powerrabbit

My local agricultural store usually have certain products on 'special offer', one of the items on offer for November is their stock of Stihl chainsaws, in this particular instance it's the 171 model trimming/logging saw with 12 inch bar. I had a good look at it on the shelf this morning and in discussing it with one of the store assistants discovered that it was not such a good offer after all, this particular saw is the 'uprated' 071 model which is still produced and also on the shelf. The only difference between the 071 and the 171 is the shape of the top cover, other than that they are both exactly the same in build and specification. The price is different as well!, a new 071 was, including the VAT, all but a few pence, £36 cheaper than the 171 that was supposed to be on special offer. How these Companies try and suck you in! You can guess which one I came home with.

If you think he was lucky, take a look at this! http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/ryedale/10003356.Lorry_driver_reveals_a_sneeze_led_to_horrific_crash_on_A64/?action=complain&cid=10892800

Here's the Britains farm cart and the Herald weeping willow I bought at Westpoint on Sunday.

The ones held at Newton Abbot racecource, in the betting hall, is quite small but you can often pick up some good stuff and they are a lot cheaper, probably because the dealers are more local, hire of tables is cheaper and the dealers know that we locals are not earning London wages. It is more model train orientated but generally there's a good mix and variety of toys/models. Held 4 or 5 times a year, the next one at this venue is on Sunday 9th December, put it in the diary, only £1 entry, doors open at 10am I think. Added bonus, most times, the same days as the fairs, there is a very large boot sale going on there that covers about 10 acres.

My pleasure Mark. There seem to be quite a few toy fairs popping up all over the place in the last few years as people are beginning to realise the popularity and collectability of toys, especially now with TV programmes of an antique and collectable nature informing and making people aware of just what potential value there is in toys. If, wherever any of you are located, do a Google search for toy and collector fairs in your area, you may be surprised what may come up that you may have previously been missing.

Lucky enough I picked up a leaflet. Westrpoint dates for 2013. Jan 27. April 28. Sept 1. Nov 3. Apparently there are regular toy fairs at the Matford Centre, the cattle market Exeter also but I don't know the dates, will try and find out. Not been to one as yet so don't know how big a do it is Just looked it up, next one at Matford is this next Saturday, 10th. I might go just to see what it's like and if I do I'll report back. .

Sorry Peter, you should have given me a nudge! Yes, lots of good stuff there today but not if you'r on a tight budget. As you say, several different traders there, of which when asking their 'best price' on certain things seemed very arrogant and not willing to play so left them alone. Yes Peter, I did try negotiations with the guy that had a chess set on display but for the asking price, after beating him down, of £75 and considering the damage to it and amature 'repairs' to some of the pieces I left it where it was. Ended up purchasing a boxed Britains farm cart with plastic horse, never been out the box for £35 and an un- boxed Britains Herald weeping willow tree for £4. That's all I bought today.

Takes me 20 minutes to get there, I must be the closest member on the Forum to Westpoint!

I'll sort out some pictures in the week Bill and post in a seperate topic.

Have been buying a few chess sets lateley, older vintage boxwood ones, some in hinged lid boxes, some in sliding lid boxes. Have also picked up a couple of later 'special' sets, one a very large cast resin set in it's own transport esctioned box, the pieces are in 'Medieval' style and all together in the box weighs 15lb (6.804kg). Also picked up a small 'Isle of Lewis' set and a large one. Anyone play chess?

I'm not sure how it works now, I reckon that several 'hoops' would need jumping through as so many 'makes' and 'brands' belong to a single Company as their parent Company and that parent Company would have to be the first point of contact. As for cost to the model maker again not sure but may cost nothing as you would only be 'applying' for permissions and not actually buying anything off them. Out of production models of the real machine may be different but in the case of a current machine, if you want to reproduce it in miniature as an accurate representation of the real thing what the model maker used to have to do was build the model, submit it to the Company who manufactures the real thing, ask for permission to produce it in miniature and if the inspection of the model passes their inspection and scrutiny in that it is a true and accurate representation then they might give you permission (license) to produce the model in certain numbers, if you produce the said number and wish to produce more then you would need further permission (for a 'second run'). This is what I read somewhere when Dinky approached David Brown when they produced the white 990 in the mid 1960's.

