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Im a boatbuilder, i also have a keen interest in boat design. I too would look at Phil bolger designs but limiting to 6ft long or slightly bigger is going to be very very borderline on size to make a safe boat especially for one intended for wheelchair access. A friend built a small pontoon boat...

Definately Iroko. I took a similar load out of a local college ten years ago, that was new built in 1971, There is much wishful thinking when lab benches come out, unless its pre war its unlikely to be teak it was simply too expensive. Last lot of teak i had was about 20 years ago, cable duct...

For what its worth, the English channel is the buisiest shipping lane in the world we have had light or variable winds for days with only sea breezes during the afterrnoons. We were out on the Thames off Southend on saturday & it was busy with shipping, about 8 ships went up & down on the tide...

I had a look on you tube, hundreds of videos showing how to do it & some dreadful looking set ups. Sorry but playing with home made lash ups & high voltages equals a darwin award.

I used to have a Bosch detail sander but it got nicked out of the back of my car a couple of years ago, Im a boatbuilder & do quite a bit of restoration work. Currently restoring a clinker built sailing dinghy & there is much sanding to do on the inside, very fiddly with lots of corners...

Regarding prices, It should be remembered that old machines like this will often not conform to modern safety regs, not a problem for those of us who are one man bands or hobbyists but if you are employing people its a big consideration. There are a lot of old machines around & the market is not...

Well a bit of good news, just got sent our D&T class Gcse results, the best for years. They were a good class with some smart young people, maybe a few engineers or good tradesmen/women in the pipleine! So it looks like im still in a job for a while yet.

My first experience of powered respirators was back in 1979 when i worked at Thames marine a boat factory. The three guys whose job was to trim the edges of all the GRP mouldings were issued with Racal Airstream powered respirators & two of them swore by them, the other wouldnt wear it as he...

Years ago i bought three scrap machines from a demolished timber yard in Billericay, A big 30" Wadkin bandsaw, A Chain chisel morticer & a Dankaert circular saw, The bandsaw was laying on its front in the mud & the saw had had its table ripped off & broken in half by a digger. That got...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is the truth of it, add on that the academy system has made the buisness side of it far worse, the costs of feeding the service provider cuckoo gobbling all the money mean less & less to be spent on pupils. It was suggested earlierthat private firms might provide...

Quote' I'm sure there will be lots who disagree - but I'm trying to come at this from a different direction and believe me - if the problem isn't fixed at primary level, you'll have kids turning up at secondary who don't know what a drill is and are too scared to hold a saw. Unquote. Secondary...

Practical skills are not valued because too many people know the price of everything & the value of nothing. Everyone wants cheap stuff then moans because it breaks or wont do the job. They want cheap tradesmen so they employ eastern europeans, then they employ someone else cos they are cheaper...

In the 87 hurricane a lot of trees came down in our area, among them were a number of mature ornamental cherry trees from Victoria avenue in Southend, these were cleared by contractors & dumped on Two tree island. My other half & I liberated some sections for my dad before they all got burnt. We...

I work in a school as a D&T technician, i am increasingly disilusioned with the way the subject is going. It is being dumbed down year on year. In our school we had a typical 1970's workshop set up with a lot of high quality machinery, the drive to academy status saw this scrapped & replaced...

I just finished this Cigar box guitar off, it started out as a Ritz casino box & has a maple & walnut neck, the box lid was very pale so it got a nice piece of book matched burr walnut veneer with maple inlay. Tuners got new half moon bronze knobs. It has a preamp & rod piezo pickup. Nice bluesy...

Nothing worse than seeing a nice piece of furniture covered in crappy chalk paint, upcycled shabby chic. Yuk!

I recently started using it as i have gotten into building musical instruments & for this it is excellent. Cost of a purpose made glue pot is horrendous but a bit of digging reveals the fact that a heated wax warmer pot as used in beauty salons for waxing is actually just the job. I bought one...

I have a Wolf gut buster drilll built in the early 60's, it is a fearsome thing that does 350rpm, last time i used it was to drill 3/4" holes in a cast iron boat keel 6 " deep. It just plows on & will not stop for anything. I doubt the modern wolf tools are related to it in any way apart from...

The bearings are tiny bushes & built into the case & are not removeable, shaft is only 1.5mm dia, Its not fixable otherwise i would!

Got the motor out & its bearings are totally worn out, Too tiny to make new ones. It turns out to be a rather specialized motor known as a coreless or ironless motor which is a type of permanent magnet dc brushed motor, there are some numbers on it but a google search turns up nothing. Now...