Odd's Oracle

About as close as I'll come....

2011-11-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

By way of a little update to the previous blog, I finally found some streets that the Field family actually lived in, albeit around 100 -130 years ago, and they're NICE!! If it weren't for my hatred of busy places and too many people, I'd be very happy to live in Litchfield Road, E2 these days or Teesdale Road, especially with those great workshops in the back of the gardens.

Tree-lined artisan streets where my Grandad and his Grandad made fine furniture from Cuban mahogany, English Walnut and marquetry. Feather banding, cross banding and boxwood stringing with ebony highlights and selling it to the likes of Liberty's and Heal's. A shop on the ground floor, living on the two floors above and a workshop in the garden. Perfect. Thank heavens there are a few of these left to show us how it used to be and that it wasn't all bad for a man with a trade. Not everywhere was like it of course, but that's life.

This was really all I wanted to find I suppose. Kind folks confirmed my family's place back 200 years. No Irish connection within sensible memory liked I'd hoped to find, who wouldn't, but confirmation instead of a family who, on all fronts are resolutely East End, artisans all and well found for the most part born within sound of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London.

Who do we think we are?

2011-11-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

With a lot of interest in genealogy thanks to programmes on the telly about it, I thought it might be time to try my hand at it.

Unfortunately it costs an arm and a leg through sites like ancestry.com and more than I could afford.

I joined a suitable forum asking if it could be done for nothing, but apparently not. However, a couple of very helpful souls decided to have a look for me and have taken me back to 1808 on all four branches.

My aunt has also passed on the Rozee side which she found back to 1750! That's 20 years before Nelson!

But what has astonished me most of all is that every single one of my antecedents hailed from a tiny area of London right back, even to the Pre-Nelson Rozees! With a couple of forays into East and West Ham, still regarded as "East End" by most, they all, every single one of four separate families, came from Bethnal Green. It seems almost impossible to believe that four disparate families, the Rozees, the Simmons, the Fields and the Darlingtons all were born in, mainly married and most died and buried in tiny Bethnal Green.

I immediately tried to find the streets where they were born, but all are gone. Either bombed in the War and cleared or cleared under so-called slum clearance, which, from what I can see means knocking down perfectly good Victorian houses and putting up Jerry built modern slums, devoid of character, planning or architectural merit of any kind. Some of the new streets and rows bear a form of the original names, but none seem to be unaffected by Hitler's or or Tower Hamlets council's vandalism.

Only one address in East Ham remains.

It's well known that the East End, more than any other area in London was the favoured destination of immigrants in waves. First the Huguenot weavers in the late 17th century, then Jews from mainly Eastern Europe, then Irish escaping the worst of what England was always throwing at them and more recently the Bangladeshi influx. It is the latest which has changed the area more than the others who at least more or less integrated. Their look, their dress and most of all their complete resistance to integration due to their inflexible religious attitudes. It is the cause of many disputes all over the country and will not improve.

And so, the old East End, recognisable for centuries, is now lost, not helped by the appalling style of piecemeal housing the "authorities" have thrown up when they should have thrown it out.

And don't tell me the previous immigrants didn't integrate. My grandmother learned to speak fluent Yiddish to talk to her co-workers in the Lloyds cigarette factory and they were so impressed they asked her to teach them English. Nan kept that ability all her life and would delight my Dad's Jewish friends with her ability to converse with them in the tongue of the diaspora.

And don' tell me Cockney rhyming slang is an imaginary thing, because my dad spoke it all the time as did his brothers, his Dad and all our wider London family who were resolute East Enders right into my late teens, when, alas, we lost touch as people do, to their cost.

I knew my Dad was born under the sound of Bow Bells, but I never realised the entire family back to 1750 were Cocknies as well! For anyone born in that area could be truly considered a Cockney.

Now I'm off fer a cuppa Rosie and a currant wad.

Friends, indeed

2011-08-25T02:10:00.000-07:00

Two Super 60s given to me by a new friend. The unused tailplane frame is seen above the old wing

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I HAVE written before about internet friends. I seem to have 10 followers of this blog, yet I only know some of them. That's probably how it'll stay, because I can't seem to answer any of the comments and some friends can't get on the comments section at all, which is a shame.

So, to all the people who kindly follow this blog, thankyou and I hope it interests/amuses you.

In a way, through the internet, I have met my most recent friend, for it was through the model flying forum, that I was invited again to visit my local club flying field and through one of those visits that I met a new chum, Peter. We discovered we lived in neighbouring villages and I have visited his Alladin's cave of a workshop and house since.

We have had long circuitous chats as only good friends can and I feel like we're old buddies. In an area not known for its open, friendly nature, this is only the second time I've made a friend since I moved here in 1989.

On learning that I was a beginner at model flying and about to build a trainer, he presented me with a couple of Super 60s, one never finished, one crashed about 35 years ago and never rebuilt.

Naturally I grasped the opportunity. These days balsa wood is not cheap, so to get a couple of airframes merely needing repair or finishing was a very generous offer and I've already started repairing the old crashed one. It is broken badly at two main places on the fuselage and needs new wood scarfing in, which I've now done with the rear break and the model is as strong again as it ever was.

Meanwhile a friend from Oop North (another internet friend) has been building me a powered glider type of trainer, which I could fly on the fields around me.

With these two separate mentors I feel very well equipped to learn the hobby without making too many mistakes.

The forum? Ha!...like all forums, I'm no longer on it. There are always two or three big-headed know-it-alls who only post to criticise and "correct" and who get very shirty if you argue with them. In RCMF's case there was one in particular, who was clearly not used to being contradicted, until I came along and told him what was what in a field clearly not his own. It was obvious he would get nastier and so would I, so, feeling they had little else left to teach me, I left, removed it from favourites, etc.

"I have fed of the blood of fools to a sufficiency".

Up, up and away

2011-08-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

I've been getting empty headed lately. That's when things go tits-up with me and I was worrying about not having an idea, a plan, a scheme when for some reason I started thinking aeroplanes and model flying.

In the past I've considered it and other things have moved the thought aside...business, family, etc.

But this time it stuck and being a little jaded with model boats except sailing ones and slot cars (nowhere to do it), this old love, aircraft of a certain age and type and good models of them has proven its ability to stay with me.

So I started looking into it by doing a bit of internet research and joining an excellent British forum called RCMF.

I've been to the local flying site twice and been made very welcome by local club and forum members and have even chosen a suitable model, a De Havilland Hornet Moth.

I sent off for plans of a 46" span version and was appalled by the shoddy standard of draughtsmanship of these for the price, but I've checked and redrawn them and with a lot of pics from the net, I'm raring to go.

De Havilland Hornet Moth G-ADMT

But....you can't just fly. You have to learn first. Here I was lucky, in that a friend, keen to get me started, kindly has offered to build me a foam trainer, put a receiver and servos in it and teach me to fly. All I had to do was buy a suitable modern transmitter.

My dear wife agreed and so I have a very modern Spectrum DX5e coming (whatever that is!)

My new chums at the flying club tested my old engines and confirmed at least one was a "cracking little engine" and suitable for the proposed model.

To top it all, I discovered yesterday that the wonderful old Flying Club (full size) of which I used to be a very active member has recovered from its disastrous arson attack in 2003 and now has a Hornet Moth in residence! So you can tell where I'll be going very soon.

Check out a real English, grass field, tail-dragging rustic airfield at:-

http://www.felthorpe.net/Home.html

I've flown several of the kites in the historic section of the Gallery, but they were all destroyed in the fire.

More anon., as I build my new challenge.

Water, water, everywhere....

2011-06-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

And not a drop unregulated by faceless council tossers.

I've been getting a campaign started to re-instate waters used by once venerable model boat clubs to run petrol and diesel engined model boats and especially tethered hydroplanes.

During my researches, I find that there are only about 15 places in the country where you can still run an internal combustion engined (IC) model. And there are only six venues left with a tethered hydro capability.

Dozens have been stolen by councils, whose money-grabbing, backstabbing chancers have been giving it over to developers who all have that funny handshake, or are filled in to save money, when an infill operation would fund repairs to the pond for the next fifty years.

Laziness, lazy-mindedness, avarice, ignorance and downright crookedness are the reasons.

The great clubs have seen engineering developments, testing, record breaking and have sent their members to overseas venues to represent our country, often very successfully.

John Cobb was a regular visitor to Blackheath, yet that once fine record breaking venue is reduced to a couple of old farts with yachts. The council revoked old byelaws of 1932 and 1997 and simply stated that there would no longer be powered craft, meaning, specifically IC engines.

No consultation, no consideration, no advice sought, just a tatty sign next to the pond, which should, by rights, have been torn down and thrown away every time it appeared. The reason for all this? The council had passed responsibility for the place to a private company, no doubt some under the counter deal done with the funny handshake brigade...it usually is.

The clubs are now populated by well pensioned old fools who just won't get on their hind legs and fight. So the only conclusion I can make is that they deserve what they get.

For my part, whilst I can't organise a tethered hydro meeting on my local river, I can certainly run what the hell I like on it without having to pay up to £60(!!) for a club annual membership or bother with a pointless insurance for public liability, much less a hire fee for a pond that was built for my kind in the twenties.

My Grandad was a founder member of Victoria Park Model Steam Boat Club in 1904, the world's oldest model boat club, yet even they have had serious threats to their existence. You can bet your life it wouldn't happen to a golf club, where most of these dodgey deals would have been done in the first place.

U2 can have a car like this....or not!

2011-04-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Well, finally finished the Mallock U2 Mk 18 for Mallock Sports. And what a faff it was. There is almost nowhere to glue the wing supports and no good way to fix the front mudguards.

It's mounted on the black Perspex base as much to keep it safe as to present it nicely, although it is a present for someone.

Underneath this is a very slim brass chassis so that it can be trundled, but not raced, PLEASE, round the new owner's slot track. It's very fragile.

The Mallock project

2011-03-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

The Mallock U2 Mk18 is now reaching completion. I made the nose today and broke the corner off at the last minute, but superglue could not be found, so that's a priority.

The material is CIBATool, two layers of thin stuff, which was all I could find.

