Silly Picture Thread.

[Phil Perry]

I think I may have posted this animation some while ago, it turned up on another site today and is still worth a look. . .most amusicating.

 

( I hope that 'Silly Animations' are not too much of a threadstretch. . . )

 

 

[Flying Officer Kite]

Here's a bit of video assistance for you, Phil.

Spitfires In The Making

Fascinating. From the same Pathe source, there's this: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/pots-and-pans-for-planes . In reality, the highly successful drive to donate railings, gates, pots and pans and anything else made of metal was as much a "home front" morale-building exercise as an effective supply of material, since much of it was unsuitable for aircraft manufacture. Fortunately, the Mosquito fighter bomber was built almost entirely of wood!

 

- Mike

 

 

[old man emu]

Where do you put the sixpence in?

 

 

[Guest Oscar]

There is a chromed-brass slot at the bottom... the piccy doesn't show it, but it doubles as the belt hanger attachment, and the 'return coin' push-button is also used as the belt-detachment button. Retro, or what???

 

The really tricky bit, is the camera. You have to slide the battery off to let the photo emerge

 

 

[facthunter]

I thought the main metal required was aluminium. Even War motorcycles of British manufacture had aluminium replaced by steel pressings and cast iron castings later in the war. Rubber was in short supply also. No tank rubbers footrests or twist grip rubbers used on later models. Nev

 

 

[Guest Oscar]

Nev, I've driven a Centurion. They bloody didn't have rubber footrests on the pedals either... (but I know what you mean about tank rubbers, and it has nothing to do with contraception).

 

 

[Marty_d]

Nev, I've driven a Centurion. They bloody didn't have rubber footrests on the pedals either... (but I know what you mean about tank rubbers, and it has nothing to do with contraception).

I may be getting the wrong end of the stick here, but I'm pretty sure that contraception won't work with a Centurion tank anyway. You can roll a plastic bag over the main gun but I don't think it's going to stop anything...

 

 

[spacesailor]

Fly,Officer,Kite

 

The metal collected from the public was & still is recycled in large furnaces, ALLUMINIUM(spell) included. The company I worked for made £300 per ton nett profit.

 

It is a third generation company and was good to work for, possibly due to it's profit margin selling alluminium ingots, and other non-ferrous metal ingots to the USA.At that time.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Fly,Officer,KiteThe metal collected from the public was & still is recycled in large furnaces, ALLUMINIUM(spell) included. The company I worked for made £300 per ton nett profit.

 

It is a third generation company and was good to work for, possibly due to it's profit margin selling alluminium ingots, and other non-ferrous metal ingots to the USA.At that time.

 

spacesailor

The scrap metal industry is quite a big one ith the UK, a company for whom I used to carry out a lot of work have a depot near here. They take scrap from all over the place, and it is sorted, chopped up into bite sized chunks and resold worldwide. It WAS a UK firm, but it relocated it's base to Germany, with an EU grant. ( Another story )

 

They take scrap from sources which may have been irradiated in some way. . . Nuke power stations, and other places where radiation could be a problem. They have a huge great Geiger counter machine, around the size of a double deck bus wash, where each truckoad is scanned for any nasty bits in the load. These are then identified and removed by guys in space suits until the scanner says 'OK' . . .what they do with the naughty bits, the manager wouldn't tell me. . . .classified I guess. . .( ! )

 

 

[Flying Officer Kite]

Fly,Officer,KiteThe metal collected from the public was & still is recycled in large furnaces, ALLUMINIUM(spell) included. The company I worked for made £300 per ton nett profit.

 

It is a third generation company and was good to work for, possibly due to it's profit margin selling alluminium ingots, and other non-ferrous metal ingots to the USA.At that time.

 

spacesailor

No argument from me on that Space Sailor. Yes, a lot of scrap metal and household items collected to help the war effort from the patriotic citizens of the UK, and USA, was able to be melted down and reused to alleviate the shortage of raw material. But facilities for recycling in WW2 Britain were not as efficient as they are today and relatively little of the aluminium used for cans and domestic utensils was high enough grade to be used in aircraft production. The inspirational "Turn your Pots and Pans into Spitfires" slogan was used because it fired people's imagination, not because it was necessarily 100% true. (Yes, governments lied to us even in those days!) As a war baby (born 1941), I've long had an interest in WW2 history and come across many historical references and books in relation to the scheme, which was introduced by Lord Beaverbrook, Minister for Aircraft Production (1940-41) . A good starting point for anyone interested in a bit of myth-busting would be Scrap metal drives in WW II - Straight Dope Message Board .

 

-Mike

 

 

[spacesailor]

Mike

 

I still say your wrong!

 

The alloy melted in the foundry was/is alloyed with chemicals to make the correct grade for whatever the order is for,

 

the same for Brass\gunmetal or a dozen different bronze type "copper" alloy's. pewter and magnesium could be ordered to a maker's specs as well.

 

The firm's still there as of a couple of years ago, cleanest foundry I've seen, no coal-dust, asbestos or dirt left laying about to contaminate the next batch.

 

Made the RR foundry look third world standard.

 

Another one I worked at,now has a mass litigation suit against it.

 

Three hundred years of crushed coal, plus "Blue asbestos"(product of Australia) hand mixed into the fireclay that lined the furnaces .

 

AND never a shop floor retirement.

 

Lost three uncle's to the old type foundries.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[spacesailor]

Also a little aside, All the "milk bottle tops" (alluminium) are compressed into hard square bales, as are the alloy cans, so they don't burn up in the heat of the smelter.

 

Remember the string to thread the milk-bottle tops on, spent many a slow day untying or cutting that string away.

