What have you fettled today?

[Mr Larrington]

The chime has long been disabled on the ghastly thing.

[Kim]

Have you considered replacing it with a digital one? 

[T42]

Many's the time I waved a middle finger at ours.

Nah, that's not true.  It stood in our hallway when I was a toddler, and when I opened up the hood in 1991 it still smelt of smoke from 1940's Manchester. Took me right back, it did. Eugh.

[Mr Larrington]

He's still going

[T42]

 

---o0o---

Meanwhile, I haz risked liff, limb, intervertebral cartilage and trousers, and exchanged the monoplace bin in one of our kitchen cupboards for a tripartite slide-out thingy with 3 bins, two littles and a big, so that we can sort our garbage according to the eMacrobe's Holy Writ: one for normal gash, one for food waste and one for a knock box.  Said operation involved much hoking about in the depths of a 35x50 cupboard in positions I wasn't designed to assume and still regret. Nice to feel virtuous, though.

Now supping a genteel pint of hot chocolate as a reward.

[Andy W]

Fixed a puncture in rear mtb inner tube. I thought I'd fixed it last week but it went flat after 2 days . Tube only had the 1 patch. Tested it all seemed OK but I suspect the repair was sub optimal. Bought new glue and cut new strip of 120 sandpaper, abraded the tube thoroughly glue applied left it for 5 minutes applied patch and talc. Inflated it 6 hours ago and all seems fine.. its likely that the old solvent glue was old and the first patch 'let by'. £4 from ebay supplied me with 5 small tubes if solvent cement. So rarely use it. Bit disappointed with myself as I'm 63 and have successfully fixed punctures since I was 10. Joking really

[campagman]

Much swearing at Fort Larrington’s hideous grandfather clock, which keeps conking out for no readily-apparent reason.  May have sussed the cause; keeping an ear cocked lest he decides to misbehave again.  Wretched thing…

We have one that dates back several generations, probably to the mid-19th century given the sentiments expressed in the dial paintings.  Our doesn't go any more, and the jeweller who looked at the movement for me explained that with time the bearings, being steel running in brass, become sloppy and the gears jam.  A clockmaker can tighten them again by putting a sharp-edged cylinder over the bearing in the brass back-plate and whacking it with a hammer.  This squeezes the brass together around the shaft.  You can only do this once with any certainty, though: doing it twice will likely damage the plate.  Ours had already been done so that's that.

Also, the [wretched, noisy] things are very sensitive to vibration and need to be levelled perfectly.  When ours was going a lorry going past could stop it, and even someone walking heavily could do it.  I used to keep a try-square on top, and I had it tethered back to the wall to keep it vertical.

We think that if the movement isn’t positioned just so inside the case the anchor that's driven by the pendulum and which in turn drives the entire mechanism doesn’t perform properly and the thing stops.  I've re-centred it – it appeared to be a couple of cm off to the right, probably from ham-fisted winding – and the thing is still going after four hours whereas before it would go sleepy-byes after ten minutes.

Is the tick-tock regular? You may have to adjust the beat. There are plenty of vids about setting up a longcase clock. You may have to adjust the pendulum crutch.

[JefO]

Took time out from the vagaries of life and immersed myself with sketching from an excellent photo (not mine) with the permission of the fantastic photographer Vicky Kinsman.

[T42]

   One used to live in the far end of our barn.  In French they're called chouette effraie, chouette being an owl and effraie being terrifier.

[CommuteTooFar]

A week or so ago the front of house ring circuit stopped working all sockets dead. Including the central heating. So I have been cold and a little smelly.

I went around the sockets and could not find anything.

Then yesterday I though I remembered where the ends of the ring are.   A socket in the dining room and the central heating.  I am in the middle of changing the dining room socket into a double socket so I had no socket there just Wago connectors to continue the ring.  I noticed one of the wires had partially pulled out.  So pushed it fully in. I switched the circuit on.  And one other circuit jumped into life.  A bit  of disappointing, I was hoping for more.   I had to go out, so I visited my brother to have a shower and nothing else was done.  It was a good socket to start with I could use the kettle in its proper place.

