UPDATE: Emailed/phoned 5 or 6 companies yesterday – only 1 responded with a firm quote and will deliver, but the numbers look good so will go with them. Tinman Steel (via Ebay) if anyone needs something similar. As ever, thanks everyone.

Thanks all – my Google-Fu seems stronger on a Monday morning, post-coffee. Have a few more leads to follow up. Mrmo – thanks, all useful stuff.

Leku – good shout, but not long enough. The area is ~flat, so I’m trying to avoid any joins length-ways. Also, needs to be delivered….

Keep the ideas coming though – I’m anticipating several dead-ends before finally getting some metal to arrive on my driveway!

No worries, ta – think I found them.

qwerty – can you remember which company? (….will have a google in the meantime/if you can’t….)

wrightyson – he is a good guy actually and managed to bring some sanity to both sides of the conversation yesterday when it was perhaps spiraling towards pistols-at-dawn. I don’t mind problems – they are inevitable – it’s how they are dealt with that i’m interested in. The completely dismissive attitude by the plumber about the leak – followed by a bare-faced-lie about the crack to the cistern – turned out to be the bigger issue here….

UPDATE: Appreciate all the comments regarding me supplying/them fitting etc, but the analogy garage-dweller makes is the correct one – if it was supplied faulty, then that is my look-out….. if it was damage during fitting, well that’s a different can of worms.

Anyway, after a fairly frank exchange of views it appears the ‘probably cracked’ line was a crock of **** – there was no crack. After this, the project manager came round and between him and the plumber they reassembled the toilet again, and it has now been been leak free for 12 hours – make any inference from that series of events that you will ;-)

In light of the above (BTW – everyone agrees floor is suitable. I gave them sample to inspect and approve before buying it…) – the deal is that it will be left to dry for a week – if it’s still swollen then they will refit the floor FOC, replacing the swollen boards with the spares that are left over.

About as good a result as cloud be expected…..

Blimey – so many reasonable responses in one place in here….. you all feeling all right ;-)

Might be worth avoiding the act of screwing the cistern to the wall for the time being – maybe it is these fixings that drag the doughnut out of line enough to cause a leak

That’s a damn fine point MrFinger – the fact I could look between the front edge fo the pan and the underside fo the cistern could mean either the ceramic was a little wavey or the top screws were pulling the cistern back onto the wall….. could be either I guess, but worth checking.

Pan is back-to-wall style, so access to all the fitting is nigh-on impossible once the connections are made and it’s been shuffled into position and screwed to wall and floor. Due another conversation later so we’ll see what the mood (both ways) is….

Snagging – yes, expected and accepted. However, there was more swearing in the air when I discovered this than for the rest of the snag list put together ;-)

dooosuk – that’s kind of my feeling on both counts…..

I’d get manufacturer to replace toilet and get the chap to fit FOC

Would be happy with this, but I think I need a compelling case that it is a genuine fault and not brain-fart during fitting. This was literally the last thing they did before waving bye-bye.

peugeot 106 xsi/rallye/gti/quicksilver

+1 Always regretted not keeping my second GTi in diablo red.

Dooosuk: Yeah – this is the advise we had from the guy who initially came in to advise us. We have internal QA procedures for all areas of quite a varied business (including usual purchasing, training etc). The irony is is that we’ve reduced our whole-company QA system from a set of ring binders (but still clear, totally usable, robust and appropriate) down to a bare bones of ~50 sheets of paper just to make the auditing process easier…..

In my experience it depends on who is doing the auditing. I worked for a company who used Lloyds and they were very thorough and came at things from all angles to make sure the process was as robust as possible. Bureau Veritas on the other hand..

Good to know – been working towards my companies ISO9001 certification for about a year now and trying to work out who ‘best’ to come in and do the certification.

Clubber – if you use him, mention he got a(nother) recommendation from here. He was pretty incredulous when I explained the route by which I got his number…..

As follow up to show these threads are useful, and for anyone doing a search in future, I followed ADH’s recommendation and confirm Leigh is a top bloke and has sorted my aerial needs.

