fredk

deviation; I think the very dangerous thing I/we used to do as youngster would be called a 'mortar' Here, the real fireworks had long fuzes, which gave you 20 to 30 seconds to do anything.We got a length of plastic water pipe. Stuffed a 'sky rocket' firework down it. On top of that we put a paper cup or paper cone filled with fire-crackers. We lit the fuzes on the fire-crackers or other small fireworks. Then one of held the pipe as another lit the fuze on the sky-rocket. The tube was hastily shoved into a bucket of sand or soil, at an angle off from vertical but close to. The sky-rocket fuze had been cut short so it would go off well before the fire-crackers. If all worked well the skyrocket launched taking the paper cup up and as it exploded it sent the fire-crackers flying out, and then they went off, whirling and twisting as each section exploded. Sometimes, one of us (usually me) had to hold the bottom of the pipe to stop it falling over, and sometimes (a lot of times, ) the fireworks didn't go skywards but dropped on to somebody's house roof PS. as my friends knew I was from Chicago they gave me the nickname 'Chicargo Chuck-a-boom'

Years ago I came across a craftsman, who I knew casually, at an out door craft fair. His specialty was/is high quality wood turned items and other wood work using extremely very nice woods He had printed signs on groups of his items. But he had one price sign that said £2000. He placed it randomly on his wares. As I watched I saw the sign working for him Like this; 'Is that really the price?' 'yes it is' 'What, £2000 for that ?' My friend lifts the price sign, turns it round, looks at it and says 'oops, thats in the wrong place. Those are only £x each' 'oh, thats better, Can I have that one with the dark & light wood?' My friend then tells the buyer what woods they are, how to look after it, then throws in foc a small tin of special wood polish See, psychology, the customer is drawn by the £2000 price sign and even when buying at the lower true price in the back of their mind is the thought they got a big discount bargain, £x instead of £2000

If the case is made tight to the battery, the thick leather and straps underneath should be sufficient to prevent any 'sag', (imo)

Spoiler! No Way Hose-A. I need to see if he has clean hands earlier as well Actually, yes. Western dentists, as well as English Victorian era dentists were good. Dentures were made of real human teeth, either from cadavers or from donations. As early as Roman times soldiers had a good a side-earner taking teeth from the battle dead and even from prisoners and selling them to denture makers. There was little wrong with most teeth in Victorian times, Very little sugar in the diet. Almost, the poorer you were the better your teeth were. Unlike today And you didn't want to complain about their dental work on you, especially to a certain one! PS. Notice the guns? afair, just right for the period, Due to Clint. He is what is commonly called a 'history buff' He has always insisted that things are correct for the period in his films. Even to having an exactly correct copy of a newspaper in one of his films. Its seen on a table for about 1/2 second, but it is period correct

Now I'm gonna have to watch that whole film again to find that!

As you would be aware; piles of horse manure & waste hay can start burning in its depth. If not noticed and dealt with this fire can build and explode outwards setting fire to hay bales and buildings. I once had the winter supply of coal and logs start burning in its depth. This pile was right up against the oil tank which held 1000 litres of heating oil. The tank was plastic. My father did a lot of wood-turning and he often had the waste start burning as he worked

a diversion, a wee story. When I did freelance photogs & journ, when doing groups of people I use to get one of them to write down everyone's name because we have so many weirdly spelled Oirish names. After getting the list I was checking them over with the person who got them and wrote them down for me. When I got to one name she says 'thats me'. I says, 'you spell your name with a (x)'. 'No!' she says,' thats wrong'. 'But its your name and you wrote it down' says I. (pause) then she says 'I'm so used to other people mis-spelling my name I mis-spelt it too!' I once did a book cover thingy. Wrong spelling of name. I did the name on another scrap piece of leather, fancied it up then glued and riveted it over the mis-spelt name. Job was a good un, person thought it was 'really nice' ! A very handy way of covering up those wee mistakes

I can hear the Mission Impossible theme

That looks the size of a car battery! I'm used to motorcycle batteries being much smaller, weighing just a couple of pounds. Do you really need so much power?

When did you last have tea in a caff? sure those teapots they have are impossible to pour from with out making a puddle on the table!

Wow! you have an order form? and you give people choices as well

US spelling = coloring, vs British spelling = colouring

The OP can tell us, but nearly all modern motorcycle batteries are totally sealed for life. Thus they don't spill acid when a motorcycle goes topside I would put two straps around the case in a + shape with the ends of one making your carrying strap I used to have a case of this sort for carrying extremely heavy dry cell batteries and a very large condenser for a portable camera flash unit. The gubbins for inside weighed about 6 lbs. The case was about 8 inches by 4 inches and 6 inches tall. Very thick leather, 3 straps around the body and a separate carrying strap held on by loops and D rings on the back

yup, dun that two Colin turned out Golin, Andy became Amdy, left out a T in Kitty, spelt Gemma Jemma

. . . . . when you stamp something to find you've done it up side down?

Difference in culture; here buyers like a wee bit of banter as they deal, sometimes with a wee bit of bargaining to boot. If you (I/me) just blurt out the price I'll lose the customer because to them that is just a hard sell and they don't like it We like chat, banter. We can string out one comment about the weather for a whole afternoon

I string the customer along; How much is it? Not sure, I really don't sell those If you did, how much would it be? Dunno. I'll have to work it out. (pause), mmmm, probably about £xy . You can buy real cheap versions made in China for much less. But mine are quality leather. Hand made Proper leather? Will you make me one? Yeah, I reckon I could. It'll take me a while though. I'm a slow worker Can you have it ready for (choose a month)? What?! THIS year! mmmm. . . . I think I can and so on. . . . .

We sound like the 'Four Yorkshiremen'

Has this been 'spoken' for? If still available I'm interested in it Possibly, Airmail letter to UK

I do. We brought all ours from US to UK. A few people here wore galoshes but not many. They seemed to soon fall out of fashion. Sometimes just called 'over-shoes' here I do. Not as often or as high a shine as when I was in RAF. But about every 2nd or 3rd day they get a good cleaning and polishing, maybe every day in a bad wet winter. We don't get snow here Same. And I did my boys school shoes every night. 3 boys x 2 pairs each. I did them to RAF standard shine This, is very true

you guys know this sort of thing is already available right? I just bought two tubes, one of blue and one of black. I'm going to try them as fillers on edges of made items, rather like a thick edge paint. If they work I'll get other colours Its a vinyl repair paste for repairing scratches or splits in leather, especially furniture or car upholstery. I first used it about 35 years ago to repair splits on my Cadillac dash-top. I bought a kit from a company called 'Eastwoods' of USA who specialised in supplies for refurbishing US cars, With that kit you got special sheets of plastic which you pressed onto the paste as it set. The sheets had common surface textures so you could match your dash top's texture. The stuff worked ok, it wasn't the best but at about $10 for the set was a lot less than $500 Cadillac wanted for a new dash top panel shipped to me. photo example of tubes of paste; the colours can be mixed, just like paint

This evening I just spotted that Le Prevo has replacement tubes for the rotary hole punch http://www.leprevo.co.uk/hole-punches.htm