The engine cover and exhaust fairing have been left "generic" so that individual variations can be catered for. I envisage this model selling mainly to owners of real cars and all cars have variations to some extent. Those variations if not too extreme, can be catered for here before delivery.

And a similar lot.

2011-03-04T12:47:00.000-08:00

The Speedwell Sprite is also finished and is ready for production by the same company. I was helped in the making of this by the owner of the actual car who contacted me with its history and some useful photographs of the car in competition in its day.

This was made from a resin cast of an earlier car and modified with pear wood and Milliput.

The Crusader...caped

2011-03-04T12:42:00.001-08:00

The Clan Crusader is now finished, with its cape of grey Primer.

It should soon be in production with Slotcar Models and Kits as the 2nd placed car in the Manx Rally in 1971(??) It was second only to a Works Escort, which was not bad going for a brand new car in its first event.

U2 can have a body like this...

2011-02-23T03:12:00.000-08:00

Way back when we were allowed to build, register and drive what we liked without Nanny having a say in the matter and holding their palm out to be crossed with unjustifiable silver, a chap called Major Arthur Mallock built a little competition car, but used it on the road too. Thinking he could capitalise on this he offered the frames for £48-10 shillings. It cost 48 1/2 pounds and weighed 48 1/2 pounds. He lifted the Charles Atlas advertising slogan, by showing a feel for "text speak", advertising his little chassis in the 750 MC Bulletin...."U2 can have a body and chassis like mine". Thus began a series of Clubman's cars, all called U2 and now up to Mk.35. His cars and those developed by his sons, STILL dominate that specialised field of competition known as Clubman's Formula. Front engined Sports Racers, my favourite kind.

I decided that it was time a nice model was made. I made a

pattern many years ago in brass for a white metal kit in 1/43rd scale, but it never got produced.

So now, I'm doing a pattern in 1/32nd scale for a slot racer and have chosen the Mk 18 version as the most typical shape of a mid-era Clubman's car.

Help from Mallock Sports, who make the cars to this day has allowed me to do some drawings and I shall be cutting material very soon.

Patterns everywhere

2011-02-20T15:51:00.000-08:00

It takes an age to put pictures on slot forum, so I thought I might as well use this blog to show some of my builds, mainly patterns for various ranges of cars.

The latest is a Clan Crusader in 1/32nd scale. It's made of wood with a little detailing in styrene where appropriate. The wood is pear, the only wood in my opinion to come close to modelling board which is great stuff, but has nasty dust and is expensive.

I did a Speedwell Sprite recently. I love all the different versions of these little cars. I had one once. It never let me down and was fun the whole time. Not that fast, but like a Kart on the bends.

This one was done using Milliput epoxy putty. marvellous stuff, made in Dolgellau.

I mentioned modelling board earlier. that would be Ebalta in Europe, CIBATool in Britain and Renshape in America. All much the same, just slightly different grades. These master patterns are made of it.

A Delahaye 135

A Maserati 6CL, also pre-War.

A Standard 8/10, unfinished at this stage.

Another material I certainly WON'T be working in again is wax. Ghastly stuff that gets everywhere and is a pig to smooth. I got this far with it, but then cast the model in resin and finished the pattern off in that.

It is a Labourdette Delage with the strange all glass window section. No pillars. Love that fin.

This Rover P6 racer was made the hard way. Balsa core, covered in car body filler, then carved.

This is just a very small selection of patterns I've made for slot racing, all 1/32nd scale.

The next stage

2011-02-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

As you can see, I have removed FPF Models link from the home page as it will soon be all change on that front.

Dave Capelen of Slotcarmann will producing most, if not all of the models in the old range, possibly with some upgraded and with more bits. They will obviously be more expensive, but should be worthy of the increase.

Because I'd had some models planned for FPF which won't necessarily be on Dave's priority list, I shall endeavour to produce them myself when I can.

The first will be the S-type Invicta Low chassis. I have received so much help from Mike Hyatt, a man who virtually grew up with Invictas as run by his family friend, Donald Munro, that it's only fair that I do that one first.

It will be a big job as Invictas have so many individual louvres and these will all have to be put on the pattern individually. There's no way to cheat.

The next one will be the Trident Venturer, only because I used to have one and think it's about time there was a nice slot racing shell of that most beautiful of cars.

Then there will be a Piper, possibly two. On Tuesday, I will be visiting an old friend who used to have one of the three Le Mans GTRs. He still produces a track-day car made in the original's moulds, so I'll be measuring up for a model of that. But I also had a Piper GTA many years ago. The Piper road car, GTT and P2, is so under-known, that I think it should be done. Mine was a tarmac rally one, built from a very early car with the rare A-Series running gear, but the bodies were very similar on all of them.

And after these, the gorgeous Rejo. A car that makes even the lovely Lola Mk1 look a little ungainly.

You write a better one, then!

2010-12-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

Some time last year I heard this on Guy Garvey's excellent Sunday night show on BBC 6Music. He played it all year and some of this year and I bought the album (and heaven knows, I'm tight!).

I reckon it's the best song written in maybe thirty years, excepting only some of Elbow's stuff.

How this chap could be nominated for an Ivor Novello award and be robbed of it, is an indictment of the general state of British music and the tone-deaf idiocy of those who set themselves up as judges of these things.

I can listen to this time and time again. And there are VERY few songs I could honestly say that about.

Right now in Britain it's also rather apt. Our snow left yesterday and today our water pipes thawed too.

The Leisure Society 'The Last Of The Melting Snow'

2010-12-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Isaac Guillory: Blues Is Just A Bad Dream/ Swinging Little Guitar Man

2010-12-27T04:33:00.000-08:00

The Hi-Fi will wait, but.....

2010-12-27T04:23:00.000-08:00

Sure sign that I'm without much to do. I'm learning how to share stuff via these cyber instruments.

My love of music is no secret, but I have been so delighted to find everybody I love to listen to on you-tube AND...a way of sending the pleasure to everyone who drops into the blog.

This is the remarkable Isaac Guillory, a guitarist of spiritual enormity. I saw him twice, live and I still can't forget those performances.

Where most walk on stage and tune up tediously, he would walk up already playing his first number. I never heard him play a dead or a bum note. His Martin Jazz guitar just sang. Precision, inventiveness, staggering technique and a clear, distinctive voice set him apart and still does despite his tragically early death a few years ago.

I have a friend who also plays and sings. He met Isaac several times and said he more or less gave up guitar after hearing him play.

If the sheer quality and craftsmanship here doesn't make you cry, you're dead!

Please enjoy.

Everything's relative

2010-12-17T04:09:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about and looking at Hi-Fi lately. Little else to do in this freezing weather.

Now I always had an interest in developments in record playing systems, since attending Radio Shows and Audio Shows in London with my Dad when I was a nipper. I well remember being treated like royalty when entering the hushed surroundings of the Quad room. Quad still exist and in fact still repair their earliest equipment if you send it to them.! You wouldn't get that service from Technics or Sony!

Being a bit of a tub thumper, I am only interested in British Hi-Fi, especially as it's still something we actually DO and do better than anyone else, too.

When, in 1982, I decided that it was time to get myself a decent system, I went off to Rayleigh Hi-Fi and settled on a beautiful Rega Planar 3 turntable and RB250 arm, an A&R Cambridge A60 amp and a set of very punchy, stylish Mission 700 speakers. It cost me £503, cash, speaker leads thrown in, I still have the bill.

I built a very substantial brick and blockboard structure at one end of my living room to stop extraneous vibration and set up what was to be the most astonishing experience in music pleasure. And I do like my music.

Alas, a couple of years later I got hard up and sold the outfit, lock, stock and barrel to a friend of a friend for £495. You wouldn't get that kind of resale value from Japcrap either!

So, in my random thoughts and researches into what is now around I wondered what £503 would be equal to these days. Astonishingly, it seems that is equivalent to £1320! What, I wondered, would that buy me of today's "good buys"?

What a surprise! I could buy a Rega P3-24 turntable and RB310 arm, a suitable cartridge, a Rega Brio 3 amp and Rega RS1 speakers. The modern equivalent of what I bought back in 1982 when Rega only made turntables.

But, interestingly, I would also have enough left of my modern day £1320 to buy what is now apparently considered essential, a Phono stage, some gizmo that punches the tiny signal from the stylus to the amp. A Rega Fono would do the trick and I would still have change from my £1320! In fact, I'd have £50 change, Hmm, upgrade the cartridge, maybe?

Needless to say everything is very much improved on the standards of 1982, so I'd be getting much better quality, plus a fourth bit of very high tech for even more performance, for effectively LESS than I spent back in 1982!

Astonishing!!

Of course, living, as I do, in a mobile home, there isn't the slightest chance of my ever having this set-up since if one dog walks across the floor the whole thing shakes, so a half-gram tracking weight on a top-end Hi-fi wouldn't stand a chance, but it is an interesting comparison. And proves that not everything today is necessarily expensive, it just sounds it.

If I wanted to buy my original stuff back, say through ebay or a top dealer, I find that I could buy the deck for around £150, the amp for maybe £50 and the Missions for around £50 also. So £250 to get the same as I had in 1982 for £503. Not bad and an absolute testimony to British Hi-Fi's quality and durability.

My cousin has just started working for Rega. I shall become a nuisance!

Meanwhile, I have an ancient Connoisseur Craftsman III deck that my Dad put in a heavy cabinet years ago. It's equivalent cost today would be £340. About the same as a P3-24.

In its day it was very well thought of. I wonder if it still works. It's in the garage somewhere.

Sorry Dad!

FPF changes hands

2010-12-04T15:22:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has trawled around the blog might have clicked on the panel on the left about FPF Models. I started this with an internet friend, Steve Francis, about 18 months ago to supply slot racers with accurate scale model body shells which they could motorise and use at their clubs, open meetings, etc.

Well, we built up about 12 models in the range, but neither of us has the time or, frankly, the inclination to market them properly by going .com and all that stuff.

So, I have decided to sell off the masters to recoup some of my time investment in those 12 patterns.

