Citrojim's AX, Pixo, C3, Running and Cycling Tales

[CitroJim]

I'll remind you of that last remark when you've got them cherry red with 10 tons on them, and they're still laughing at you!!

Always the optimist

[CitroJim]

A very special run in Salcey Forest this morning

This was my fifth half marathon in as many weekends and day 40 of my current run streak. This is where I've run at least 5K every day for the past 40 days... Most days it's been over 10K...

5K over a half!

A most excellent run and I'm rather delighted with my 10K, 10 mile and half marathon splits on this one... 10K in well under an hour, 10 miles in just under 90 minutes and the half marathon (13.1 miles) comfortably under two hours

HM split time...

It was a total joy running in the forest today, a magical way to spend a Saturday morning

[Zelandeth]

I'll remind you of that last remark when you've got them cherry red with 10 tons on them, and they're still laughing at you!!

I have "interesting" memories of trying to get the bearing off the hub of a bus (I think it was a National) which had been thoroughly overheated. After several hours of fighting with it with all the big tools, we eventually got to the point that the only real option left was to cut it off. This was after we'd dragged the bus halfway across the workshop sideways with an industrial forklift hanging off the bearing.

About three milliseconds after the torch hit it the thing literally exploded. We eventually found about 60% of the bearing scattered across most of the workshop.

We were all very glad to have been wearing the correct safety gear at the time. My ears were still ringing for about half an hour though as it went with one hell of a bang.

[CitroJim]

Love it Zel! In truth, pressing out bearings can always be a bit of fun...

I remember years back now when I needed to replace wheel bearings in a 205. In those days I had no press of my own and used to 'borrow' the press in the MT workshop at my place of work.On this occasion one of my workmates asked if he could see how it was done...

Off we went to the MT workshop, each carrying a hub... I set up the press and started to press the first one out...

Pump, pump, BANG! As they do... I find the big bang when the bearing lets go very satisfying

'That's how it's done Gordon... Gordon? where are you?'

Gordon was hiding, nay cowering, in the corner of the workshop...

The big bang as the bearing released scared him witless... He rapidly lost interest at that point...

[Hell Razor5543]

That is almost as 'bad' as what happened to a friend of mine. He was making some tear gas, and one important detail is that (when you have produced the solution) you must NOT do anything to disturb the liquid before it is decanted into its' 'working receptacle'. The fluid had been produced, and was ready to be decanted across. My friend carefully removed the bung (with the pipe in it), and lifted it up. A little droplet came out of the pipe, and hit the surface of the fluid. The tear gas made it to the lab door before my friend did!

[Michel]

Our chemistry teacher at school, at the end of term, decided to show us how fierce an acetylene/oxygen explosion was.

He built a little brick “cupboard” and put a couple of milk bottles in it. These were to be reduced to powder by the explosion. He got a bin liner, then filled it with a mixture of acetylene and oxygen. He made us all retreat a safe distance and put a paving flag on top, with a few big stones to hold it down. He made a fuse out of magnesium. Coiled magnesium..... stretched out

Lit fuse, magnesium hadn’t been properly deformed, so took on the shape of a coil again so the long fuse was now no longer long.. huge bang, teacher blown off his feet , flagstone flung some yards. We all pissed ourselves laughing.. Mr. Morris has been deaf in one ear ever since

[RichardW]

It appears that the hub / strut is all one piece - so you have to take the whole thing off, and deal with rather a lot in the vice to get the circlip out, and the press to get the bearing out!

[CitroJim]

Lit fuse, magnesium hadn’t been properly deformed, so took on the shape of a coil again so the long fuse was now no longer long.. huge bang, teacher blown off his feet , flagstone flung some yards. We all pissed ourselves laughing.. Mr. Morris has been deaf in one ear ever since

Magic Would have loved to have seen that!!!

A thermite welding demo is also very good for demonstrating exothermic reactions and potentially safer too!

