willedoo

I get a bit of amusement watching these third world country handyman videos on YouTube. They're rough but inventive. This bloke made a worm gear by bending a round bar around a rod. If anyone is asking 'why would you bother going to all that trouble', it's the site income. With enough views, they can make a living in their country if they pump out heaps of videos like this one.

I see in that Salter Bros. link that in 1971 NV bought the manufacturing rights of Wisconsin engines. We had a Wisconsin on a grain auger years ago. I looked up some models and photos and my best guess is it was a 12.5 HP AGND model.

Petrol trucks seem a lifetime ago now. Then again, it almost is. In the early 70's I drove an AB series IH semi with a V8 petrol engine carting freight up from Brisbane. All the company's trucks were petrol except for one, a diesel Commer body truck. Petrol must have been relatively cheap back then.

A neighbour of mine had a Francis-Barnett 2 stroke bike and I'm fairly sure it was a Villiers engine. I can't remember what year it became NVT. I bought my Commando mid 1972 and I thought it was just Norton Villiers then, but I could be wrong, it might have had Triumph in it by then.

I've never had much to do with Norton Villiers engines but I saw this one on FB Marketplace and didn't know they were made in Ballarat. It looks very similar to an old BSA stationary engine I have in the shed.

After more than two and a half years of war, dithering old President Biden has finally given Ukraine permission to use long range ATACMS missiles on Russian territory. It's not clear whether the permission is restricted to the Kursk region or will be applied to other regions as well. Ukraine has fought the whole war with one hand tied behind it's back. The drip feed of supplies has cost a lot of time and lives. Having said that, it's hard to know how wasteful the Ukrainians would have been if they were given unlimited supplies of everything they wanted. It might have started a cargo cult mentality.

On the reverse side, the Americans apply a percentage ruling on their control over foreign manufacturing using American components. I forget the exact figure, somewhere around 10 or 15% maybe. The Iranians and Russians were once working on an idea to manufacture the Sukhoi Superjet under license in Iran and the Americans blocked it because of American components in the Sukhoi.

The Tesla Model 3 Long Range at 87.5% according to this university study. https://www.kbb.com/car-news/report-tesla-makes-the-most-american-cars/

I wonder how he will work the tariffs on imported components used in manufacturing American cars. Would it be a blanket rate or on a sliding scale depending on the percentage of foreign content in cars. I read where one of the Tesla models has the highest percentage of American components of all the American made cars. I think our Teslas are made in China.

From what I can figure out those are the two concrete banks of the water canal, now dry since the dam wall in Ukraine was destroyed.

Here's the Google Maps screen grab of the bridge.

That photo is not the bridge. The Dzhankoi to Maslove road is a two lane road running through farmland. This is the bridge, it swallowed up a car and a semi.

Remember at Bob's place in the Blues Brothers movie when they asked Bob what sort of music they normally had. Bob told them they have both types of music - country and western.

The federal election is not far away now and Albo is at risk of leading a one term government. If Dutton can keep himself a small target and try not to scare too many people, the election will be all Albo's to lose. I think the government blew too much political energy on the Voice referendum and haven't been able to get any fresh air since. I think they went too soon, too quick with that from a political point of view, and they lost a lot of skin there. It looks fairly obvious Dutton will adopt the cost of living issue and he's trying to sway people that the government hasn't improved people's financial situation in the term of government, ie: if you are no better off what makes you think you will be if you give them another term. It's the old line of they haven't performed so what have you got to lose by trying the alternative. It worked in Queensland recently. The government is going to run on a lot of promises of what they will do if returned. That one is wearing a bit thin and they are more likely to be judged on their performance over the last three years and not on future promises that they've already had three years to implement if they were serious. The election will come down to how many people are scared of Dutton and choose to stick with an underwhelming, lacklustre government. I really think given the short time to the election that Albo is getting wedged. A small target might not work in that time frame, especially when he keeps painting fresh ones.

Interesting point in that article about the Ukrainians encouraging North Korean troops to defect.