The bulk of them will go to a company starting next year called Slotcarman, who will keep the website and just market it more thoroughly, using Steve to keep on the moulding side. I will be still making new masters and superdetailing the existing ones.

The Sprite and Midget masters are going to Penelope Pitlane's Steve Ward and the Lotus Elite, my best, I believe, is going to Graham at GP Miniatures, who will do his usual thorough job of kitting that model.

This is a thoroughly satisfactory result for all concerned and, I hope, for all the customers, potential and existing.

The new owner will be looking into making Ready-To-Run versions as this seems to be a popular side to fine quality models, which FPF certainly are, as are PP and GP Miniatures.

Back to my roots

2010-11-24T04:57:00.000-08:00

Despite recent dalliances with such as slot racing and large scale model railways, I find my interests consolidating back with where I started..scenery and model boats.

I suppose it all began with the twin draws of a train set when I was about 5 or 6 and an Uncle with a boat on the Essex coast when I was 7.

I soon learned that hand made model scenery for my train set was much better than Airfix kits, which had parts that didn't fit and that a model boat on Paglesham's oyster beds was a wonderful way to spend a weekend by the estuary. We also used to take the Uncle's boat out regularly and go fishing with with the Keeble brothers on their beautiful yacht-like trawler, Vanguard, (header picture)

The call of the mud and the fresh air with the sounds of an estuary life have been a massive pull on me ever since.

In this cold Winter weather, of which we have plenty to come, I'm sure, I can make small model boats on the dining table and avoid the cold of the workshop.

My plan is to make a series of 1/4"-1ft scale models of British inshore craft, like fishing boats and workboats, putting some of them into a scenic set-piece, which satisfies my other interest of scenic modelmaking.

We won in the end!

2010-11-24T04:43:00.000-08:00

Having witnessed the way the RSPCA closes ranks even in the face of an official complaint, we just went to another source and got ourselves a lovely little lad of 14 months from Ooop North.

Since he's never answered to his given name, we called him Alfie anyway and here he is.

He's very well behaved, but our other male, a Basset/Bedlington cross is still a bit peeved by the newcomer and a few set-tos have resulted, but they should sort themselves out.

He loves his bed and his food and seems to have settled in very well.

And another little Hitler

2010-10-27T04:13:00.000-07:00

Today, after "she slept on it", a faceless woman who runs an RSPCA rescue centre in Eubrink, near Kings Lynn, Norfolk, called Penny Skate, refused to let us have a Shar-Pei puppy, "because we live in a mobile home".

This stuck up female, who has no idea of how we live, absolutely refused a home visit for no reason.

We are approved by the Shar-Pei Club of Great Britain as re-homers. We currently have a Shar-Pei, a dog reckoned to have a usual life span of 8 years, in her 12th year. We have had her and two other dogs in our house, then on our canal boat, then in a 10ft caravan at a boat yard and currently in a very large, comfortable static mobile home. The dogs are spoiled, cosseted and immensely happy. Our Lurcher, rescued from death a day or two later if we hadn't have had him, was a stray on the streets, but we brought him round to be a lovely family dog who we had and loved for over 16 years.

This ghastly woman has assumed that we were unemployed because I don't go out to work, she assumed that we rent our home, we don't, we paid outright for it and without a home visit, which she refused, how can she possibly know what circumstances we live in. We, in fact, have over an acre of fully fenced and gated land with a large house also on the property which the dogs have complete run of.

They each have their own beds and favourite places. Archie's is the bottom of OUR bed!

We have not had the courtesy of a return call following a reasonable message informing her that the RSPCA, her bosses, have no objection to "mobile homes" and wouldn't dream of judging anyone until a home check is done.

I have sent an official complaint to the RSPCA who have responded that they have forwarded it to the Eastern Region office, so they must agree with our points.

Because we know someone on the inside, we also know some things about this person that she would clearly rather we didn't!

I will not be judged by some faceless functionary who thinks she can play God with animals' and peoples' lives.

She refused to allow an owner his dog back because he hadn't found the dog inside the arbitrary 8 days before they attempt re-homing. As a disabled man he couldn't afford all the rigmarole. Yet this appalling woman told staff not to mention if certain dogs that are difficult or even nasty, if someone wants them.

None of the normal actions done on dogs have yet been done on Alfie. Why not, I wonder? Has Devil Woman got a friend lined up for a fashionable Shar-Pei, because unfortunately they ARE fashionable, but we just love them. We love all dogs anyway. Our daughter's Westie already prefers our place to the house!

I ask you, do these dogs look hard done by?? More anon.

Re-equipping

2010-09-13T01:45:00.001-07:00

Perhaps not re-equipping, but re-grouping.

After replacing our old home with a new one, I had the opportunity to set up my workshop in the old home.

With setting up the new one, most of the inevitable "stuff" that needs moving around went into the old workshop until I couldn't actually get in the door!

Now, I have access again and am clearing the new place, too. I knew I'd find things long in storage, but what a great thing it is to root through one's old stuff.

I found photos I thought I'd lost, drawings done years ago and presumed thrown away and bits and pieces that will once again make life easier.

But why does it take SO long? I seem to be satisfied with opening and investigating one box a day. A friend has suggested it's all part of growing older and I dare say he's right, but I will not go easily into that dark night. I think it is a lot to do with mental plans for how it might look when finished and the assumption, almost certainly false, that things will go swimmingly once finished, without having the slightest idea how to ensure that happens. Consequently, one ambles along not knowing quite what to do next, until the light has suddenly gone and another day comes to a close.

Then I read that my 30 year old son, feeling unwell, has looked up his "symptoms" on the net and found that he is suffering from something called "old". At 30!!

I told him to wait for the next 28 years and resolved to get this new workshop sorted out with renewed vigour.

Amongst the many fascinating things I rediscovered whilst re-equipping/grouping was this old instant photo of the very first job I ever did as a modelmaker in the car design industry.

It is a model, full sized, of the engine cover for the then new, New Beetle. I didn't take the photo as I would have been sacked for doing so and rightly, but an engineer took it and left it laying around, so I kept it. It was made first in clay, then a quick glass fibre mould made over the clay and a moulding made in the mould. Usual processes.

Then it's fettled and filled till it looks smooth and fits the space allowed (not always the case despite CAD drawings!)

Finally it is sprayed from a distance with satin black paint to have that grainy look of much moulded plastic and the name cut out of aluminium sheet and polished. A stock VW badge was added and presto! It took two days to do, I got an instant reputation for working well on my own and being quick. Job done. The fascinating thing was that when I'd had a weekend home and went back on the Tuesday morning, the cover had been laser scanned and working CAD drawings produced and pinned to the wall behind my bench!

Without setting up the new workshop, I'd have completely forgotten about this photo and almost forgotten the job.

I went on to do any number of fascinating jobs for VW, Toyota, Renault, Audi, SMART, Ford, Volvo, MG and Prodrive over the next few years until I was told that computers had replaced model makers and I was too old to re-train at 47.

Skills lost to the world are rarely replaced.

More attacks on our freedoms

2010-09-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

My son has recently decided to get his "project" going. He has a Triumph GT6 Mk1 chassis and all the original running gear, registration and log book.

He just wanted a body of a 50s style to put on it.

It was when we ended up with a superb GRP Austin Healey 3000 body at a great price that we realised we're not allowed any more to build a car without the permission and controls of the "powers that be"

We, in the car game call them the nazis. Pettyfogging busy bodies and nosey Parkers whose only grip on real life is to spoil it for the rest of us in the spurious name of "safety".

I have built cars, my father built his own cars as did my uncle (see earlier blogs entries) and my son spent nine years restoring classic sports and racing cars to the highest level. Cars worth millions of pounds.

So are we to be told we need the permission of some faceless job'sworth on a fat salary before we can touch the rough and ready, poorly designed and executed Triumph chassis with our magic?

Alas, we have no choice. If we touch the chassis with a saw, grinder or welding torch we lose the registration and have to be regarded as a new car and pay them £540 for a short examination, which, if we fail on the slightest item , we have to pay again for a retest.

So by way of the huge middle finger to all these nazis, we are leaving the precious chassis alone and modifying the body which they don't care about. We are moving the front wheel arch back 8 1/2" so it fits the Triumph chassis. As an ex modelmaker for the car design circus, that is not a big deal for me. But for those who do not have my experience it could prove a stumbling block too far.

So all we need to wonder about, having, as my Dad would have said, "shot them up the arse",

is what do we call it? A Trealey or a Healumph?

Blogger doesn't work any more!

2010-08-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

It's a pity, but this lovely blog template is no use to me since the facility to move photos to where you want them has disappeared. Without being able to contact blogspot direct to ask what's happening, I can no longer use this blog, after so much work.
If anyone knows the answer or how Blogspot can be contacted, I'd love to know.

End of an era...for us

2010-06-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend we appear to have sold our boat, which was also our home for some time.

After a week of timewasters it looks like we've finally found this fine old boat a sympathetic new owner with the energy to finish the restoration we started.

For us this is the best news. We were concerned that she should find a good home and we priced her accordingly. Ok, we won't be getting back a fraction of what we spent on her, but I always say, "Everybody's got to live somewhere...do something" and, of course, everything costs just to live.

We had some great times on her and at the yard where most of the work was done. We met the sort of fascinating "real" people we would never have met otherwise. We saw places and did things we would never have done otherwise, so how do you value those things?

It will seem strange to not see her when we get up in the morning and retire to bed. She's been a major part of our lives since 2003. We saved her from almost certain destruction by British Waterways (hereafter correctly described as "the Enemy").

Because monies were owed to them for licensing they were prepared to take her away and put the dredger's shovel through her the week after we bought her. A fact of which we were unaware until some time after we bought her.

That a Public body should commit such an act of vandalism is an obscenity. And one which only the people who enjoy our extensive canal system would be aware of.

And so, by cruising her after a bit of a tidy up and spending all our money and time restoring her we have at least saved this most historic of vessels for the future generations who will see her and see a properly restored example of a type of canal boat so sadly neglected today.

We and a previous owner have compiled a long and detailed history of her from launch day to the present which is there for those future generations to call upon.

