Does anybody have the time/capacity to print a couple of parts for me for some beer tokens to help pay for their hobby? I’ve got a couple of bits I’d like printing but the online quote houses are hella pricy! Any black tough ish material would be great – ABS or similar. They’re a couple of kit car brackets / trims.

I’ve got a 2000 yaris (japanese VIN rather than French – worth checking yours). Look on the LH side of the engine for the PAS pump belt – its almost guaranteed to be hydraulic. There are likely two belts visible, one pump at the front (if you’ve got AC as well) and one at the rear – PAS. Check both are tight (shouldn’t be able to move by more than 5-10mm if pressing on them). Check fluid is at the correct level under the cap.

The reason I’m suggesting this is it could be a simple case of the belt slipping and so the assistance going strong/weak. This change in force can give the appearance of it going out of control, but really it’s just the power assistance fading in and out – control is maintained but it requires more effort and could catch you out.

ARB bushes seem to be a common issue on these, but it wouldn’t contribute to strange steering, only knocking and larger roll whilst going around corners. So don’t look here unless you’ve good reason to.

An MOT centre should have a shaker plate – putting it one one of these and standing underneath quickly shows what is worn and providing excessive play. £54 for a complete and accurate diagnosis (and an MOT if it passes!) can be well worth it. I have another car and I went round with the tester and saw for myself all of the wishbone and damper joints which were knackered so knew exactly what needed replacing. New bits in and all knocks and steering changes were gone.

If it were something of mine in the garage I would just oil and put up with greasy hands, but I realise that’s not great for a classroom.

What about black oxide by heating the stands up and dipping in oil? Gives you a coating like a wok, not hugely durable, but slightly malleable and easy to reapply, and isn’t very sticky. Good excuse to buy a blow torch or use the hearth in the D&T class!

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general-archive/oil-blackening-rust

Not an answer to your question I’m afraid, but might be of interest. I had the great pleasure of meeting Karen Darke last year and after that i read her book “boundless”. The things she has completed are incredible, such as climbing el capitan, cycling across Greenland, kayaking around Corsica. It’s well worth a read if you like that adventure autobiography style. I don’t generally, but read it in a couple of days as it was so good!

To say that carbon cannot be repaired is blinkered. In Motorsport CFRP often has repair schemes applied which then go on to complete their rest of their mileage, or sometimes limited mileage. It’s a case of repair with the required expertise applied, which may be expensive due to the rarity of those skills, but likely cheaper than a new frame. Simply filling with additional epoxy is not a valid repair in most cases.

I’m afraid I can’t make any recommendations op, but that’s what I’d look at, although it’s likely to be economical to just get the new triangle.

Nevermind, I’ve just worked out you’re the chap with the GTM!

What’s the kit? I’ve been down in a locost a couple of times, and may go this year in another kit.

I’ve been going the last few years, and would recommend the opposite – tie down the car for the weekend under a decent cover, immobilise it somehow, and cycle around. Parking is expensive, traffic is horrific. Take the biggest baddest locks you can and use them sensibly and you should be alright.

Was just about to post about the ukelele teacher, but beaten to it!

I’m completely untalented, but can make some noises now based on his videos.

Also, there’s the obligatory stairway to heaven which is a lot easier to play than it looks! Not at full speed though…

I had the same issue on Tuesday when the update was pushed out apparently. Plusnet had for evenings of over 30 minute hold queues and we’re none the wiser. Eventually the plusnet forum held the same solution above, not from a moderator but by another user. I find incredible that their call centre and customer services aren’t fully aware of this and mentioning it on any faults this week.

Bt and plusnet hubs appear to have exactly the same hardware, so affected in the same way.

If you’ve not got another network, unplug CC, change your Wi-Fi codes, use a phone to create a hotspot, then apply the update to the CC on that, to avoid taking down the router.

plusnet forum link

Other end of the cost spectrum for my approach, not necessarily the best, but works for me:

Ebay speakers local pickup – £10
Ebay digital amplifier board (TPA3116) – £5
and suitable power supply (old one from a modem) – free / £5 if bought
speaker cable – free / £5 if needed
audio jack for phone/mp3/chromecast – free / £15

It’s in a garage that will be dusty and not moisture free, so I want it to be cheap and replaceable. However it does meet all of my functional needs – music played loud and spotify or BBC radio through iplayer etc.

