grendel

Well it seems I will need to get the macro rings out for my cameras again, just to get some decent pictures, these things are so small

I went ahead and did some lathe work, one of the two fittings turned out as expected and i am happy with it, the other wasnt up to scratch and will be remade, I ran out of daylight for lathe work. so next up will be make the second lamp unit, and then fit to the mast and it will be wiring time again

no, you are not being naive, the topic was locked for a short while, and then we get the messages and phone calls telling us we are stifling necessary discussion on an important topic to boaters. my original post asked that you didnt speculate, I asked this in the hope that I could trust most of the members to take heed, ah well it seems some will always think they know better. just remember this next time we lock a thread and you complain. we dont do this to stifle the discussion, we do it because any accusations made are in writing and the forum can be held accountable- and even shut down with no recourse, so we do it for the protection of the forum remember this when we ask you not to speculate - because we will remember.

It was at this point my attention turned to the mast lights, as of this moment I hadnt considered them, cue a quick hunt through my photo library of Broad Ambition images to find a photo, en route I did find a detail for mounting the side nav lights, so that was useful. So one mast head light with all round visibility, and one nav light with what looks like 180 degree visibility, I will need to make these. next problem, running the wiring up the mast- oh how I wish I had considered this while making it, nevermind, all I need is a 5" long 1.5mm drill, easy--- No, I have small drills, and I have long drills, a 4mm drill around 200mm long cannot drill a straight hole - it wanders. I do have a 1.2mm drill 3" long, - ok so I drill from both ends, holding the very end of the drill bit, well I tried that, I did make it 45mm before the drill bit started emerging from the front of the mast, but the drill bit was curling up by this depth. (the longer drill was too thick to actually go up inside the mast Nothing for it, I was going to have to slot the front of the mast for the wires this was done in the mill using a 1.5mm end mill, I only needed to get to where the drill rose to the surface at the top, while I was at it I bored the cross hole down to the drill hole so I could get the wiring to that light. then it was a case of threading a draw wire through (using one of the leads that broke off a lED the other day as the draw wire. Once the light fittings are made, the wires will be all heat shrunk in a bundle down the mast, and through the deck, where they will have a connector fitted to the ends. what about the slot down the front of the mast I hear you ask, wont that be unsightly and detract from the model. Well no, with considerable foresight, when I spotted some marquetry sets a few years back at a boot fair, I had bought them, now its just a case of finding a piece of veneer in roughly the right colours, then gluing it to the front of the mast to cover the slot and varnishing it to match the rest of the mast. my next task, two light fittings to make, for that we will needthe lathe and some aluminium, then I will need to make a slot in the top for the perspex lens of the 180 degree light, and turn the base of some perspex for the masthead light, to make the dome.

the revealing statistics are the comparison between daily new cases and daily deaths, as we see with daily cases there is a huge spike on the graph due to Omnicron, but only a small rise in the daily deaths, unlike the spike from Delta, that was accompanied by a spike in deaths. (charts from the worldometer coronavirus data site) bear in mind though that deaths data may lag behind the new cases data by several weeks, so it might just be too early to tell.

More lighting work, however this one was a bit trickier, I had already fitted the led into a spotlight, this is then mounted to the fore cabin roof, so a connector would be required. since the lamp is one side of the roof, and the connector the other, with a limited size on the hole connectiing the two, the wiring had to be completed with the spotlight on the roof and the wires in place. the initial lamp wiring was done as before with the heat shrink reinforcement, and then the ends to be connected were passed through the fitting, this also mean ensuring the wires were both secure, yet would still pass through the fitting. It was tight, the heat shrunk sleeve was virtually the same size as the hole, especially where it went right to the fitting. then a connector was added. now the one strange part is that the white LED's seem to trigger at a slightly higher voltage, the red and green were quite bright at 2.5V, the white was barely visible, but brightened at 3V, so thats something I have to watch out for when deciding upon the running voltage fot the lights., I have another batch on order of the white, I thought I had enough, but it seems I only ordered 10, (either that or there is a second packet of 10 sitting somewhere safe. not a problem, they are cheap enough.

after taking some time to reflect I have decided to unlock the thread again so discussion can continue, I would gently remind you that despite what you may think happened if we cannot prove it, then we should not make accusations - real or implied (apparently even I was found guilty of this in my initial post, so its easily done). there have been some good points made in the posts and questions asked, that might never have an answer, but if we can provide information that leads to a resolution, then we should at least allow for that to happen. for anyone interested I took a break from the forum for a few hours to mull this over (and to get another light fitting done for the Broad Ambition Model)

this is something I do too on occasion, as I have 3 pairs, my reading glasses, my intermediate (VDU) glasses and my distance glasses, quite often I will put my VDU glasses and distance glasses together, which comes out slightly stronger than my reading glasses.

pending further developments and answers, we are seeing that we seem to be heading down the route of unanswerable questions and speculation, which was never the intent when this thread was originally posted, the moderation team have decided that this thread will be locked. If you feel that you have further relevant facts or developments to add, please contact me and we will consider unlocking the thread for further comment. As it is at the moment the discussion is going around in circles

Thread moved into speakers corner Please do note the message below this thread was started to try and give a warning to those who might be intending to moor at that location to be aware, and to try to encourage anyone who knows anything to report it to the correct authorities. I know that the favorite sport of forums is speculation, but its really not helpful. if you have information, pass it to the broads authority or broads beat and let the authorities sort it out from there

these LED's are rated from 2.5 to 3,2 volts, I am wary at pushing any higher voltage so I have ordered a dc/ dc converter that guarantees the 2.5V output from any power source from 3v to 35 v, this will be fitted into the lighting circuit. these LED's are so small they fit through the 1mm heat shrink tubing easily, but if a wire falls off, then there is no way on earth to solder it back onto the LED (you just cant see to do it even with the magnifier)- maybe a microscope based soldering station could do it, but the heat would probably kill the led anyway. still never mind, doing this job has stalled me far longer than it should have just thinking how to do it, the answer, just get on and try, I always knew I would have to join to a bigger wire, and the most fortuitous part was finding I had heat shrink in a small enough size to do the job (note to self, must buy more next time i see it in lidls)