We were never more than custodians of her. At least we saved her from corporate vandalism and her new owner is acutely aware of that. Indeed he has saved a few old artifacts himself in his time.

And so to pastures new, whatever they may be.

We look forward to some time on her again when she is newly afloat again in her proper element.

The pictures should be placeable, but no longer are for some reason.

Apologies on Google Blogger's behalf.

"Hear the Lark and harken to the dog Fox..."

2010-05-06T02:32:00.000-07:00

Forgive the reference to Pink Floyd there, but we have taken posession of our little car and it must be said, it hasn't all been easy going.

It buzzed along well enough on our way home from the garage where we bought it, near Snetterton. It allowed us to stop for fish and chips too.

Then it developed a bit of a raspberry nearer home and the exhaust had clearly started to blow.

So, over to my son's driveway and he crawled below for me and attached a premade repair patch in Gungum, sardine can and Jubilee clips.

All was well on the way home. The next day the Reliant 3 wheeler forum had organised a day at the Nene Valley railway and since that ain't so far from us we thought we 'd give the car a shakedown by attending.

Well, all went well over there, but half way back there was a terrible knocking noise and we freewheeled to a stop near Peterborough.

I thought it was something terminal in the clutch area. After being towed home on the end of a strap by the son-in-law the little car was picked up a week later by the sellers on a trailer and carted back from whence it had so lately come.

A week later it was ready. It WAS the clutch. The whole middle spring section of a brand new clutch had simply ripped out.

I went over to pick it up and drove it home again. Again the exhaust started to blow. Again a bigger, better repair with two sardine cans. It should be said that sardines cans are used instead of the traditional bean, because sardine cans don't have that annoying corrugation which is not helpful when bending a can round a very small pipe.

Alas, the car then refused to start or even fire and so the sellers came over again a week later and went through electrics, replacing coil and checking the fuel system, blowing through the whole pipe and replacing the old in-line filter at the tank end.

It seemed to work at last and they got it going nicely again, but said it needed a new ignition switch which they would send. Oh they'd also replaced the indicator switch because all the way home from the clutch debacle I had people waving and flashing me. I thought they were being friendly to the funny little car, but no, my indicators were on, but not flashing.

In the meantime of all this I had resolved to repair the rear nearside corner which some clown had started to cut about following a bump.

To cut a long story short, that was done by conventional means for GRP work and sprayed the colour we have decided upon for it, a nice pale green like Hillman Imps used to be.

Capping it off, I drove four miles the other day to get some aluminium (of which more anon) and on the way back it died again and we had to be towed home again. This time it seems to have been a failure of the previous repair to the fuel filter.

At present, it is running rather well, but the raspberry is back and I feel that something more permanent than a sardine can or two is needed!

Ah!...harken to the Jackboot...

2010-03-26T03:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever belonged to a forum?

Or a Yahoo special interest group?

Have you ever felt the need to have a go at sections of society that get your goat or make a perfectly valid comment on the world wherein you are showing your completeness as an individual?

Oh dear me. I said it, didn't I? Individual. Oh Lordy, the "I" word. The word that differentiates us from the crowd, that makes us independently who we are.

The one word you must never get close to on a Forum...Or they'll come for you. The sad little men whose miserable lives are given some semblance of importance by their having been "elevated" to the internet peerage of MODERATOR. Oh the glory!...oh the respect at the Parish Council Coffee Mornings! Oh!, the admiration of those poor also-rans who aspire, but have never managed to, lick enough derriere or cowtow and forlock-tug to the "right" people in such a way as to be asked to spend the rest of their hobby time lording it over people with a point of view and a sense of humour.

For mentioning how, if you told a kid in the street to pick his litter up these days, you'd probably get a kick in the nuts, I have been strongly censured on a forum called RMWeb, the biggest model railway forum. My posts were doctored by a man whose avatar is a fantasy reptile!!

I imagine, when he retires at night, that he checks for any under his bed.

So, I am not to say what everybody else on any forum that I've been on would say with complete impunity, what every journalist, letter writer, vox pop member of the public is saying about modern life on our streets. But say it in an overly precious and self important model railway forum and you are held as "likely to be inflammatory". What, tell me, is inflammatory about the truth, about something which is on the lips of everyone, in homes, pubs, clubs, offices, on the streets...everywhere!

Perhaps I should make a small model scene of a street full of council houses in which an old lady is being knocked off her pavement scooter and and a still active old chap has come out of his house to find the local yobs have up-ended his Reliant Robin for the third time. Would Lizard Man stop my model being shown on his forum?

Yet I know of exactly those cases having happened recently in just such circumstances. Truth, you see?

Ziegheil, little Lizard Man. it all starts like this.

Let the Fox see the chicken

2010-03-09T03:22:00.000-08:00

Having been carless for a while due to having lived afloat for a while, my wife and I decided that perhaps we could risk a little money on getting mobile again. Just a bit of independence from having to borrow our daughter's car.

It was necessary to have a car which was at the lowest tax point or even tax exempt, but equally important to have one with low insurance (i.e. Classic Car insurance) and to be very economical.

Our original plans to use an Austin 7 came to nought when the Ruby project fell through and another could not be found, so a bit of lateral thinking came up with..... the Reliant.

Now I'm fine with the idea of 3 wheels, but Chris couldn't get used to it, so a four wheeler it had to be and when I asked around the Reliant firmament, a Fox was offered.

A rugged, simple, 848cc, 12" wheeled, pick up with a lift off van body. All in fibreglass with a galvanised steel chassis.

We went to see it, Chris loved it and now we await the little gem having its MOT test and some tidy-up.

Our plans for it are to paint it in a nice rich mid-blue called Sapphire and to detail it in very pale blue and aluminium, me being a keen basher of that metal. It sits in beige at present and, like golf, I hope I am never so feeble as to like biege.

The best kind of R & R...

2010-02-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

After a bit of an attempted mauling on the slot racing forum from a dissatisfied customer, I felt like some relaxation away from the pressures of a super active forum full of egos.

My favourite way to do that has always been silence, solitude, perhaps Radio 4 and model scenery.

In various measures.

This had got me back to my first passion in modelmaking, model landscape and architecture. I was born, it seems, with a love of vernacular architecture and although I have often drawn it and painted it, even drawn it officially for Councils to pore over in committee meetings, it is only models of buildings which ever really satisfies.

The tiny yard office at Grindley Brook Locks, Welsh canal

I made my first building when I was about 10. It was a little scratch-built flint dashed forge. I used poppy seeds as un-knapped flints. I was given some ancient copper foil rolled into a good scale corrugated which I used for the roof. Because I had no layout as such, I put it on a grassy base and kept it as that. A scenic set-piece. I have built many such set-pieces over the years, rarely having space for a layout.

I also have a love of estuaries, having spent many childhood weekends on the Essex coastal waterways. One day, when missing the clean air and the sounds of the saltings I made this little set-piece to get it out of my system. Just about 9 inches square, I put it on whatever I had under the bench in the way of a base board, yet it turned into one of my best pieces.

I can find inspiration anywhere, as in that tiny office above, so perfect in its proportion and fitness for purpose.

This is an old village cinema, now, alas, a hairdresser's emporium!

Imagine the queues of young lovers all desperate to get to the back rows in the days when it would have definately been known as the local "flea-pit", before the ugly cement dashed finish ruined the old bricks.

Here is the little country garage in the same village as the "Cinema Salon". Now used only for repairs to cars as the government has allowed the foreign unelected parliament to force stringent and unnecessary rules on small British businesses which cost so much to administer that they are forced to close in full or in part.

I have known this place for over thirty years. You could, at one time, choose from a whole line of Austin Healeys, Pipers, tuned up Imps and Mini-Coopers, to name but a few. The proprietor himself used to race. Now he is waiting for the economy to upturn again so he can redevelop the site because rules and unstoppable vandalism have made the business untenable. Just as well that I made a model of the office years ago then, eh? Another occasion when I needed the peace of architecture. Frozen music.

Comments on the blog

2010-02-16T03:57:00.001-08:00

Not being very computer savvy, I have no idea how to answer people when they kindly leave a comment on the blog.
I would appreciate any viewer of the blog clueing me up on the methods.

Meanwhile, Jim, thankyou for your kind comments on the models and the Albatross in particular.
I had Hull No. 135., a Mk 1. I bought it from a chap in Yorkshire. It had a Consul Corsair 1500cc pushrod, pre-crossflow Ford engine. I wanted to put a side valve 10 back in or even a Coventry Climax, but the cost of rebuilding even a humble Ford 10 seems outrageous these days, so whilst it was cheap to buy one (my wife paid £90 for it), rebuilding it to a high level was to have cost much more than I paid for the boat! So the 120E engine got a clean up and put back in. New steering pullies and cables and a respray and off it went to a new owner when I got kicked out of the CMBA for telling a home truth or two about the museums in this country. No club, no water to go fast on, no point in the boat.
If you send me a comment with just your e-mail address, I can note it, but refuse the comment for publication then talk to privately about the models.
Thanks.

BXE 599, where are you!...

2010-02-16T03:07:00.000-08:00

My Uncle recently scanned in and sent me some marvellous old Box Brownie shots of his Special as it grew, back in the late 50s/early 60s.
BXE 599 started life as an Austin Seven Ruby. Stripped of her bodywork she would have looked like this.

My Uncle was only 16 when he started this project and in fact, only 21 when he sold it, having used it for getting to work and for a long journey to Bristol. Here he is in our Bristol aunt's driveway.My Dad had built specials earlier and was obviously a good help-at-hand for my Uncle, since we lived over the road from where the car was being built.

Here he gives invaluable advice on steering geometry!

Behind them in that photo, all sorts of magic happened. My Granddad made his own paints and stains in the shed in the background for his work as a grainer and marbler and off to the right was where my Nan made her own wines and repaired all the family's bikes and resoled our shoes! Beyond both was a large garden in which grew most of the ingredients of the wine making. Remarkably my Nan never touched a drop of any of the hundreds of wines she ever made. I recall her parsnip to have been my favourite. Her rosehip was delicious, but gave me nightmares!

Unique as far as I know among specials, BXE had a hardtop. A removable accessory for the winter months which my Uncle made.