Today I suspected the kettle socket and I opened it for a second time.  I had dislodged a wire when I checked it.  I pushed it back in.  Powered the circuit and everything is alive. 

All I have to worry about is why the ring is not connected at the end.   The central heating was rewired by a British Gas Homeserve engineer replaced a broken wiring box with a new one.  That's the next thing I need to look at.  The immersion heater should have been on its own circuit but is now on this ring.  I believe this is also the end of the ring but is not properly joined up. Sigh.

[JefO]

Removed a (dead) floodlight (LED and PIR) installed a few years ago and massively overly powerful for the job.

Fitted a 10w PIR unit which is a tenth of the weight of the old one, and illuminates the back garden much more delicately.

[Afasoas]

New tyres onto fettled onto the Gas Pipe Hybrid. Rear axle also swapped out for a slightly longer one so now the Carry Freedom trailer hitch can be used.

Next job is fabricating some brackets for securing ECE IIIA reflectors and lights to the cycle trailer, at the appropriate height, so we're fully legal for night time use.

[sam]

New chain on the Langster. Couldn't get the powerlink to snap into place, so had to practically stand on it!

Also lubed the vicinity of the headset, as it was creaky up there.

[JefO]

Spotted a "New Other" Shimano rear hub on ebay on Wednesday, that looked like the one on my 29er, at £15 inc postage without original packaging.

It arrived around midday today, so I measured the hubs to verify they were similar, stripped the old hub out of the rear wheel (the wheel bearings were not in great condition when I re-balled them a few months ago, and the cassette hub bearings have been getting louder too), cleaned up the spokes, nipples and rim and rebuilt the wheel using the new hub.

No more annoying little noises when I spin the wheel now. 

A very rare occasion when the total cost of the job was just the part I wanted to replace, particularly so with wheels, and 5 hours of my time!

[Afasoas]

Spotted a "New Other" Shimano rear hub on ebay on Wednesday, that looked like the one on my 29er, at £15 inc postage without original packaging.

It arrived around midday today, so I measured the hubs to verify they were similar, stripped the old hub out of the rear wheel (the wheel bearings were not in great condition when I re-balled them a few months ago, and the cassette hub bearings have been getting louder too), cleaned up the spokes, nipples and rim and rebuilt the wheel using the new hub.

No more annoying little noises when I spin the wheel now. 

A very rare occasion when the total cost of the job was just the part I wanted to replace, particularly so with wheels, and 5 hours of my time!

It's nice when that happens. And good that you have the skills. I've managed to avoid anything like a hub transplant thus. I figure I'll have to learn to build wheels at some point if still running bikes with rim brakes - and I hate the waste you get with running factory wheelsets.

I think I dropped particularly lucky with the new old stock hubs I bought - they be around 30 years old now so for them to turn up with no wear on the cones was amazing. The thirty year old factory grease though 
I suspect the freewheel is going to this treatment before it's pressed into surface.

[Mrs Pingu]

Yesterday, I removed the back box from where the old CH stat used to be and started covering it up.
20240217_171732-COLLAGE by The Pingus, on Flickr

If anyone fancies Farrow & Ball paint, I suggest you don't, It peels like a bastard.

I was planning on giving that a sand down and some more filler today, but after today's well ventilated ride ICBA.

Also removed the old doorbell chime from the wall as well and gave that a fill.
PXL_20240217_134031445 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[The Family Cyclist]

Over the last few days have stripped the old paper off the feature wall in youngests bedroom, yesterday filled the cracks and holes and today assisted the wife in backing papering it. Not too bad. Her Dad's coming over to do the good stuff but he is well into 70s so she is right it's about time one of us learnt and I'm happy for it to be her

[andrewc]

Installed another grab rail in my father’s bedroom.  Less work than I’d expected.  I’d forgotten that internal wall was breezeblock rather than brick.

