It’s done!
Relining Viola Case – Part 3 – Finished
Reply
Category Archives: Fixing stuff
Relining Viola Case – Part 2 – Progress
Relining Viola Case
Musicians need throat sweets – you mustn’t cough during a performance. However throat sweets can escape at which point everything gets rather sticky.
The melted sweets can be seen here escaping from the compartment in the bottom left of the picture. The case hasn’t been used for a few years as no-one wants to play a sticky viola.
Continue readingFixing the shed
This blog has been quiet for the last few months as I’ve been working on a big, fairly dull, project.
We’ve got a concrete sectional shed at the bottom of the garden that was put up by the previous owners of the house. Nice building – suspended ceiling, chipboard floor, plasterboard walls, good lights and lots of electrical sockets. Only problem was damp.
There was a damp proof membrane in the concrete floor slab. One problem was the membrane was 150mm underground. One end of the slab was embedded under a retaining wall; the uphill side of the building was paved level with the slab and had no drainage other than across the top of the slab.
Continue readingWanderer Dinghy – replacing rubbing strip
Finally got the rubbing strip back on. All the existing screw holes were ok but I did buy new screws as the old ones were mashed up from rubbing on the ground.
Filthy device
I tried to fix my other half’s electric mixer and the inside was so filthy I had to share it. This is 20+ years of flour and cocoa powder. Actually very well made – all metal mechanism and the electrics are fine. However the wormwheels are stripped after mixing heavy mixtures for all that time so not viable to fix 😦
Andersen Self Bailer Repair
As I mentioned before Custard leaks a bit – not enough to be a real problem – I just need to make sure she is bailed out every day if she’s afloat. However, this isn’t ideal.
First step was sorting out the self-bailers. These are Andersen/Elvstrom Super Medium bailers made in stainless steel. My original idea was to remove them and blank the holes; however I thought it might be easier to repair the original bailers.
Repair kits are readily available although not cheap. I got mine from Force4. They include the two gaskets I needed plus rivets and thicker gaskets.
At first glance it looks like it is necessary to drill the old rivets out to get the old gasket out. However, this isn’t the case – the old gasket can be pulled out of the recess by prising with screwdrivers and pliers.
Continue readingTesla Model 3 Towing Dinghy
I wanted to get an idea of energy usage involved in towing Custard – a 14′ Wanderer sailing dinghy – so I could work out our range when towing the dinghy.
Update: I’ve now got the actual figures.
A Better Route Planner provides an easy way to work out how to get somewhere with charging stops along the way. You can also tweak your car’s energy usage. Their base figure is nominal usage at 65mph.
Custard’s trailer has higher drag that I would expect – in my Mazda 6 it looks like petrol consumption goes up by 25%. This doesn’t appear great for something that is fairly aerodynamic (boat shaped) and not particularly heavy (I guess around 340kg). When I used to tow a Jaguar 21 – 1100kg plus trailer – it seemed to double petrol consumption so for something much smaller 25% seems high.
Anyway, first guess was that the energy consumption in the Tesla would go up by 25 – 33%. The nominal energy consumption per mile is around 255Wh/mile at 65mph according to A Better Route Planner. This seems close to what we get on a normal local journey. So this would mean consumption of around 320 – 340 Wh/mile.
Continue readingMounting trailer tyres with hand tools
The best way to mount 8″ trailer tyres is to take them to a tyre fitter. This method is how I did it and I’m noting it for future reference. However a lot of swearing is involved.
First look at the wheels and tyres. The ones I did years ago went on fairly easily. These laughed at me – no way were they going on.
Wanderer Dinghy – Mast Step Repair – Part 2
Making progress. I cut down the GRP a lot more, then removed the old tabbing holding the central ply in place.
The plywood doesn’t look too bad. There is definitely damage in the frontmost section but this isn’t structural.
Continue reading
Martin's Blog 