The eagle-eyed Special Builders among you will recognize some nice touches of the times amongst the goodies on this car.

A finned Aluminium cylinder head, but I'm not sure of which make. A four branch exhaust manifold and a nice twin SU side-draught inlet set up.

There's also an independent front suspension set up, possibly by Super Accessories or Bowndenex. My Uncle made many of his own parts including the header tank for the then quite rare crossflow radiator.

The very professional looking double hump scuttle always sets a special apart, I think, and BXE was no exception. It always makes for an attractive dashboard shape.

The lovely old spring-spoke steering wheel sets off a nice cockpit and never better than the Brooklands Bluemell's.

I'm delighted to learn that a spare one of these which hung in my Grandad's garage for years after BXE was sold is now in my Uncle's basement and he's promised it for my Cambridge Special.

That's a very special thing for me as I used to look longingly at that old wheel every time I was in my Grandad's workshop!

If anyone knows of the whereabouts or fate of this lovely special, please let me know.

And some more....

2010-02-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

Since posting the last piece on Specials I've decided to put my money where my mouth is effectively and I have started an Austin Seven Specials Register under the auspices of the Austin Seven Clubs Association.
So far we have 39 fully written up sets of details about peoples' cars. We have home builts, Cambridges and Ulster replicas in about that order of popularity. We have some very old, even ex-Brooklands cars, too, which I never expected.
If anyone reading this blog has an A7 Special or knows someone who does, please let me know.

More on the Specials

2009-12-04T07:36:00.000-08:00

I knew that I would finally find some relevant pictures of my special-building family and though it took my Mum's recent death, I'm sure she'll be pleased to know that amongst her old pictures and photos were these two old Box brownie shots.

The above one is my Dad, in his de-mob suit, standing proudly by his first special. Alas no pictures exist of the later two, but it was great to even get a Reg. no. in the view.

The louvred side valance was a very de luxe feature for a Special!

And this one is of me at about 10 months old, cranking my Dad's other A7 or it could be my Grandad's car, which Dad always drove as my Grandad didn't pass his test until I was in my late childhood!

All this driving down memory lane has got me back "into" specials and I have joined the Bristol Austin 7 Club and my local old-car club and have already got a line on some parts to begin the project. I've decided to build a Cambridge style special, using as many period style bits and pieces as I can find. The search alone should be fun.

I will leave the bodywork in unpainted aluminium, with Cambridge blue cycle wings, which I will attempt to make myself, using for skills what little I can pick up from books and watching old craftsmen at work.

Here's a Cambridge from which I'm making scale drawings as it's a nice square side view.

I'm sure with enough browsing through all the kinds of books and club magazines I used to have I can re-aquaint myself with my favourite old car. Fortunately there are so many knowledgeable types out there who remember every part number, design change date and type number there is and they're always so friendly in the Austin 7 world. Few cars of such humble origins can have crossed the divide between the luxury car (Rolls-Royce, etc), the true enthusiast (Vintage Sports Car Club) and the ordinary impecunious fan ...like the Austin Seven.

Whatever floats your boat....

2009-11-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

Usually, people who are into scale models have a fairly narrow band of interests. Probably because they can only give their time to a limited number of projects.

Those of us with unavoidably wider tastes or the good fortune to have (or, it must be said, organise,) more time, often find ourselves being fascinated by more than one topic.

I can't help it, I'm just intrigued by many aspects of what's old and consequently, like to make models of them. Also, of course, when one let's it be known that a modelmaking service is available it becomes likely that potential customers will ask for a wide variety of subjects to be considered.

As it happened, my first truly professional commission was indeed for a boat, a small ship in fact, called the MV Peterna, a coastal sand carrier. I recieved the commission when I was just 18, had not the first idea how to set about it, but finished for a derisorilly low quotation and delivered it to it's owner, by chance on the last day of its legal service in British waters. My friend and I struggled with the model in its heavy 1/4" plate glass case on the train from mid Devon to the Essex coast and onto the vessel itself via the ship's dinghy.

We unveiled it proudly in the skipper's cabin over a warming mug of hot chocolate. The owner's wife immediately burst into tears. She hadn't seen the old girl look so good since they bought her and started their business and their married life aboard the 1915 carrier.

Strangely, it was to be many years more before I took such an interest in ships again, at least actively, by making models of them. By then I'd become a real fan of classic speedboats and record breakers. I wanted to make models of them for sale and that wish came about by my old chum in Florida e-mailing me with a potential customer in Washington DC.He wanted a model of Miss America X and Baby Horace III for permanent display in Arty's restaurant in the city, which was being refurbished with a record boat theme.

And so I built the two boats, in 1/8th scale, which is big. So big, the MA X model had to be built on the dining table because it wouldn't fit in my shed!

Now, MA X has four Packard aero engines in it, geared together as two pairs. Each engine has two superchargers, each supercharger has two carburettors. There are two plug leads per cylinder, each 2500M power unit having twelve cylinders. An exhaust stack emerges elegantly from each pair of cylinders. The steering is by a chain drive, all on view. The hull and deck is mahogany planked. It scaled out at 5ft.-3ins. long!

At the very last minute I left marks on the freshly painted seats which I couldn't remove, so I quickly carved the two toy teddy bears that its driver, Gar Wood, always carried with him for luck and covered the marks with them.Flown west by FedEx, it was safely delivered and installed in its place in a booth at the diner, where, I assume, it still is along with its much humbler brother Baby Horace. The family could eat again!

I also made some Rive Aquarama Special speedboats because I had the plans and found a real one, the last imported before Riva stopped producing them, to measure and photograph. As ever, it turned out that the works drawings were wrong, so I used my own taken from the actual boat near Southampton. My own choice of scale is always 1/12th. One inch to one foot. Beautifully Imperial. The models all had detailed engines under hinged decks, working cocktail cabinets with hand made Morano glasses and one of them even had working steering, involving a hand made worm steering box with two universal joints. Over 150 seperate parts were made in brass and nickel plated. The cloth used for the floor covering was miniaturists' canvas, hand painted. The wood, as with MA X and Baby Horace was steamed Pearwood to look just like mahogany in scale.

But I found that it seemed people were keener to throw their money at the hole in the water represented by their real boat than the mark on the mantleshelf represented by one of my models. I made a 1/6thscale model of an aluminium Albatross speedboat for a collector, which I enjoyed, but nothing further came of it. Promised articles in national magazines never materialised.

And so I gave it one last go with an all aluminium model of Miss Britain III, the salt water World Record Holder. It had a completely detailed Napier Lion W 12 engine and was impressed with nearly 10,000 screw heads with a special tool.

It sold at auction for a measly £2800, of which the thieving auctioneer took another £500 for commission and a whole raft of other "costs" of which I was never forewarned, but which I had no option to pay if I wanted my pathetic remainder, which I recieved after 6 months!

My chum in Florida also had to come to the same conclusion...there ain't no money in model boats, unless you happen to just "fit in".

Something Special

2009-10-17T03:44:00.000-07:00

After the War, Britain was in a pretty parlous state and life's luxuries were just not to be found by the average guy who wanted a bit of colour and excitement out of the drab scene of Labour's New Utopia, which as we all now know, was such a miserable pipedream.

With so little money floating about, the natural "make-do & mend" mentality of the rations-battered British came to the fore.

At that time, pre-MoT test, there were thousands of old pre-War cars on the road, still giving sterling service. Mainly Austin Sevens and Ford 8s and 10s.

These could be had for a few pounds and pressed into life fairly easily again. Then with a few bits of steel tube and some aluminium sheet a really smart new creation could be in your driveway in just a few weekends. A sports car, indeed.

These used a more race-orientated pre-War name of "specials", but post-War the Special became the be all and end all of British motoring enthusiasm. Before the War a special had been a racing or hillclimb conversion of something, usually with a bigger engine, meant for sprints and short course competition and so the name stuck after the conflict for anything that a reasonably able mechanic could cobble up in his back yard or shed.

My own father was just such a man and with a £5 Austin 7 from a breakers' yard he built a little 2 seater very much in the style of the Cambridge, one of the best looking of the A7 specials, but in the pre-War tourer mould.

My Mum still has happy memories of that little car. Previously all Dad had was a Coventry Eagle motorbike which would only go up steeper hills if my Mum got off the pillion seat!

He later built two more specials, refining the previous ones and getting a little sportier. Unfortunately no photos have survived of those.

Later, my Uncle also got the specials bug and I helped him build his very low, light, modern Austin 7-based special. He tried to get it to look a bit like a Maserati 250F at the front and it had the typical special-builder's short back.
I remember many trips in it at 70 or more MPH, which was good for any car then, let alone something which started life in 1937 and had only 747cc.

One night, during one of the last real "pea-souper fogs" we were travelling home on a 30 mile journey which would normally take about 35 minutes, but which, with me feeling the kerbside through the side-curtains, took 3 hours. The battery came loose and burned a hole in the aluminium back end! But, frozen almost stiff and dog tired the old girl got us home.

Pretty soon, the aluminium sheet jobs started to give way to the new post-War material, fibreglass and all manner of wierd and wonderful creations were popping out of tiny units up and down the country from recently de-mobbed servicemen looking for a new direction in life. Some, like the Falcon were really quite professional looking and some were just appalling to look at, but the public took them and a new industry was born, with several companies specialising only in the bits and pieces that would make your special go better as well as look unique.

I had thought most if not all these old fifties creations had disappeared, but, true to British form, many have surfaced again and been lovingly restored by a completely new generation who weren't even born when the cars were originally made for a hard-up motoring public.

Americans had hot-rods, mainly because their cars had all had thumping big engines to cover the mileages in that country and they hadn't had rationing of fuel and just about everything else to hold them back. But here we had to watch the pennies and a home-built special was the only answer. New cars had to be exported to try and get some money back into Britain's War -emptied coffers, so we built cheap and cheerful specials.
I'd love one, but they seem to be fetching as much, if not more than, the cars from which they were built. Not so long ago an Austin Seven Special was an affordable entry level classic car, but no longer.

Twas only a bird in a gilded 'Cage.