I put a Royal D 12pc dinner service, 12pc coffee service, and 12 pc tea service on gumtree. Hundreds of pieces, almost immaculate condition, one cracked pepper pot only. I was amazed at how cheap you can pick sets up second hand. The china search online companies weren’t interested for some reason. I managed to get £200 cash from a person off gumtree, collected so no worries about breakages and posting insurance etc. I didn’t want to do ebay due to unreliability of buyers, and the cost.

I tried halo hex key skewers and one sheared after around 6 months of use. Seemed to be a not uncommon issue at the time.

Heading down Thursday am, public transport, but my camping buddy has bailed so I’ll be hitch-hiking to get around Thursday, Friday and Monday.
Porsche to win everything.

1 medium fresh egg per person.
100g 00 flour per person.
Knead thoroughly until elastic. Add /subtract flour to get right consistency – just do it a couple of times and you’ll know when. Think firm bread dough.
Wrap in clingfilm and fridge it for 30 mins.
Roll through machine. Flour if it needs it to not stick.

Pretty good results every time using the above.

I can thoroughly recommend “Conker” from Dorset. They use fantastic local botanicals, it tastes and smells of Gorse to me in particular, reminding me of exploring where I grew up. Tricky to find but well worth seeking out!

Recently I bought this from appliances direct (with a discount code by signing up to Which? for £1 trial).

here

Happy with it so far – it’ll take 8 hours on normal laundry setting to get the 1 washing load dry to the touch. As we run our house at ~16°C we went for dessicant rather than compressor.

It’s a bit loud but we keep it in the bathroom with the door shut so it’s not disturbing to us. Less noisy than the extractor fan we used to have on permanently.

I bought this one (to replace a broken one) as a cheap quick but and it’s proved OK so far after 10 or so goes. Been using stones for about 5 years and leave them in the oven the entire time (off the floor!) As a bit of thermal mass to keep oven temperature more even, although it will cost a bit more in leccy.

£8 pizza stone

I’ve used laser scanning (on site so no idea of cost I’m afraid) for bringing parts into modelling quickly. I certainly wouldn’t use one for reverse engineering though, only as a formative guideline. A CAD jockey (like myself, so perhaps biased) would be able to do a better job of modelling it from scratch given the object and a pair of calipers, although not necessarily cheaper.

Halfrauds do it as mentioned above

I bought from energy saving led as mentioned on this thread. All the replacements are great for colour (which we found was unsuitable with the originals) and have proven reliable so far!

Mentioned it in this post
I sent the unit back because of this and other concerns in the end.

Got 2, probably only used a dozen times, but no problems in the time that I’ve had them.

I signed up when they first started. The coffee was great, packaging good, friendly and clear etc etc. Just found that for me £7 for a bag of coffee was too much, £3.50 supermarket ones although not as nice are much friendly on the wallet and I couldn’t justify the price difference. But I am tight.

So who in Didcot has the belt drive bike – must be somebody on here? I recently saw a green frame locked up with a rohloff belt drive “chainset” locked up to a Day 01 alfine. Looked really nice!

Unfortunately I have no idea how to get the marker lines onto a Garmin. You can export to a kml to read them in google earth, and then perhaps convert in google earth to something else to load onto a garmin?

I’ve created a custom map which is open to editing by everyone. Feel free to use the trails I’ve already marked, or add to them if you’re local!

Didcot Local Riding

I just googled pooing animal repellants and it directed me back to STW! 5 appearing in my garden, which I discovered after finding one on my back wheel. I have a chilli sauce which I haven’t got on with (bitter astringent taste) and was going to chuck it out. Well I have now, just all over the lawn! Hopefully it’ll keep the poo-fiends away.

Those brews of mine which have tasted slightly sour have coincided with those which fermented through in warmer seasons and the airlock bubbled away frenetically. I try to brew only in autumn/winter/spring now as I don’t have the space for a brew fridge to regulate the temperature.

