down in the recent gales. I had to climb over two fallen trees to get to this one.
What did you do over Christmas and the new year?
It was a difficult 2020 starting from about the time that our new shed arrived in March. However, Covid-19 rules permitting, the team have been able to get the shed operable and it's looking pretty good.
However, providing the kind of caring and sharing environment amongst the team members has not been easy when all you have is Zoom and telephones. We are hoping that the new vaccines are the light at the end of the tunnel.