2009-10-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

Many years ago now I was looking to find a suitable subject for an "on-spec" model and I found, quite locally, a company who had in at that time no less than three Tipo 61 Maseratis, otherwise known as Birdcages, because of their astonishingly complex multi-tubular spaceframe chassis.

I couldn't resist the challenge, so I photographed and measured the one that seemed to me most "unrestored", though I soon discovered there ain't no such thing as unrestored where old racing cars are concerned. This one was the ex-Moss and Gurney winner of the Nurburgring 500.

Measuring such a car, even when the bodywork is conveniently off it is no easy task. I decided to split the chassis up into imaginary "bays" and drew each one on the back of a business card (I had plenty!). Then I sketched all the difficult bits from different angles and, of course, photographed every little detail.

When I got home I started the drawings, but found that due to the number of diagonal members of the frame I had to resort to drawing them in colour to explain the different planes in which frame members went through space.

It was much later that I discovered such a system is used when computerised draughtsmen do complex drawings on CATIA, etc. for car body design and the associated engineering.

The model was to be made in my favourite for large models of 1/12th scale, or one inch to the foot, a splendid scale which is on everyone's steel rule.

Surprisingly, though a presumably metric car, I found it to have a great many dimensions that were spot-on Imperial including some of the many tube sizes.

I made the model from various scale sizes of nickel silver rod, because nickel is so much stronger than brass. All bracketry and platework that was part of the chassis was done in brass as I had some the right thickness. The removable panels were made in thin aluminium as are the real ones. These all fixed to tiny brackets soldered to the framework.

I had to make special jigs for the front suspension mountings as they sit in mid air at strange relationships to any pieces around them. The most difficult assembly of tiny bits was the front suspension tower, being many small pieces of thin sheet. The tiniest parts were the 1mm diameter steel ball joints in the throttle mechanism. I had intended having the model carburettors working as far as external mechanism was concerned, so turned the tiny ball joints in the lathe with a special tool and then "popped" them into undercut receptacles which then allowed a fully jointed mechanism all the way from accelerator pedal to engine.

Also the gear selector was made to work, so that you had to depress the gear lever to engage first and reverse and flip a little detent over to get reverse, too.

The jigs for the front suspension can be seen on the left of the above picture and the gear selector and gate on the lower right.

The steering worked with a real rack and pinion operation, which would have used correct steering arms, but the model was bought by an eager French gentleman before I got any further!

The steering wheel was made just as the real car, with 24 seperate pieces of wood, twelve either side of the aluminium rim, in four layers, with the grain running in the correct direction, like the rim of a cart wheel. The steering column had three fully working universal joints, a la Maserati, just 3mm in diameter.

I regret not fully finishing the model, but my unexpected French customer was insistent that he take it as it was, so who am I to have argued?

But I have some nice pictures of the work to remember it by.

Now you see it.......

2009-10-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

When I was painting my canal scenes and engines I found a grubby little picture as frontispiece for a small book on Clyde Puffers, one of my favourite little ships.

It struck me that it would lend itself to a silhouette painting, something I'd never tried.

I found it to be a challenging and intriguing form.

The Puffer above was my first.

Then I tried a Fowler road locomotive working hard up a hill.

And finally, perhaps my favourite, Concorde on its last flight home from America, to be grounded for ever all because the French don't know how to handle a sweeper when bits fall off Boeings at their airports. As scurrulously political a "decision" as ever was forced upon a nation. And as good a reason as you'll ever need for not voting when the underhanded wastrels come a-knocking.

To make the impression as stark as a good silhouette should be I used Indian Ink that I normally used for technical linework. This is really black. Then on the Concorde picture I experimented with a faint lightening of the hue to suggest just a little detail.

Extra.....ordinary

2009-10-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

What?...a penny-farthing bicycle?

No, an Ordinary is what they were really called, as distinct from the Safety cycle.

And as distinct from BBC or CNN or BSkyB is news from the home land... the everyday, the ordinary stuff of which life is composed for most of us.

By special request of some friends in far off lands whose backgrounds, real or distant, genealogically keep them tied, however tenuously, to a feeling of belonging to Dear Old Blighty, Perfidious Albion, das Mutterland, I bring them tales of the everyday. A Lake Wobegone of the Odd's County.

Well, principally, to the weather. It's been dry down here in East Anglia for weeks.

The ground is so hard that some playing fields have had matches banned for fear of the poor dears hurting themselves when they take a dive in the penalty box. And that, friends, is all I know and more than I care about football.

Over here in the Flatlands we suffer wind. Eggs and pickled onions will do it....no, no, really, we are scoured by an almost constant strong breeze which sometimes feels like there is nothing between us and the Russian Steppes.

Consequently, there are no trees to speak of round here and it's not because the landscape is largely manmade in the last 200 years from marsh and wetland, it's the wind.

We live our simple, uncluttered life in a small caravan in the corner of our daughter's garden whilst ostensibly restoring our boat and when that wind comes up it rocks us. The aluminium panels on the sides "oil can". They pop in and out making a noise like Rolf Harris on Acid as the pressure waxes and wains.

Trying to keep a picture on the digi-box with the aerial mast wanging about is a constant battle.

We have our TV aerial mounted on a pole which is tied to a washing line post with criss-cross ropes. In turn, it is stabilised from turning by having two furniture clamps fixed to it at the bottom, one each way with rope tied to each and tensioned back to the farmer's fence. So, you might see how getting a new position and tuning means standing in the howling wind, untying each rope and repositioning the clamps, retying and retuning the digi-box in the usually vain hope that it will bring in Stephen Fry's QI on the channel curiously called Dave or an hour later on Dave Ja Vue (oh, ha-ha).

On Saturday and Sunday evenings there is nothing on the telly at all. Really, it is dire, so Chris and I sit and listen to Bob Harris on Saturday on Radio 2 and the very excellent Guy Garvey on BBC Radio 6 Music, on Sunday, being seriously hip dudes, man, both digitally, via the telly. We usually listen to the last half hour of each in bed, it helps us nod off against the oil-canning walls, rattling sky light and howling canine chorus at the kennels down the lane. Don't get much hipper, dude, eh? (Juts chin and knocks ash of imaginary spliff).

As far as a wider Britain is concerned...the cheese rolling was held again at Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire. A look at the website will show just how much organisation and preparation is involved in such a quick and inane event.

But eventually it is just a matter of a Master of Ceremonies throwing a (presumably Gloucester) cheese down a steep hill and inviting a hundred or more of the Cotswold's finest mentally retarded to hurl themselves after it in bumpy pursuit until, legs akimbo and heads too I shouldn't wonder, some cove alights upon the cheese and claims victory and, no doubt, in days of yore, the tupping rights of every virgin from Bourton-on-the-Water to Chipping Sodbury.

Far less dangerous over all is the annual period fest that is the Goodwood Revival Weekend.

This is truly a most astonishing event. I was lucky enough to be there two years ago at somebody else's expense and I loved it. I would probably have loved it almost as much if I'd have paid for it myself too. Yes, it really is that good!

Goodwood racetrack (the tarmac one, not the tedious nag run) was closed due to burgeoning beaurocracy in 1966, but, unable to resist, Lord March opened it again a few years back, but decided it will not have changed. And so, it is still the case that no car built after that year will compete or even take a position inside the environs of the track. And the crowds are positively encouraged to dress in the styles of the years before the cut-off date.

In the paddock, everybody has to dress in period or they simply don't get in. Ladies and their beaus, press and even mechanics must wear suitable gear. The mechanics wear a white overall and a flat cap in tweed. I augmented mine with a fob watch and chain which my wife bought me for use on the back of the boat.

It really is a remarkable sight. It shows how far we have all gone down the path to slobbery since those stylish days. Though I think '66 was a wee bit early for the micro-skirts worn by some of the models and public, but who's complaining, eh, what? Haw, haw. Ding, dong.

Proof that it could only happen in England is that there are so many foriegners come over to drive, look, party, buy or just join in and take pictures. I don't think anywhere near so many go to any other motoring dos than to Goodwood's Revival and the earlier in the year Festival of Speed up the hill to Charlie March's Big House. If they changed the Formula One schedule to clash, there wouldn't be many struggling for pole at Monaco, that's for sure.

When one attains a certain age in Britain, one gets a flu jab. I think it's probably pension age, 65 or thereabouts, but if you fit some other group you also have the right to one, free, of course, my overseas chums, quite free.

Fitting one of those other groups for the first time this year, I was able to just call for an appointment and toddle off to the local health clinic. There I was met, on a Saturday morning to boot(!) by a very pretty young nurse, guaranteed to get the blood circulating ready with a good vein and was sat down immediately by an efficient practice sister who asked me if I was affected by eggs. I answered only in the windy vernacular, but that otherwise, only if taken with pickled onions (sic.)

The next thing I knew she was throwing a tiny complete syringe away (such a waste to the modelmaking mentality) and it was all over. I had felt nothing. Not a scratch. I didn't even feel a little prick,............... but that's another story.

Hawking the brat about

2009-09-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

The thing I always found most difficult when modelmaking full time was getting known in a wider sphere. I was well known enough as a brass patternmaker, a builder of masters, but I wanted to be asked by rich people to build models of their cars, boats, houses, etc..

The only way I could think of to convince any likely big spender that I was their man was to build models "on spec."
So I knocked up the odd item from time to time when things were a little slow in the master world.

One such was the McLaren M8F Can-Am car, which I found at Scott Racing in Brandon, Suffolk. Near enough to my house to be an easy trip for measuring and photographing.

Trevor, Scott's proprietor and his son were helpfulness personified and I had a great couple of days measuring and sketching every detail of the car.
The gearbox and clutch housing of the 1/12th scale M8F model with the suspension bracket made in brass. The engine and gearbox are made in plastic strip and sheet and will be moulded in resin for strength.

My chum Chas has a fotki photo site and he insisted I do a step-by-step album of the build, so here's the URL for that. There are pictures of every stage of the construction up until I moved aboard my boat. Much later I continued to work on it and will finish it sometime.