It appears that the hub / strut is all one piece - so you have to take the whole thing off, and deal with rather a lot in the vice to get the circlip out, and the press to get the bearing out!

Yes, but against that, they're only small Richard I've done a pair of Pug 106 ones in the past and that was quite OK so hopefully Daffodil's will be too... Fingers crossed

Just had my new FTTP Broadband installed... Fibre right up to a little media converter inside my house... It's quick by my standards, 100Mb up and down I could have gone much faster had I needed it and had deeper pockets...

100Mb is more than adequate for me... My biggest use is streaming a bit of telly in the evenings...

In the event it's £10 a month cheaper than my old and not so speedy Plusnet ADSL...

Makes all the digging up they did in the spring and summer to install the fibre infrastructure all over town well worth it...

As a demo of the speed... Every day I take an off-site backup of this very forum.. On Plusnet it took 15 minutes... On this new fibre stuff it takes 3...

Well happy ;D

[mickthemaverick]

Does that mean you have 12 minutes a day spare then Jim? Result!!! You can do Daffodil's bearings over a week and not take any time at all!!

[CitroJim]

Does that mean you have 12 minutes a day spare then Jim? Result!!! You can do Daffodil's bearings over a week and not take any time at all!!

I wish Mick, I'll have no trouble filling those 12 minutes... 12 minutes longer on the bike or out running Or 12 minute more baking!

Still on the subject of my new broadband, during the install I needed to move my car to allow a hole to be drilled through the wall...

The installer looked at my Saxo and asked 'Does it go?'

Cheeky bugger

[Michel]

My brother messing about in his backyard with thermite.. about 18sec in. The bang echoed around the valley.




And a crucible failure time-lapse in the same back yard!

[Hell Razor5543]

He might wat to see what happens when Thermite mixes with ice (but he MUST take good safety precautions!);

[CitroJim]

Lovely I do love things like that! I'm a bit a pyromaniac on the quiet

[Zelandeth]

Looking forward to giving Sky the boot here now FTTP has been enabled on our street. Given we've got three people working from home and in near constant video conferences plus are something of a tech heavy household we'll be going for the full gigabit package.

I'm very much looking forward to this for two reasons.

1. I get to destroy the old Sky router. I'm not sure whether fire or a sledgehammer are going to be the method of choice. It is the single piece of technology which has caused me the most frustration and gnashing of teeth over the last few years.

2. It's a good excuse to finally properly sort out own internal network infrastructure. No more PC World cheapy nonsense...Cat 6 cabling through the whole house and an expensive shopping session (will probably mostly be Cisco Systems gear I go for as I've always had good luck with their stuff in the past) for network hardware to follow.

...The fact that routing the cable will require dismantling large portions of the house I'm looking forward to rather less. Most annoying is that there's no access to the wall cavities from the loft due to how the place was built so you need to be really careful where you drill holes for cable drops. I've already wound up with one hole in a ceiling rather than into the wall where the cable was meant to go!

Having all enterprise grade hardware will be a lovely step forward from the bodged together mishmash we're currently using.

To be fair...step 1 will just be to plug everything into the existing switch (which isn't horrible) and see what happens. I reckon with the stupid router out of the equation a lot of the other gremlins might also vanish. I know it has diabolically poor traffic management for one thing and refuses to properly allocate IP addresses to certain devices.

[mickthemaverick]

There is only one decent way to deal with a Sky router. Soak it overnight in white vinegar and allow to drain in the morning. Then using whatever method you find best inject golden syrup or better still black treacle into the cooling vents. Then wrap the entire article in waxproof paper sealing it with decent duck tape. Pop it into a jiffy bag and send to :

SKY Corporate Head office, Headquarters
Grant Way, Isleworth,
Brentford
TW7 5QD,

Add a note saying how much you enjoyed their equipment and you hope they don't find it as sticky as you did!!

It really will make you feel good........it did me!!