That’s only one of the things it could be down to though!

Just a word of warning re the solar storms. Bought a set from eBay, colouring not as described (no big deal seeing as it’s going to be used in the dark), battery life very poor, and not entirely waterproof. Plus the emf radiation knocked out my cycle computer interestingly, not when switched off but only when switched on. Hope vision 2 in the same location on the bars, no problem.

Decided the lights weren’t for me, eBay refund requested, seller agreed to pay return postage as good faulty and required by DSR and sale of goods, then didn’t, apparently forgot about agreeing ( message history in the email itself!) , then didn’t respond further leaving me out of pocket. Finally I contacted eBay and they refunded the return postage and will charge it to the seller, so sorted for me.

Just a word of warning, still reasonably good value for money, but the lights weren’t for me.

Would happily do it on mine but not some else’s pride and joy, just in case! But as for removal – dremels were made for this kind of thing. Small bit and some water, and lots of patience with gentle cuts.

As for putting it in, as above bolt with nuts and washers. Quite slow but maximum feel for a thin/fragile bike frame compared to the proper tool which can be cumbersome. As you’re only doing it the once you don’t need the tool IMHO.

Planning on going up onto the Ridgeway to watch it!

To clarify changing supplier, BG offered to install a smart meter. We had it for about 6 months then changed supplier. The SM still works with our new supplier for us monitoring, but we have to manually provide meter readings to our new supplier, no harm done.

I posted on these Lepai a while back. But just to repeat myself, first one arrived off ebay with a high pitched whine / buzz. Second one sent through FOC – takes about a week for delivery.

Had it for about 6 months now, no real issues. Had to sort out a power supply – relatively easily done – but make sure you go for a high enough power (current) supply otherwise it limits the amp a little. The amp is slightly lacking in power/refinement to go proper loud, but plenty enough for normal room use, really compact and reasonably well put together. Only gripe is the volume rotary switch is not entirely proportionate or easy to adjust – not a major issue though.

All I need is a way of using spotify on my android phone to play music around the house via wifi etc. Anyone got any cheap ideas for that? I can’t (won’t) run wires through the house – it’s a rental and it’s a convoluted route from my PC to kitchen / bedroom etc, so would end up with them crossing carpets , door hinges etc.

Too many tyres here. I have been out for a skid ride just to burn through a rear tyre like I’m 12 again!

Anybody got a spare 32T 104 pcd 4 bolt chainring, of knackered condition? I’m looking to finish my pub bike – would pay postage!

I bought through these guys:
Energy Saving LED[/url]

Had an issue with one going pop after a couple of days, got in contact and they said there was a batch issue which they thought they had caught all of. They replaced FOC with the next model up which was brighter and warmer, so happy all round, even though the original model was good enough. Good products and great customer service. Somewhere online there’s an independent test of a variety of suppliers and they came out top, hence me going through them.

Spots/ingrowing hairs be gone, for the inconvenience and looking 15 when I’m 25 ffs.

click here for a good guide

We used this guide in January for a weekend. If you’re there on a Friday I would imagine the vrijdagmarkt is good, unfortunately we missed it.

There’s a fair few cathedrals which are very impressive from the outside. We didn’t go inside as we did it on a shoestring budget and it’s a few euro’s to get in. If i remember right St Bavo’s has a tower you can go up and see the whole city.

Go to the canalside and spend a bit of time there, and generally walk the backstreets, there’s a lot going on all around.

Beer – I would recommend:
good beer, cool atmosphere really nice surroundings and great beer

amazing beer variety (250 varieties all with specific glasses!) and cool place

pub full of trolls – not kidding! but service was carp

Cheap lunch at a soupkitchen

Hadn’t seen velosolo before, thanks for that tip! A lot of the others seem to be out of stock unfortunately.

Had a fairly good job done by vale powder coating in challow. £35 for frame and forks (supplied sandblasted). Couple of very small imperfections and masking pretty good but not amazing. I.e. could easily assemble but I tidied it up with taps and a stanley blade.

Too late now? I’m in Didcot, happy to today or tomorrow. Email in profile.