mike wilson

Funny you should mention that, as I collected two from a very PRoper gent at the weekend. Never thought to get one for myself. The last thing I need is anything heavy. I was thinking that a gel battery and some LEDs should give me more duration.

Which Holywell? I know of two. There must be more.

More of a living fossil.

Nope, still nothing.......

Make sure you are sitting down when you order it...... You'll also be making sure that there is not the slightest weep from any seal, joint or breather.

Who needs scriptwriters when there's stuff like that to work with? Wonder if Dubya plays the same game. Wouldn't know. I'm a bit of a small block, myself.

(Sucks teeth carefully) No.

That's Buffalo. I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisent

Manufacturer, year, capacity and model, please.

You are mistaking "minced" with "mincing". Not the same thing at all, especially to cowboys and other butch folk, such as linemen, marines, native americans and so forth. Uncooked meat is not something I would go out of my way for. The rarest thing I have eaten is European Bison. Doesn't taste like chicken.

Sounds like natural selection at work. What's the problem? Apart from: - the effect it has on other road users seeing nasty internal bits on the outside, leading to.... - the effect it has on motorcycling and motorcyclists as your favourite politician jumps on a "safety" bandwagon. On the other side of the coin, there may be an argument for designing the "performance" of suspension systems so that the rider is given _a lot_ of warning that they are nearing the performance envelope of the machine. Preferably well within the performance envelope of the rider. In other words, making the suspension with a lot of feedback so that the rider is in no doubt that performance specs are about to be exceeded. The possibility that accidents occur well inside the performance envelope of the machine but outside that of the rider seems to me to be a high one. The only way that could be done usefully is with rider training.

You git! Twelve days without a response; I'm looking forward to claiming a stump after weekend away and I come back to this. I'm taking my ball in. 8-) On the button with everything.

I'll take the Pope, the Thruxton and the MV Monomoto, please.

At least it doesn't (appear to) have the chain drive conversion......

Last time I, er, acquired some, it was from a friend who worked for International Paints. Any yacht chandler (Captain McNulty's in South Shields, for instance) will supply epoxy paint. Two pack requires a hardener to be added to make it set, the one pack uses atmospheric moisture in many cases instead of separate hardener. In both cases, you only make up or take out of the tin what you are going to use immediately. Otherwise all the rest goes off, too. Thinners can be expensive. Or yu can just consider brushes disposable. I used to have a superb set of foam brushes (no hairs to come loose) until I used my first batch of epoxy..... Epoxy will probably work with alloy, too. I just haven't had the opportunity to use it yet. I've seen that on sale here. Must check it out. Another oil based paint. Dulux is probably cheaper.

If you can find someone who will do that for a reasonable price, I want their name and address.

You owe us a 10-page, illustrated thesis on Colin's attempts to rewire a Saprisa rotor for that.

Read post 5

People want a simple life but also to appear to be "with it". They buy what they are told to but have no idea of how to extract the best from it. Just look at the number of highly expensive, bulky and underused digital SLR cameras on tourists' necks these days. Most of them would be better off with a point and shoot for the 6x4 snaps or screen shots they are going to make from their files. Or the SUV/4x4 phenomenon.

chatter about damping/dampening There is the possibly apochryphal story about Mike Hailwood's work on the handling of one of the early Honda multis. Mike having had an exciting few laps trying to restrain the rear end at a UK race track, the Honda engineers took the rear shockers off and were discussing what to do. Legend has it that MH picked them up off the bench, walked across the track and hurled them into the lake that was on the infield. A perfect case of dampening the dampers. Permanently.

The rotaries might have had die cast bits. Nothing previous. AFAIK.

_Definitely_ not pro. I mainly use a brush 8-) The big advantage with epoxy is that it sets, rather than drying. Any runs or other unsightly deeds? Sand them away and polish the shine right back in. Tougher than some of the metal it covers. You can get various surface effects. For a long time, one of the arguments against epoxy was that the colours did not have the sparkly shine that cellulose and other types of paint have. Hammerite is, indeed, easy to apply. But it is ordinary, household, oil-based type paint. I think they make it up with an unusual solvent so that you have to stick to all their products. Any paint will cover rust and slow down rusting. Unless you remove and/or neutralise it, rust will return quickly - and it's been eating away at good metal underneath that Hammershite (whoops!) all the time.

Where possible, I use the following procedures and products. For steel: (Preferably) Blast back to fresh metal. In any case, remove all loose rust and clean to fresh, bright metal as much as possible. In the case of not blasting, apply antirust treatment. This is usually a phosphoric acid based product, with inhibitor, that converts leftover rust to phosphate. Apply either etch primer or zinc-rich epoxy primer. Zinc-rich primers need to be over 95% zinc to be any use. Then undercoat and top coat as required, both epoxy. Either two or single pack paint. Epoxy laquer if required. It's all a bit of a faff but I find that doing it right, once, beats doing it over and over again. Stuff that I have painted using the above procedures has been used for over a decade continuously on the road with little rusting. I have yet to find a suitable solution for painted alloy, such as the zinc-rich castings used in modern engines. They rot through in no time once the factory coatings are damaged. BTW, Hammerite is crap. 8-)))

An alternative to Metalastik (now part of Trelleborg - mainly making mountings for ship engines....) http://www.polybush.co.uk/polys.html

If that fails, I might be able to collect and deliver it near Easter; also the one for near Leeds. All depends on me managing to meet up on the weekend of 10/11th March.