 

Also I had a little side job sorting alluminium foil (silver-paper), from the foil that lined the old "tea-chest", TIN foil is now worth a fortune.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[facthunter]

Aluminium and cast iron scrap was still very valuable into the 50's. Copper and aluminium are both energy intense to refine. I don't trust a lot of the hoo haa by the mythbuster/ conspiratorial expose type stuff. They didn't build mosquitoes of wood to use trees up. There really was a shortage of many things Fuel Butter. Metals, Leather rubber ball bearings etc particularly in England and Germany. The Merchant Marine sinkings due U boat action was crippling the supply routes until later in the War. Some Cargoes were booby trapped out of New York by saboteurs to explode in mid ocean (armaments sourced from USA). wouldn't have bet on OLD England winning the War had I been there. Nev

 

 

[Flying Officer Kite]

Aluminium and cast iron scrap was still very valuable into the 50's. Copper and aluminium are both energy intense to refine. I don't trust a lot of the hoo haa by the mythbuster/ conspiratorial expose type stuff. ....

Neither do I Nev! The particular forum I referenced is far from being one of those boards and contains a considerable amount of informed comment and technical references on the subject. Perhaps I worded it incorrectly in making a passing reference to mythbusting. Neither do I disagree with you and Space Sailor that recycling of all kinds of materials was an integral part of keeping factories going throughout the war - and afterwards, obviously. My point, which I don't really want to get into verbal fisticuffs over, is simply the fact that not all the collected scrap went into aircraft production.

 

- Mike

 

 

[spacesailor]

Facthunter

 

I don't think England did "win".

 

The old Dart was bankrupt, and to rub their nose into the shxt , America gave all the Repatriation funds from England to enemy (Germany).

 

The poor Pom's paying Adolf's country for about eight years.

 

They lived on Bread milk and a little honey (Pobs). their meat was mostly "offal". With lots of the war widows shipped out as "warbrides".

 

spacesailor

 

 

[facthunter]

UK paid the Lend Lease debt. Russia said "stick it". Germany got the Marshall plan and was rebuilt into the modern manufacturing giant it is today. and America became "Great".To lose a war becomes the way to win a war for Germany and Japan as well. OK if you didn't get blown into the next world on an individual basis. The Russians had the most casualties by far. Japan didn't get treated so well economically before the thing started, but the Chinese and Koreans were invaded by them before the war started with the West and there's still no love lost there. Russia didn't hand back any territories occupied including a Part of Japan they rushed to occupy before the surrender. Seeds of hate last long after the last shots are fired, to feed into another fight in the future. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

Remember the Peter Sellers movie, The Mouse that roared.?

 

Crafty prime minister Count Mountjoy (Peter Sellers) devises a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation's economy.

 

OME

 

 

[Yenn]

Oscar. You have driven the centurion. I have read quite a few magazine articles written by people about driving the "Cent"

 

What I always found interesting was that they never mentioned two distinct qualities of the steering. That was how to turn without being in gear and how to turn in reverse.

 

When I started driving them I had trouble because I kept slight pressure on the opposite stick and the interlock meant I just kept going dtraight on. Would love to get in one now and give it a go. You would hear me for miles, flat chat with the governor banging away like a machine gun.

 

 

[Guest Oscar]

Yenn, I drove one around the yard at an army training ground near Albury, (first and reverse only!) and when I got it back to park it, with an Army Corporal ( I think), signalling me, I couldn't disengage first and the damn seat spring plus the clutch being nearly a vertical push (as you no doubt remember) was pushing me up. Just when I thought I was going to run the poor bugger over, I managed to disengage first, and afterwards, he mentioned ;'oh, yes, I should have told you to rock it to slip it out of gear'.

 

Didn't like it at all - but taking an APC through the 'assault training' course was a total blast of fun.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Yeah, I drove a Centura once too, worst car Chrysler Australia ever made.

 

 

[facthunter]

IF that were so, It would indeed be bad. I think it was a Euro car with a Valiant engine shoehorned into it like a Ford Taunus (German) with a 3.3 Falcon six option (which actually went OK). The Holden was a Vauxhall/Opel with various Australian engines fitted and Called Torana. that had a few successes. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

Did you get to try the Saracen or Saladin. Nice suspension, but the steering wheel is behind the steering gearbox and column.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Yenn, I drove one around the yard at an army training ground near Albury, (first and reverse only!) and when I got it back to park it, with an Army Corporal ( I think), signalling me, I couldn't disengage first and the damn seat spring plus the clutch being nearly a vertical push (as you no doubt remember) was pushing me up. Just when I thought I was going to run the poor bugger over, I managed to disengage first, and afterwards, he mentioned ;'oh, yes, I should have told you to rock it to slip it out of gear'.

Didn't like it at all - but taking an APC through the 'assault training' course was a total blast of fun.

The Leopard was a pussy to drive compared to the Centurian.

 

 

[Guest Oscar]

Yenn, nope to either. I've ridden in a T34, for a short distance (half way across the Duntroon 'secondary' Parade ground, much to the evident annoyance of the Commandant, as my ex-tankie mate from the AWM tried to get the sticking clutch unstuck - damn thing was a sportscar.. Stood on a Leopard firing sabot rounds at the Puckpanyal range, and (just to get back to 'signs', though not so silly, there was a sign near one of the ammo piles behind it saying ' do not approach within 5 metres if wearing plastic clothing; - and the kindly Captain did tell us that the sign was NOT kidding...) But thread drift, we'll be censured for sure!.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Yeah, I drove a Centura once too, worst car Chrysler Australia ever made.

I once helped a guy build a Centura Speedway cat. That thing was so fast. I was to light in the rear end to be a top performer. But then maybe it was the driver not the car.