Find the build at http://public.fotki.com/cafox513/m8f_112th_step-by-step/

Unfortunately the price Bonham's suggested I put on it as a reserve would not these days be attained, or anywhere near. I've also discovered how auction houses rip a one man band off with all their extra charges which they either don't explain when you trust them with your work or don't quantify before they sell it. I once sold another "on spec" model of Miss Britain III via them and I got £2100, six MONTHS after the auction at which the new owner bid £2850, on which he would have paid buyers commission as well!!

Is it any wonder e-bay has stormed the world?

All that glisters........

2009-09-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

A great part of my modelmaking life has been the production of "masters" or master patterns for the casting and moulding industry. Initially white metal and more recently, resins.

For the whitemetal industry it is almost exclusively the case that the patterns be made in brass. My first brass master was made for a very new company then, called Grand Prix Models. I'd suggested they made some kits and they agreed and asked me to make a master of a Trojan Chummy, that strange little pram like thing with solid tyres, much beloved of vicars and district nurses.

And so, away we all went on a mad rush to bring out better and more esoteric white metal models of cars in 1/43rd and 1/24th scale. Over the years I have made over 500 brass masters, but have photos of very few and examples of even fewer.

But here are some:-

This is a 1/76th scale model of a Fairline 50, the company's one-time flagship. It is all in brass, with a little epoxy putty for the "water". The deck removes and inside are seperate cabins with all furniture, all also done in brass, right down to the turned-down corners of the bedspreads.

A 1/48th scale Jeep with trailer and, unseen, its cannon. Bits of its suspension and equipment can be seen in component form waiting for the caster's mysterious art.

The biggest scale I've worked to on a master...1/5th. This B.S.A. DBD 34 "Gold Star" engine and gearbox is the master for a complex kit in white metal for a range of stand-alone model engines for collectors. This is the only one I ever photographed, but I did a J.A.P. V Twin and a Matchless G29 Twin in the same series. Each fin is a seperate casting, all assembled round a length of 15mm gas pipe. Even the nuts and bolts had to be made for these models.

And one of the smallest, but not quite. A master for an Alfa Romeo Spider to a "fit-the-box" scale, for a giftware company. I believe they were used for a motoring version of Monopoly. There was also a Damon Hill F1 car and this:-

A Rolls Royce Silver Ghost at an even smaller scale, being a bigger car, to fit the same box! The artillery spoked wheels were one of the most taxing jobs I've done on a brass master.

A complete 1/43rd scale brass master of a Berkeley T60 3-wheeler. It was one of the last complete masters I did before going to live afloat, where such things were not possible.

This selection barely scratches the surface of all the masters I have done. Not all were in brass. The Aston Martins at the top were carved from a resin toolmakers' material and given brass wheels and tyres with correct tyre tread pattern. They were then used by a silversmithing company to make silver copies to be sold under Aston Martin's giftware label for around £1000 each.

The patterns were rather more expensive....

Distant friends

2009-09-28T05:01:00.000-07:00

There seem to be two aspects of internet socialising, not apparently complimentary. I have done poorly from the first, groups and forums, but very well from the second...Internet friends.

Years ago, when I first got on the worldly web I chanced upon two gentlemen through websites with whom I have corresponded regularly since.

They have been the mainstay of my internet friendships. Chas in California, is a classic and racing car fan and a modelmaker of constantly improving standard.

A brace of Lotus Elite's in 1/24th scale by Chas and Dale. Chas's is the racing B.R.P. one in what he describes as "bilious".

Urbane, witty and constantly keen to learn from his researches and experiences.

Such good friends have we become that Chas and his wife, Ursula (Uk) spent some time with us a few years ago when undertaking a "European tour" and delightful company they were, too.

And then, a couple of years ago when spannering for my son's boss at Goodwood, I was able to grab a couple of coffees with Chas and his friend. naturally they were quickly grabbed opportunities for they wanted to see and watch everything at that unique event.

Chas with a hanger-on he happened to meet at Goodwood!!

My other chum from the States is Rich from Florida. Equally well educated and liberal in outlook, but chalk to Chas's cheese. An old biker, ex Coast guard, digger driver, professional photographer and modelmaker of railway and speedboat subjects extraordinaire. A man whose philosophy is difficult to keep up with, so densely experienced is it. I have rarely met one so well-read. His signature changes for yet another witty and wise quotation every few days. His mails are charged with stream-of-conciousness writing that requires re-reading constantly.

This magnificent 1/8th scale model of a Liberty aero engine as used in an American speedboat was made entirely by hand in WOOD!, by Rich Redfern "plus some pens and a parrot toy" says Rich, with typical modesty.

The point I want to make is that it is possible to make really GOOD friends without necessarily ever actually meeting them, or meeting them once or twice only. I am as fussy as they come about friendship. I have only ever had a handful of really good friends, but a fair proportion of them are at a distance, which, now I have no passport, or any desire to go through the impertinent interrogation necessary to obtain one in England these days, I will be unable to traverse.

When I was unconnected from the Internet whilst cruising on our boat, these gentlemen typed e-mails to me, dated and then printed them out after a month or so and posted them to wherever I was reachable. And so having begun the friendship, we continued it with no real help from the ether at all. And, no doubt we shall do so again, when my wife and I continue our travels.

A beautiful Cooper 500 F3 car in 1/12th scale by Dale King, entirely hand made.

Of course, through first friends, others will come, Dale, a friend of Chas's in America, Frank and Tom in Canada, Ken in London, Dave and Anne Marie in Holbeach, Graham in Walsall, Dave in the Isle of Man. All through modelmaking mainly, but all through a general outlook that transcends the pettiness of forums and special interest groups, where my natural intolerance causes me problems.

To all my internet friends who have tolerated me over the years, I raise a glass and thank you for your unswerving loyalty.

Pin back your lugholes...

2009-09-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

My favourite author is Tom Rolt as he's most widely known. Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt was a writer, philosopher and visionary.
He was responsible for the Railway Preservation movement with the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, the Vintage Sports Car Club and the Inland Waterways Association. The second and third of these ensured the purity of genuine vintage motoring and the saving of the canals for the widespread liesure use they now enjoy respectively.
He found Prescott Hill for the VSCC, which is now run by the Bugatti Owners' Club, who have a museum in his name at the hillclimb course in Gloucestershire.
Prescott has grown in stature to become the premier hill for all vintage and classic motoring events.

Tom's Alvis 12/50 Duck's Back. He never owned a more modern car all his life and was completely at home driving this across country on the minor roads of England as he was making a new part or repairing an existing one. He, quite rightly, proved that an inexorable march , blindy, toward modernism is neither inevitable or necessary. When he became a family man he simply moved seats to a 4 seater Alvis 12/70 Tourer of similar vintage, belonging to his father.

His seminal work, "Narrow Boat", which has been in print continuously since 1946 is rightly credited with saving our canals as places of leisure AND work, where they might have been all filled in if Tom hadn't have led a number of crusading journeys and rallies to save them.

Tom's boat, "Cressy" at the War-time mooring at Tardebigge where he and his first wife, Angela, befriended the March ladies on their boat "Heather Bell", the boat now owned by my wife and I. It was here that Tom formed the notion of an Association of interested parties who would keep the canals going after the War.

Starting the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society and running it almost single-handedly in its early years showed many others worldwide that such was possible.

I have spoken with people who were fortunate enough to have met him or who knew him and it is probably true to say that he was not, perhaps, the easiest man to know. Men of strong, unbendable principles rarely are, but the world is poorer for the woeful dearth of such people in this modern age.
It is also immeasurably the poorer for the lack of writers of his ability. Those for whom writing was a constant struggle, but whose style was born of an earlier, gentler age where the English language was to be revelled in; those who were uncowed by any considerations of political correctness. It is far more enjoyable to read what a person really thinks when it is not only unfettered by such things, but done with elegance and honesty.

Tom, riding an Irish train during his sojourn in the Emerald Isle, for his volume, "Green and Silver". I am homoured to posess a first edition of this fine book.

It was during a period of introspection and, perhaps, depression that I picked up his "Landscape with Canals". I read it from cover to cover in nearly one sitting and when I came out the other end I was fine. I had to read the rest of this astonishing man's work. I knew of "Narrow Boat" but had never read it. I did so and found the same euphoria. It was very easy to see how this one book, more than any other, had started the movement to save the precious resource of our canals and navigable waterways.
I continued with the other two books in his "Landscape Trilogy", "Landscape with Machines" and "Landscape with Figures". These three books form his autobiography and through his self examination help to explain how he, to some extent at least, came to terms with the dychotemy of his apparent hatred of the way the modern world was heading and his love of engineering. All was revealed to him one night at Llanthony Abbey in South Wales. Having been there, I can well understand how his epiphany came about. Reading these books made me want to read his philosophical works. I was to wait some years until I could both find and afford them, for here we enter the realms of rare books and their collectors, for Tom had become a collectable writer.

I'll have a Bloody Mary

2009-09-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

Back in 1929, two school boys looking for something interesting to do in the "long vac" decided to build a car. Not a push cart or soap box...a real car!
They were the Bolster brothers, Richard and John. With a rescued V-Twin motorbike engine, some ash, metal bits and a hand-drill, they put together what was to become one of the most famous hillclimb and sprint specials of all time.
John, it was, who fostered the project after his brother went on to other things and eventually the definitive Bloody Mary was developed into a fearsome beast which often held Fastest Time awards and in fact held a course record from 1948-1953 for unsupercharged cars in the vintage class. I've always had a fascination for specials and for the ultra specialised competition of hillclimbing, ever since my uncle took me to a meeting at Wiscombe Park in Devon years ago.
So I resolved to build a model of Bloody Mary in 1/32nd scale... A working model which, according to my self-imposed modelmaking rules for hillclimbers, should have the motors where the engines were on the real car.
When I say engines, in the plural, I mean just that, for young John soon found another J.A.P. V-twin and installed it next to the first in an extended frame. Connected by chains to each other and thence to a motorcycle gearbox, these two firebrands of engines then were connected to a solid back axle by chain also.
No diff was used, a la Frazer-Nash. Brakes were a vestigial pair on the front axle of Austin Seven vintage. Rear hubs and wheels were from a Frazer Nash, so there were 36 spoke wheels on the front and 48 on the rear!