[T42]

Swapped the stem on the eBrute for one that's about 15mm shorter and lifts the bars about 5mm.  Dunno if it'll have much effect; the stretch is still about 10mm longer than on my carbon butterfly.  Took it up the road & back: feels OK so far.

I reckon I'm about 3 cm shorter than I was 20 years ago. Ah well.

[Feanor]

A week or so ago the front of house ring circuit stopped working all sockets dead. Including the central heating. So I have been cold and a little smelly.

I went around the sockets and could not find anything.

Then yesterday I though I remembered where the ends of the ring are.   A socket in the dining room and the central heating.  I am in the middle of changing the dining room socket into a double socket so I had no socket there just Wago connectors to continue the ring.  I noticed one of the wires had partially pulled out.  So pushed it fully in. I switched the circuit on.  And one other circuit jumped into life.  A bit  of disappointing, I was hoping for more.   I had to go out, so I visited my brother to have a shower and nothing else was done.  It was a good socket to start with I could use the kettle in its proper place.

Today I suspected the kettle socket and I opened it for a second time.  I had dislodged a wire when I checked it.  I pushed it back in.  Powered the circuit and everything is alive. 

All I have to worry about is why the ring is not connected at the end.   The central heating was rewired by a British Gas Homeserve engineer replaced a broken wiring box with a new one.  That's the next thing I need to look at.  The immersion heater should have been on its own circuit but is now on this ring.  I believe this is also the end of the ring but is not properly joined up. Sigh.

I've only just read this.

If what you say is accurate, then it sounds horrendous: one of the worst electrical installations I've ever heard about and is quite probably dangerous.
A broken ring, connections which are loose enough that wires are falling out, the high load immersion connected to the wrong circuit, along with the kettle, on what sounds like one leg of a broken ring...

You *really* need to get an electrician in to sort this out properly.
IMHO.

[De Sisti]

I gave my bike a deep clean after yesterday's muck-fest of a road ride. I can thoroughly
recommend wax on a chain (doesn't have to be too complicated, as described on this forum
and on various Youtube videos). Simple melted flaked candle wax worked fine for me. 

[campagman]

last week I cut up an old MTB tyre to use as packing to stop the gate next to my house rattling. It's going to be pretty windy tonight/ tomorrow so will see if it's a success.
Today I fitted a plate to the rear of a fizik saddle so that I could attach a Junior saddlebag. The plate doesn't have to take the weight as the bag sits on top of a rack.

[Tim Hall]

My ancient Denon CD player didn't work when asked the other day. As it hadn't been asked to work for Quite A While I suspected something was gunged up. Opened it up, poked,prodded,gave the motor spindle a twist. Lo! It lives!

Reassembled it and music pours forth.  Only one bit of divvery - putting the magnetic wotsit back in upside down, so that the drawer would only open when there was a CD in it. Soon sorted though.

[zigzag]

after having my runabout bike* vandalised last friday, i fettled a replacement one - the iconic apollo cx10. tensioned spokes, centered and trued both wheels, replaced inner cables, adjusted brakes, gears, swapped qr seatpost bolt with an allen bolt, changed the tyres, patched rear inner tube. will be putting mudguards on and a d-lock holder later this week. stem and saddle will be swapped at some point too.


*i've used this bike for 7.5years, so it has run it's course and doesn't owe me anything. shame about the fact itself though.

[Jurek]

My ancient Denon CD player didn't work when asked the other day. As it hadn't been asked to work for Quite A While I suspected something was gunged up. Opened it up, poked,prodded,gave the motor spindle a twist. Lo! It lives!

Reassembled it and music pours forth.  Only one bit of divvery - putting the magnetic wotsit back in upside down, so that the drawer would only open when there was a CD in it. Soon sorted though.

A CD player.
Is that similar to a digital watch?