So today was the turn of the second nav light, this one took 2 attempts as the wire fell off at the led end just after I had soldered it the first time, I will say that once soldered up I hook up the wires and have the bulb illuminated as I work, then at least I know if my handling has been too rough, these wires are as thin as hairs and it doesn't take much to damage them, hence my reason for several layers of heat shrink tubing to support the wires, when I glue the bulb into the fitting it is this heat shrink tubing that gets glued into place, so as to relieve the stress on the wires, then the fitting is temporarily fixed to a timber support, with the wires taped up, all to avoid stressing the led wires.

I used to paint figures too many years back, its when you pluck a single hair to dip in the paint to put in the pupil of the eye on a figure just 1" high, that required glasses even back then, nowadays I dont think my sight of steadyness of hand would permit.

australian hobbits- well maybe new zealand since the film was made there.

well that was my original hope that this thread would stir up someones conscience to report the matter to the authorities, but if we start out making it a them and us situation, then my thoughts were they would rally round the cause and keep quiet. that - simply put was my original intent, I would still ask that anyone that knows anything, please contact the authorities and pass on the information this is how I would like to envisage the ongoing relationship between the boaters and anglers, there is always room for both parties with a bit of give and take.

its a question, we can argue the semantics of it, but the main intent of this post is to give people a heads up, and hopefully to allow anyone who may have witnessed the vandalism to report it to the correct authorities. rather than to call out a moderator for being less careful about the wording of his original notice.

my apologies, I have just spotted a comma that should have been a full stop, and may have caused the paragraph to read as an accusation, the two sentences were supposed to be separate and the second unconnected to the first, it was not an accusation, just two statements of fact, I am sorry if it came across as an accusation, it was not intended to be.

my comment was necessary to elucidate whether there were any witnesses amongst those present, as it was apparently an organised event some effort should be made to find out who it was organised by as they might have evidence pertinent to the issue, there was no speculation on my part. the facts were as presented, a large group of anglers, all with keep nets, the only question was to ask if this were an organised competition type event. I suggest you read my initial post carefully, there was no accusation that the fishermen were involved, they were present and in number, the fact that none moved and the boater had problems avoiding them while mooring means some will have been in close proximity to the boat, so should have witnessed the vandalism.- that is not speculation.

yes, but not as well as the rudder would have.

I think the worst use of bow thrusters I ever saw was a boat cruising past st benets (where I was moored), using the thrusters every few seconds to keep the boat going straight, then turning right up the ant, just on the bow and stern thrusters, not a sign of steering input in the prop wash, just a repeated whirring of the thrusters at full chat.

I have just received word that a boat had a can of blue gloss paint poured over the roof decks and sides of the boat at Neatishead moorings. the boat in question had encountered difficulties mooring due to a large number of fishermen with keep nets refusing to move to allow them to moor up, when they woke in the morning they found their boat had been vandalised by someone who had poured the contents of a can of blue gloss paint over the boat. the broads authority have been informed as have broads beat. the fact the fishermen had keep nets seems to indicate some sort of competition, or organised angling event. however it is still unacceptable to cause damage to a vessel that is within its rights to ask for a space to be made to moor up. we will not entertain any guesswork about what happened,or why it happened, just ask that anyone who may have any information about the angling club or fishermen involved, or who poured the paint over the boat, contact either the broads authority or broads beat and report it to them. this is best dealt with by the authorities. any speculation here will be removed by the moderation team we will also not allow this to become a war between fishermen and boaters. my commiserations go out to the poor boat owners who have now got to try and remove the paint.

I fully intend to grow old disgracefully.

Just a quick test fit into a piece of wood to see what it's like without the light shining out the back of the fitting,and if I say so myself, it looks pretty good.

finally -I hear you cry (especially Griff) I get to the lighting. so this has been my nemesis so far, the wires are tiny 0.1mm, so I needed to be able to get a good connection, well I dug through my junk boxes and found some thin wire (not thin compared to the LED wires, but a mere 0.8mm dia (o.5mm conductor) using my magnefying light I was able to solder the LED wires to this, Then I struck lucky, I had purchased some coloured heaqt shrink in lidls in an assortment of colours and sizes. the smallest of this was 1mm ID (shrinking to 0.5mm) the next size 1.5mm id, so taking a piece of the smallest I slid it up and heat shrunk each solder joint, for good measure (and fortunately the LED slid into this 1.0mm tubing), I heat shrunk the length of the thin wire all the way to the LED, over the top I then put the next size heat shrink and coated the wire, then I went up another size and enclosed the two joints, ending up with a 6" reinforced length, then it came time to glue the led into a light fitting- whoops I put a red LED into the stern light, no problem though I managed to get it out in time and glue it into the correct fitting for the navigation light. at this point i will say, if you are sitting at the work bench with no socks on, do pay attention if you drip the superglue, yes I had to unstick my foot from the floor. this wont be quick, that single lamp was the culmination of about an hour and a halfs work, and a lot of concentration went into it, but, I now have a method, and the materials to proceed. dont be fooled by the pictures, that vice is only just over an inch wide

some of the corners an be very tight for a 60 foot boat just steered by the stern, so I guess they are using them to push the bow round, remember in the horse drawn days the horse was attached about the mid point, so could assist pulling a boat around a corner.