Hop planted

Number 3 grill

I don’t own a 2CV any more

Bordurian Air Force Bf 109

DR-Baureihe VT 18.16

Trabi trip

Sheriff Muir Atlantic Wall test site

15th June 2019 14:30

On Sheriff Muir a few miles North East of Dunblaine there is a section of reinforced concrete wall in the middle of the moorland visible from the road.

It was built to emulate a sea wall with a characteristic overhang on the road or “seaward” side and an anti-tank ditch at the base. The front face is pockmarked with numerous impact craters characteristic of shell fire. Significant sections have the facing completely broken away down to the thinner (1/2″) reinforcing rods. Larger (1″) reinforcing rods from the core are also visible in places.

The Northern end of the wall is three meters thick but at the Southern end it steps down to a final width of about one meter. I assume these different thicknesses were to assess the effect of shell fire on different thicknesses of concrete found on sea walls.

In the three meter section there are several significant partial breaches in the structure, probably as a result of demolitions charges – possibly from the Churchill AVRE 290mm petard mortar with it’s “flying dustbin” 12kg demolition charge. These breaches are adequate for infantry to be able to cross the obstacle.

The northernmost of these is a full breach of the wall that’s 4m wide – enough for a Churchill or Sherman to pass through.

On the “landward” side there are large pieces of concrete that have been deposited some distance back from the wall which suggests a significant quantity of explosives were employed.

Being a relatively short section of wall, and with the various thicknesses, it’s unlikely this was used for troop training. The most likely explanation seems to be that this was used for testing the effects of different artillery shells and engineering equipment on a section of sea wall similar to that found at the landing beaches.

Several hundred meters to the South there is a blockhouse which I didn’t have the time to explore.

Strung up hops

22nd April 2019 13:12

As the hop has started growing the stems have fairly quickly reached the point where they need support.

There had been a satellite dish on the side of the house above where the hop planter is now so I was able to re-use a couple of the mounting points for that to put up a wood batten into which I had screwed four eyelets with long stems to hold them clear of the wall.

I also added four eyelets to the inside of the planter and then ran coir string between them using clove hitches to tie it off.

The coir string is good for climbers as it has a rough texture that gives them plenty to take hold of. Rather than the tendrils used by peas and beans the hop stems have very small hooks on the stems that feel almost like velcro and it’s these that hold them onto the strings.

2CV rear wheel arch rust treatment

1st April 2019 16:05

The rust proofing – or rather lack thereof – that came from the Citroen factory is well known to 2CV owners and mine was no exception. One of the areas that this manifests is the rear wheel arches as they’re hard to get to with the wings on and they get whatever’s on the road effectively deposited over them by the rear wheels. When we changed the chassis I had a look at them and there was a suspiciously iron oxide tinge to some of the mud brown so I put this job on my list.

With the rear wings off the wheel arches are easy to work on. The first step was a thorough clean of the clart to see what was going on. Mostly the surface was OK and the paint, although not great quality, was still holding. There was still some underseal in evidence but not uniform as evidenced by the areas of surface rust. The main areas were the bump stop mountings and the seat belt reinforcement panels (that had been replaced in 2004).

Treatment for this was a wire brush in a drill to take it back to good metal followed by rust remedy. A top coat of blue hammerite finished it off, this turned out to be much lighter blue than I was anticipating but it’s in an area that doesn’t show, will be covered in underseal and when the rust returns I’ll be able to see if it’s in a new area or the same place which would indicate a deeper problem.

With the rust treated it was time for a decent coat of underseal, not very pleasant stuff to work with but when it’s been warmed up it at least goes on easy enough.

The final part was the leading edges where the wings are affixed. There were a few places where the tin worm had established colonies so these were attacked with the wire brush followed by rust remedy. After some creative masking they were treated to etch primer, primer and two top coats.

With all of that done, this area is now much better protected than when it left the factory, hopefully that should put a crimp in the style of the tin worm which was close to getting established in places.

Papa Legba vector veve

24th September 2018 13:11

Papa Legba is the loa who facilitates communication so represents a powerful force in infomancy. I use his veve as a technomantic sigil and my current iteration is a digitally native vector format: as a set of instructions it is literally drawn out by the computer.

Thf Sonic Wave (with Laser Bird) and Thf Tape Corps

19th September 2018 13:17

With 2 Deformation modes!

Second compost bin

9th September 2018 16:34

We’ve now got two compost bins, one (right) is the working bin and the other (left) is the maturing bin.

When the working bin is full it is turned over into the maturing bin – i.e. the top of the working bin gets put into the bottom of the maturing bin leaving the oldest compost at the top. We can use this compost from the top whilst the bottom of the bin continues to compost. The working bin can then be filled up with new material and the process can be repeated.

Nice compost at the top, ready to use

Big lumps of grass cuttings don’t compost very well, they tend to turn into layers of anaerobic slime. Normally I try and cut the grass often, taking less than a third off the blades means I don’t have to use a grass box and the cuttings will break down in the lawn giving the nutrients back. When the grass is growing faster and opportunities to cut it are less – mostly in spring and autumn – then I’ll collect the cuttings, put them in a pile next to the boxes and then put them into the working box in small batches so it gets mixed through.

As a bonus, some of the potatoes we’d put into the compost had grown so we have an unexpected harvest.