The White Mill Sandwich

Please visit www.whitemill.info for more details about the mill.

With the whips safely stored out of the way, it was time to turn our attention to moving the stock outside to create more working space in the workshop.

Easier than it sounds, when you consider that the stock is almost 40ft long & weighs in at around 1 ton! It first had to be lifted onto a trailer such that it was more-or-less balanced, this was relatively straightforward & it could now be moved.

However in order to get it out of the building a degree of manoeuvering was necesary... this is where things became more challenging! But as always, "applied physics" solved the problem & the stock is now outside & suitably protected.

The life & times of a Peugeot 106 1.5D

The Jury is still out on the non-starting problem of car #2, research so far would seem to point to the injector pump as being the guilty part. Hopefully more research will lead to confirnation of that this week?

Car #1 had a replacement lefthand driveshaft fitted, during which it was noticed that the brake pads were down to their last few miles, so they were replaced later the same day

The White Mill Sandwich

The winch!

The Mill in the winter sunshine.... not looking its best with only one pair of sweeps!

The final sweep being lifted next to the other three... the winch is hanging from an RSJ between the two strip lights...

Please visit http://www.whitemill-sandwich.co.uk/  for more information about the mill & the collection of artefacts

The material for the new whips is now all safely stored out of the way. This time the whole operation went much more smoothly because we discovered an endless which which was much easier (& quicker!) to operate...

The Peugeot 106 saga continues

This is the modified bracket before re-fitting

The injector pump with the cover removed (eventually!) the shut-off valve is the silver thing

This is the original set-up the shut-off valve is just below the blue connector (under the steel cover)

After two hours spent chiseling, hacksawing, grinding & punching we eventually managed to remove the cover from the fuel shut-off valve. I unscrewed the valve & removed the plunger to stop it working. The valve body was replaced, along with a heavily modified security cover (this forms the lower bracket as well as the throttle cable mount so could'nt be junked completely). Injector pipes & cables then went back on... checked fuel flow to pump, cracked open #1 inj pipe, cranked engine...

Nothing...

tried a tow start.... still nothing.... gave up

The life & times of a Peugeot 106 1.5D

There are two of these... one currently wont start, I suspect the fuel shut-off solenoid valve on the injector pump. Normally I wouldn't expect this to be too difficult to eliminate/rectify? in the case of this car though, the cut-off valve is covered by a "security" cover of hardened steel secured by shear-head bolts... what were they thinking?
Tomorrows first job will be to get the three bolts out & remove the cover, then test the solenoid valve...
some info here:
http://www.106owners.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?107113-1-5-D-immobiliser-removal

the other one needs its n/s drive shaft replacing...

Krys' Garage

Another on-going project is a garage/workshop at the bottom of my son's garden. They were lucky in that the previous owner had laid a concrete slab which was just asking for something to be built on it! For ease & speed of construction we opted for a timber frame prefabricated in sections & errected on a dwarf wall three courses high.

There was another criteria it had to meet... the cost had to be as close to zero as humanly possible!

Bricks & glass (frecycle), sand/cement (damaged bags from DIY stores), studs & plates (either factory waste or recovered & comb-joined, 50p/m) cladding f/edge boards (recycled from pallets & existing shed) roof material TBA... corrugated iron?

This morning we made the most of the wearther & started fixing the cladding on the long side... got half way up...

Honda NC50 Express

Moped now completely dismantled & some of the main components have been cleaned. This is the engine/transmission assembly... This bike has a clever (too clever?) automatic choke device which the opperation of which is dependant on the ambient air temperature. In this picture its at the end of the three rubber tubes on the left of the picture, mounted on the cylinder head. Unfortunately, the plastic body on this one is cracked. I'm thinking Araldite, but so far can only undo one of its two securing screws, will see what WD40 can do....

The next step will be removing the paint/rust from the frame & re-spraying in Honda orange...

Emma's dresser part 2

Back panels & top panel fitted now. Shelves fitted to base unit...

Emma's dresser

A friend needed some storage in her new flat....

The lower part will have removeable boxes in each of the "pidgeon holes"... but thats for another day...

The White Mill, Sandwich

The mill is needing new sweeps (sails), the wood to make the "backbone" or whip of the sweeps has been purchased. These are 35ft long pieces of Laminated Larch, approx 8" square in section at their thickest end. These would traditionally have been made from solid timber, which was an option for us &, indeed would have been cheaper, but we decided to go for the laminated material to reduce the possibility of movement resulting in splits, thereby allowing moisture into the wood. Also the Danish firm who supplied the material were able to cut the whips to the necessary taper, thereby saving us many hours of work!

As this is a long term project, we needed to make some space in the workshop by by storing the whips off the ground so that they are out of the way until we are ready to work on them.

This was this mornings activity, as the photos show....

Honda NC50 Express

One of my current projects is an '81 Honda Express moped, bought off ebay for £42, its complete & has a V5. Although I havent had it running properly, before I started to dismantle it I squirted some WD40 into the carb & kicked to over with the ignition on... it made a good effort to start, in fact it ran for a few seconds, so I didnt go any further.

Its now almost completely dismantled & ready to start stripping the paint & cleaning.

The Dover Project

Much of today was spent researching the potential house building project in Dover. The guy at the Building Control desk was really helpful & answered most of my (what must have seemed to him, stupid) questions as well as alerting me to other factors which I didn't even know about! I've just got to do the sums... oh & decide if I want to go ahead!!

DIY injection moulding machine

A home-made injection mould, for moulding a plastic head onto an M6 screw

Here's an injection moulding machine I made several years ago, under the square shaped cover with the label on the front is the heating chamber. Heat is from an electric element surrounding the steel nozzle. Plastic is fed into the chamber, & subsequently into the mould by a rack & pinion, in fact its the steering rack from an old mini! The raw material for this is polythene or polypropylene sheet (waste plastic containers). The idea behind it was to de-mystify the recycling process as well as demonstrating how one of the most common ways of making plastic items works.

Intro Feb 2012

I thought its time that I attempt to make contact with the other person in the world who might be interested!!

I've always had several projects on the go at any one time.... & right now is no exception...
so here's a list:
Morris Minor, '58, two door saloon, black, familiy owned since new
1950's Sunbeam motorcycle, still collecting parts, about 85% there... just the difficult bits to find now, anyone got a distributor?
1976 Honda CG125, an early one
1987 Honda C90, the bike the world went to work on! almost there on this one
1981 Honda NC50 Express moped, a recent ebay bargain, just started stripping
Leisure 17 sunspot, a freebe, needs some repairs to the deck & bulkhead, but otherwise, just a paint job...
I'm a volunteer at a local windmill, where we're currently re-making the sweeps (sails)
My full time job is a Design Technology teacher...

I'm sure there's more but this'll do for starters