Happy New Year everybody, I hope that you got everything you
expected for Christmas. I had two weeks of doing little other than watching in
mystifyed awe as number two son learned to fly a radio controlled helicopter (I
found it impossible even to get it two inches off the floor without the wretched
thing falling over) and walking the dog (which was a little easier).
I got a copy of David Curwen's autobiography which has just come out and found it a cracking good read - available via his website, I recommend it.
Sam and I made a pump in the workshop - on the way back from the club one afternoon over the break he was asking about how they drained the fens (an issue of ever-present interest to us Lincolnshire folk), we talked about windmills and the switch over to steam engines in the early nineteenth century. By the time we'd got back to the workshop, we had a half worked out plan to build a simple piston pump which was finished by the time tea and buns arrived at about five o'clock - it works well by hand, next step is to build another cylinder and a beam to convert it into a proper engine (along with finishing off his Hunslet, making bits for the new-build Tich and finishing off a set of 5 inch gauge "Metro" driving wheels which are currently tying up the Chipmaster while he learns how to machine castings - he's got more projects that I have).