I read where putler has ordered Kursk be retaken before Trump's coronation in January. There's reportedly 50,000 troops massing there. putler must be anticipating a forced Trump deal to settle on current occupied territory. There's been reports that the Russians are sustaining a lot of losses in Kursk, but social media reports often don't mention the Ukrainian losses.

53 inches of rain so far for the year, so we should get near to the yearly average of 60 inches. We get a lot of 40 and 45 inch years; the average is helped upward from the particularly wet years. Over time we've had a few in the 80's, 90 and the wettest year was just over 100 inches. The driest has been in the low 30's. I remember once reading a small booklet on the local history and our local town here got 90 inches one January just before the turn of the 20th. Century. The road to the coast was cut for five months that year. In those days the road would have probably been a fair bit lower. I think it was just cut and corduroyed tea tree over the swamp with a gravel road base on top.

That section in the photo posted above is about 100 metres and is the only section that can't take a culvert due to the power line running under the centre of it. Luckily at the bottom end of that 100 metres there's a short flat section past the power cable where water can be diverted off track. At the moment it just has a whoa-boy for diversion but I've got a big culvert planned for there to take the infall water from the 100 metre stretch. Sealing the inside gutter would also offer less resistance so the leaf litter washes through a bit better.

Certainly have there. I know a few people who just can't comprehend why I don't give up, move to town and die of boredom. We all know the destination so I figure why not enjoy the journey while you can. Better to die with your boots on than in some miserable nursing home bed.

I don't mind good jazz, which I guess is the traditional jazz Nev mentions. What I really dislike is that idiotic form of jazz where it seems like every player is trying to lead solo and all outdo each other at once. It's just a vanity project for the performers and results in a stupid sounding din. You get more musical sound coming from a chook broiler farm.

That must have been a traumatic experience Jerry. No wonder you took up listening to Billy Joel.

He could be like the dudes on Facebook who run scams to try to fleece deposits from people. They try to get holding deposits by bank transfer then disappear. Usually they are advertising something with a price that's obviously too low.

Pete I won't put it down until I sort out what will go over it. The old pieces of hotmix are only a small portion of it. Most of it is a fairly fine substrate that would need something over the top of it. Either that or blend a lot of cement into it. Even then it would eventually erode. The problem is those days when we get several inches of rain in a few hours. I've seen 12 and 14 inches of rain in a day here. Our record was 33 inches in 24 hours in 1992.

I remember doing a section of the driveway about 25 years ago where I had loads of 50mm mixed stone and fines trucked in and road base over that. I spread it with my little TD8 and I hired a smooth drum vibrating roller that a mate drove. The slope was fairly difficult for the smooth drum. The mate would have to back down to a flatter area as a launching pad then charge the slope to get to the top and vibrate as he backed down. We got the job done though and it's surprising how that section has held up over the years. It washed over time but still has road base on it and not much 50mm showing through. The road base they sell around the district is good for flat ground but not much good on hills. The council had a small local quarry back in the 80's that had great stuff for laying on slopes. It was reddish in colour and it's secret was it had a good clay content to bind together and hang in on slopes.

That works ok for not so steep situations. Whatever I put down has to be sealed to stay in place. If you don't seal it you will get a usable drive for a while until the torrential downpours rip it out. At the moment I'm trialing a test strip of interlocked recycled concrete pieces overlaid with roadbase with some cement mixed in. It's holding up so far but again, is not a permanent solution. The driveway is 500 metres long and steep. The terrain makes it difficult as there's very few places you can get a spoon drain in. Most of the track is an infall. One 100 metre section is only a slight slope and it works ok with three concrete drains running across it to take the water away. For the other sections it's too steep for whoaboys. That's the big challenge with my track, trying to break up the flow otherwise the momentum of the flowing water does the damage. If drains, whoaboys and pipes block up the water gets up a lot of force due to that momentum, and would run the full 500 metres down to the road. A continual maintenance problem with the drains is the amount of bush. It results in a lot of leafdrop and when it rains big clots of leaf matter can block the drains. I've certainly had a lot of fun with it over the years. Photos are deceptive. In this photo below, that section is a lot steeper than what it looks in the photo.