I started my model by making a drawing using all the pictures I could find and the above old Profile Publication, but quite a few features remain a bit foggy.

Once the drawing was more or less done I made a frame from brass tube in a square section and soldered it up as a simple rectangle.; Eventually it should have a member right down the middle too, but fitting motors may mean that has to be modified.

Then I made a front axle from 3/32" stainless rod. For bearings, the car used a double yoke system which took springs above and radius rods below, so I turned a couple of bobbin shapes in the Peatol/Taig lathe and filed them so that the lugs were of a diamond shape above and below the bearing.

Springs were fashioned from brass and given a slightly irregular look, because they were bound with twine in the fashion of the times.

Keen to start bashing aluminium, which I love to do, I also made the right hand body side from thin proprietary sheet from the modelmaker's friend, K&S Metal Centre. This is a particularly good aluminium for shaping. Cut with scissors, knife and files. This is progress, so far

A return to slot racing

2009-09-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

After 42 years I rediscovered slot racing. I used to be a keen club racer in the 60s, but expensive can motor rewinds and sponsored team drivers at raceways killed it all very quickly, so I walked away from it.

Whilst looking for road vehicles to populate 1/32nd scale model railway layouts I found that there was a whole new world of slot racing, new clubs, new cars from Ready To Run companies like Scalextric and a lot of new companies I'd never even heard of.

During a discussion on Slot Forum I rashly offered to make patterns for accurate 1/32nd scale model car bodies and someone took me up on it, offering to mould them in resin. F-F Models was born, not as a business or anything fancy like that, but as a way of helping fellow enthusiasts out with really accurate, detailed bodies that they could put their own chassis under and go racing. Our website can be found at http://www.ffmodels.webs.com/

Our models are now all over the world and have been very well recieved so far.

This a Lola Mk4 F1 car from the early 60s. An F-F Models body kit built by Chris Wright in America..and very beautifully too!

1931, we had it all!

2009-09-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

In 1931, Great Britain had all the major World Speed Records and that is an achievement that has never been matched, before or since.

To celebrate this fact I did some paintings of the holders, with head and shoulders portraits of the drivers and pilots in pencil.

My intention is to compile these into a poster format for sale.

Here are some of the pictures:-

Miss England II, driven by Henry O'Neil De Hane Segrave, one of the finest of British heroes.

The beautiful Supermarine S6B, forerunner of the Spitfire, with a Rolls-Royce R-type engine, seen on Calshot Water.

Flown by Squadron Leader Stainforth to over 400m.p.h.

The Zenith-J.A.P. motorcycle on which Joe Wright took the World Speed Record at over 150m.p.h.

This is a pencil study, since no colour reference has come to light, though in those days most British bikes were just black!

Bluebird, Sir Malcolm Campbell's record breaker on Daytona Beach. Sir Malcolm and his son, Donald were in very much the same mould as Segrave, breaking records for Britain, before themselves.

A few decades of modelmaking

2009-09-23T04:08:00.000-07:00

Over the years, my main interest and, indeed, profession has been modelmaking.

I began with a model of a sand carrying barge called Peterna, which was made for a small Essex company and carried on making all types of models for collectors, companies and museums all over the world.

I never advertised, word of mouth being sufficient for all that time.Eventually I went to Germany to work on Prototype cars and Show cars, full size, clay and fibre glass.

I started with a passion for model scenery, particularly on model railway layouts. never having space for a layout myself, I made items for others or just as stand alone models

This is a model of my friend's country garage office. Soon it will be demolished to make way for housing and another fine old country garage lost for ever. the reason it can't make a profit selling fuel is that the government insist on too many tank tests and then have the gall to charge for the dubious privelege. They charge so much that it wouldn't be possible to make a profit if the pumps were running all day. No doubt this nonsense has emanated from Europe, where the mainlanders ignore every petty rule and we, the stupid English, labour under them to the letter! And so, for the sake of "being in Europe" a whole swaithe of our heritage and once pleasant land is swept aside. I'd say Tesco's had a lot to do with putting those rules in place. Soon, they'll be the only place a person can buy fuel and then...it'll be charged at whatever they feel like. Choice having disappeared.

This little scenic set-piece was built in 7mm-1ft scale just to remind me of my beloved estuaries when I was unable to be by one.

It is based on my memories of the River Roach when I was a child. My uncle had a Dunkirk Little Ship moored in a mud rill and we would go there most weekends to take a trip out or work on the old boat, a Thorneycroft High-Prow cruiser with a Meadows 4 ED engine.

The photography worked out well as this little set-piece is only 9" square. The dinghy was made in pearwood veneer exactly as the real boats only with no nails! The oars are bamboo.

This place meant a great deal to me when I was growing up, but a storm one night carried away a lot of the scene, including an old railway coach which the Kimble family had used for generations as a longshoreman's hut for their nets and repair materials. Outside it, a brick area served as a careening shelf, where the boats would be cleaned off of barnacles and re-antifouled.

Now, it is difficult to see where we ever went for our weekends. The oyster beds are just discernable as are the last remains of my uncle's dinghy. Wherever I played as a child, samphire now grows, easy for the picking at this time of year.

The old sea wall was crossed regularly by rustic old stiles made from fallen ships' timbers.

Just down from here in another mud rill still remains the last of Darwin's ship, the HMS Beagle. She was used as a Customs point after Darwin's great journey and eventually just rotted away. I used to play amongst her timbers at low tide.

Old clay pipes could till be found amongst the mud.

My canal artwork

2009-09-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

Here are few of my paintings. I started out just doing pictures of classic canal boat engines while I was living afloat for something to do in the winter evenings.
I'd never painted before apart from airbrush work, but with a child's watercolour set I did this one as my first effort and didn't look back.

This is a Lister JP2, a mainstay of the later canal fleets. Heavy, thrifty and endlessly reliable, like all Listers. These are now a very expensive bit of iron, but not so long ago couldn't be given away!
It's shown in a background of a wooden boat very much like ours. In fact our boat had a JP2 for a long time.

This is a Bolinder semi-diesel 2 stroke. This was the engine which almost single handedly transformed the many horse boats and few steamers on the canals into the modern cargo carriers that continued right up to the point where canals became more for leisure than work.
It is started by a blowlamp being aimed at a bulb on the top for about 15 minutes, then it's kicked over by a retractable pin on the rim of the flywheel. Get that wrong and it would throw you clean out the side doors! On some engines there was no gearbox, you had to time it just right and get the engine itself to run backwards, which many 2-strokes can. these engines have just the one massive capacity cylinder, so need that enormous flywheel to keep going. You can hear a hardworking "Bolly" over a mile away.

Although not really ever a canal boat engine due to cost and size, the superb Kelvin engines are now very sought after for powering modern narrowboats and tugs. Their construction is flawless by design and excecution, even the insides of the engine are enamelled in white!

Their main claim to fame is the fact that they are petrol/diesel. That is, they are started on a tiny amount of petrol, then switched over to diesel once running. I once drove a Kelvin J2 and was presented with a 12 point list of operations to attend to each time it was started, but once those items were checked the engine would always start without fail amidst actual smoke rings from the chimney. Its exhaust note of "Gerdonk" was excelled only by a bigger K2 unit I once heard saying "Rivitt, rivitt" to me.
These were the darlings of the Scottish fishing fleet. If you're freezing in a rough North Sea, you need to know you'll get home.

Many people seem to think the Russell Newberry is the Rolls Royce of engines.

Hmmm.

It's certainly Rolls Royce price, but I think there are other, more worthy owners of that title.

Nonetheless, the RN is much loved and even warrants an owners' club.
It has a few strange and interesting features, like horizontal valves, for instance. It was until recently, still made, but at a very high price. It has a distinctive sound, like a cantering horse.

Many of the boats that housed these sorts of engines would gather at this most famous of meeting places...Gas Street Basin in the heart of Birmingham.
This painting shows Gas Street in around the 1970s.
The two boats in the picture are recently decked out in British Waterways colours, albeit without the lettering. The unpowered "butty" was usually tied up to the bank with the motor boat outside it wherever a pair stopped for the night or whilst awaiting loading orders.

These pictures and some others are available to buy as limited edition prints.
The reproduction here is not reliably coloured as, for some reason, they come out a little grey when photographed. Being all A3 size they couldn't be scanned.

I will, I hope, soon have a Paypal account through which they can be bought for £17-50 each+£2-50 p&p in a cardboard tube.

A blog begins.........

2009-09-22T04:08:00.000-07:00

Hello, I'm known as Odds, don't ask why, I won't tell you anyway.
Having been on and left a lot of forums, groups and general collectives of supposedly like-minded people, I have been advised now by my good friend on Slotty Salad, Tom Wysom, to just stick with a blog. The hell with forums and groups and their cliquey, nit-picky, anal smallmindedness.
This is me and my interests, opinions, methods, achievements and frustrations, for what it is all worth, which, let's face it, because we are all very small, is probably not very much.

My interests include modelmaking of most types except military, old cars, old boats, old bikes.

I also draw in an illustratorly, rather than arty-farty style. I like to draw any of the above subjects and paint them too, with watercolours and gouache, because I haven't the patience and skill for oils or the tolerance of acrylic's foibles. I like to use pastel and pencil.
I try landscape and scenic subjects from time to time.

I have a fascination for vernacular architecture and have helped restore old houses with friends.

I have lived on boats, coastal and canal, in caravans, in houses old and new, home and abroad.
I used to work abroad, still modelmaking, for the car industry along with many other Englishmen, for the Englishman's attitude at work is highly prized by Johnny Foriegner as long as he's not actually on the books and under the laws of the host land! Dear me, no. That wouldn't do at all.

I have an interest in certain poets and writers. I can read L.T.C. "Tom" Rolt all day for his philosophy and sheer elegance of the use of English and for his vision.
Philip Larkin and John Betjeman make me smile as does an occasional dollop of PG Wodehouse.
Ian Rankin and Colin Dexter keep me turning pages when I need a mystery to escape to.

Time for tea, I think.