Hmmm – I know what you’re saying. Two problems are a) I have no time before scaffolding comes down to DIY it and b) the right-first-time thing…….

[DOUBLE EDIT – I really musn’t]

Thanks ton – yeah, prob a bit far.

Current setup is one primary socket which goes to one aerial – two others sockets share a feed from another aerial on the same fixing/same location – a third socket is also going to this aerial as part of the loft work. Not all these secondary sockets are used (and currently none are, and aren’t likely to be all used simultaneously). Previously, bother aerials were in the loft space – they (obviously) now have to go outside and neither they, nor the fittings are up to it. Signal strength is good – on top of a hill with line-of-site to the transmitter.

Gatorskins or Durano Plus for me, depending on the season. Only ever had one puncture in 3 sets of Durano Plus….. and that was nail through the sidewall. Not sure you can get the Durano’s in 23 though – def 25, but they are a big 25 with the PU strip.

Brookfield garage on Ashley Down Road have always been good for me. Indy Ford specialist. Not used them for a year so so no recent recommendation, but have used them for mechanical work and MOT’s in the past.

I run a Airborne Carpe Diem ti as my commuter/winter bike, which works well

Same here, well, except the Alu version (but I am on the look out for a Ti one or poss a VN Amazon) – for anything on tarmac it is a pretty good compromise. For bigger tyres my Pompetamine covers the bases – they are, currently, my only two bikes and between them can cope with anything from the winter club run up to jey-offroad-lite with a bit of spannering…..

A couple of years ago I was in the garden when I noticed my neighbour on a ladder, up a tree trimming branches with a saw he’d just picked up at B+Q in t-shirt and shorts. His concession to safety was a pair of sunglasses to stop saw dust getting in his eyes.

I offered to give him a hand (I have chaps, boots, gloves, helmet jacket etc), but he laughed it off as being over protective. After a while I simply couldn’t watch as the saw was kicking all over the place as he reached further and further, combined with the ladder was slipping. Don’t think he injured himself, but I am waiting for the shallow end of the gene pool to get a little less dense the next time he tries it….

Perhaps it’s my Monday Morning Grump talking, but if you’ve gone to the cost and effort of producing a bike, why not leave a little bit of budget back for some decent promo photos to show your efforts off.

This

But kids have

and this

probably not as much as being on here has

:-)

On the up side, we would have to run a second car if I didn’t cycle to work, so with depreciation, running costs, fuel etc etc that I’m NOT paying, it’s like having a (conservative) extra £4k a year gross in my pay.

Well, it works in my head… ;-)

Synology +1. Only scratched the surface of mine, in terms of functionality, for home use but seems to do what I tell it to do without fuss.

“Recently”, off the top of my head, he was King <insert ancient name here> in Troy and was rather good as the voice of Anton Ego in Ratatouille.

Jeez BristolB, 5000 km on a bike that is lumpen and uninspiring, that’s a lot of miles of pain and punishment.

Agreed, to a point – it is damn comfy to ride, provided you’re not in a hurry, and has entirely neutral/predicatble handling, which is what you want at 7am in the dark through traffic! Also, I spent quite a lot of time speccing and building it, so I am reluctant to give up on it….. plus, did I mention it is (bar 1 puncture) 100% reliable in that 5000k….. but it is consistently 3 mins slower over my usual hour ride to work….. I could go on listing the competing pros/cons :-)

As I say, I have a very love/hate relationship with it – it ticks so many boxes, and it should be the perfect tool for the job…. but it just isn’t.

Alfine 11 spd in a Pompetamine here, so exclusively road miles. Had its second service and is now at ~5000km. Yes, gear spread is bigger than the 8-spd. I’ll go for a smaller ring if it ever wears out as the top two gears seem huge, but the gap to bottom is quite big. In the middle the spread is pretty good.

