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Editorial ramblings

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Website outage

There was a problem with the website and forum over Christmas which I didn't cause or fix! I tried to contact Blackzen, our website host but even their e-mail was down so I couldn't even contact them about the problem. It's all sorted now but if people notice any missing pages then please contact me and I'll replace them.

Peter Gibbs' latest build

Peter Gibbs, in Austalia, is building another Pembleton and his blog can be found here and a more general set of blogs, including Peter's is here.

Spinning

There was a recent discussion on our forum on spinning aluminium and copper cowls. I found this picture (sorry about the quality) but that's what I call spinning for real men.

Period look for Moto Guzzi cylinder barrels

There has been some discusion about rounding the more modern square cylinder barrels on Moto Guzzis. Here is a picture of rounded barrels on a Triking - looks good.

Model Engineers' Workshop

The October edition of Model Engineers' Workshop (#181) contains an article on building an english wheeling machine which will be familiar to attendees of Duncan's weekend workshop. An english wheel is used to make compound curves in sheet metal by squeezing the sheet between a cylindrical roller and a profiled roller. The article used home made wheels but referenced a site that supplies either complete wheeling machines, kits for home completion or parts, such as the wheels/anvils. The smaller machines are, I think, surprising inexpensive.

Another article in the magazine descibes a gas fired home foundry for melting and casting aluminium. The author is keen on the lost foam method for patterns.

I have wanted to get into metal casting but it's a bit dangerous if anything goes wrong. It's the problem of finding a suitable working surface - any damp surface, such as concrete, risks an explosion if a spill occurs.

It's a very variable magazine - some issues have nothing of interest to me and other issues, such as #181, have lots of interesting stuff.

Build in the Bog

My own build seems to have ground to a halt. I had to stay in the UK for almost the entire summer and when I was in Ireland I had lots of house jobs to do as I was told they were far more important than building a car. All I managed was fitting an internal mirror, fabricating and fitting wooden arm rests and binding a four spoke steering wheel with 6mm nylon laid rope. I think rope looks more period than braid. I boiled the bound rim and the rope shrank and went hard. I have to say I think it looks really good. I did get a big blister on the index finger from pulling the rope up nice and tight - it was the blood stains (real patina?) that made me realise what I'd done. Talk about being insensitive!

Articles and reports for future ePAG issues

I'm always looking for material for ePAG so please remember to take photos and write something - I'm happy enough to edit stuff so don't worry about layout, spelling or grammar! Text articles with separate pictures e-mailed to me will be gratefully accepted. Without authors there are no articles or reports and withut articles and reports there's no ePAG!
The Editor


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