It’s built as my winter commuter but, TBH, I pretty much do anything to avoid riding it as a) the hub is a big lump which makes the bike feel dead and b) in comparison to my derailleur bike, which is a similar build, the gears feels draggy. You have to go at the speed of the bike and maintain momentum, head winds and gentle rises in the road can be mental and physical torture. On the flip side, it only goes out on the sh!tt!est of days and has been 100% reliable. Yes, rear tyre changes are considerably more faff, but I have only had to do this once in 3(?) years ‘out in the wild’ and it isn’t so bad once you have the knack. I have a constant mental battle over the bike in that it is bombproof, dependable and (almost) maintenance free, yet it is the most lumped, uninspiring bike I have ever owned.

Pick the bones out of that as you will! ;-)

What they all said. Only additions:

– You will struggle to find any fresh food in the parks once you leave the hotels.

– The evening show is pretty cool; lights lasers, water, fire…. probably a kitchen sink in there a well, but a spectacle non-the-less. Ignore the fact (specifically for this, but the whole park in general) that it is consuming more energy in a day than some countries do.

– The piped birdsong playing in the trees around the hotels is spooky – the constant Disney tunes playing the park will drive you mad, especially as you move form one ride to another.

– DO NOT eat in the blue lagoon restaurant – yes, you are next to a fake river inside a ride, but the cost is horrendous for a plate of sh!te.

– Marvel at the fact that, despite the number fo people passing through the gates each day it never seems untidy and is absolutely spotless again each morning.

– The extra time in the parks in the morning with the hotel tickets is worth it, if only for allowing you to ride Space Mountain repeatedly until your brain is dripping out your ears….

I’ve used toughened 2-part structural epoxies with good results (something like 3M 9323, though the price of a 1 ltr kit for a single joint may be prohibitive!). The key is surface preparation – degrease as a minimum, grit blast as well would be better….. a proper surface primer or an acid etch would be best so you are bonding to the aluminium itself, rather than the oxide surface layer….

EDIT- Oh and design of the joint is obviously quite critical, and if you can design in some mechanical redundancy, that would be great ;-) Shouldn’t be too hard with a drop-out…

open a dos prompt in that folder (shift and right click

I did not know that. Nice.

I think you may have to define ‘cheap’, or the list could cover a lot of unnecessary economic ground!

I’ll live with some opacity (?), but the white stuff appears to be solid white, while the red (say) is most definitely red, you can;t see the little magic fairies embedded in it with their glow sticks (NB – this may not be how it works….)

I’d like it to be clear (well, as opaque as possible) so the underlying color of the surface it’s stuck to comes through. As far as I can tell, you can get the tape in pretty much any colour, except clear/opaque.

So, either nobody knows, nobody cares or it doesn’t exist! ;-)

Bloody hell, its almost an exodus to Texas!

Was doing it 4/5 times a year, for a week or so at a go, up to MiniBB No.2 being born last year and am now fighting hard to only be sent when absolutely necessary on red-eye trips. Do miss Shiner in frozen glasses, portions of steak/seafood I could live on for a week and the general feeling of being in a city that is itself a Disney theme park version of what a Texas city should be. Do not miss rush-hour traffic on Beltway 8, I45 or I10…..

<bookmarks thread for future over-weekend business trips>

Quick update – on the advice of stevied, I took a flyer on some Sidi straps that looked like they would fit (Genius 5.5 and 6.6 compatible). Turned up yesterday, and they do fit and work without modification – result. The teeth are a bit deeper, which meant it was a little tighter sliding them through the buckle loop – the flip-side being that the engagement on the buckle ratchet is a lot more positive, which is no bad thing.

STW to the rescue again!

My clients seem to think I’m so wonderful that I’ve suddenly ‘achieved’ a huge pile of new work on my desk which means I can’t now make a training course next week that I booked in for 6 months ago. F@@kers…..

Cool, will try that – tis a bit weird/annoying that I can find the part/part code/part name easily enough from google, but not find somewhere to get it (easily)

OK sorted now – thanks all. I have something working which is currently a bit of a blunt tool, but has scope for refinement when time permits!