The booklet that accompanies this series from the OU that I ordered arrived today, have had a brief scan through it, basically just highlights things that were gone over in the TV series with several photographs, a nice thing to add to the DVD when it comes out, well, DVD's of the Victorian and Edwardian Farm series were released some time after those were screened so I'm assuming one will be released for this series also at some time.

Yes Chris, I am, a mile from the village, plus the fact that the parents don't let their little darlings out after dark nowadays without an 'apropriate' adult, well, they don't come here, I think they're afraid I might eat them or the beast of Dartmoor will get them! I remember one year, back when I was a mere pup, we had a large beech tree on the side of the road outside my house and I painted a white skull on the trunk six foot up parralell with the road and stuck a couple of catseyes thingy's in the eye sockets, it was good fun watching the passing vehicles either stop to have a good look or put their foot down and go like hell up the road.

And 'strictly come dancing', not that I watch any of it, she's called Lisa Riely, otherwise known as Mandy Dingle.

I always do two things at halloween, keep a tin of sweets by the door for any children who may come trick or treating and a bucket of cold water for the adults!

I would like to spend the day with any well known personality that I would have the opportunity to do so with, I have'nt really got a favourite or a particular wish list. I have had the good fortune to have spent a day with a number of well known people, the whole Time Team and on another occasion, twice, a number of the Flog It team. Thinking on though, if I had to choose anyone off the top of my head, it would have to be the ones that presented and appeared on the recent Wartime Farm programme, just to put them right and tell them the bits that they got wrong!

No Barry, wickedpedia!

The temperrature does not have to be at freezing point or below for snow to fall, in fact it usually warms up a few degrees before and when it snows, it depends on the air temperature at certain levels at or below cloud level. I find that Accuweather is a very good on-line site, take a look at it and choose your location for more accuracy, gives you hourly, current, daily and long range forecast and is very accurate.

I'm not really looking forward to the winter and don't really want to be reminded that winter is on it's way considering the rubbish summer we've had this year, however, it's inevitable and not very pleasing knowing that the devious utility companies are hiking up their electricity and gas prices, that's what I call taking advantage and very unfair, but that's another issue. It's been quite mild here this past week, rather wet and foggy but this morning the skies are clear and cloudless and a brisk N to NE wind is blowing. The outside temperature at 8.00 this morning was -0.5C but in the wind feels more like -7 and there was a slight white frost. At least it's dry.

I shall be going but won't be buying any tractors.

The Corgi D.B. 1412 Ronan was the only D.B. 'model' Corgi ever produced, the white and red one was the first type, produced in 1972 and came on it's own, in a set with a red plastic bodied dump trailer and another set containing the tractor, trailer, corn silo and auger. Corgi re-released the tractor and dump trailer in the early 1990's as a set, this time the decals were non-descript on the tractor and it was a 'muddy' green and red livery and the trailer body was muddy green as well, this set was not very successful and sold poorly and were withdrawn in less than a year. The scale was said to be 1:48. Corgi never really specified an actual scale until they started producing their larger scale vehicles which were 1:50. It was NZG that produced the 1212 in the 1:22 scale and other related models such as the Case Agriking equal wheel 'crab steer' in the slightly smaller 1:25 scale. The Dinky Toys D.B. models, red Implematic 990, white and chocolate Selectamatic 990 and the white and red 995 were nearer 1:43 scale but again not specified so.

Thank you Sue for clearing that up, my mistake. Linseed oil is good for 'feeding' antique Tortoiseshell (should be turtleshell) objects, horn and cricket bats, boiled linseed oil is the stuff to use. I did hear somewhere that linseed oil is very volatile and should be kept at a low(ish) temperature as it's prone to spontainiously combust but the boiled sort is safer than raw. Speaking of combustion, keep your glass paperweights out of the sun, they can act like a magnifying glass and set fire to your curtains!

I've seen 'expert' furniture restorers on the TV 'patch' water stains and sunlight damage that bleaches wood by using an artists paintbrush and just'painting' over the light and faded areas with French polish straight out the bottle so you're right Paul in saying that methods may vary. I don't think that there is a hard and fast method but there probably is a proper way.

I've just bought myself a 250ml bottle of French polish Bill but a different brand. This stuff is also known as 'shellac' and doing a bit of research into how you're supposed to apply it, it says that you should make up a cotton wool filled pad, fairly dense, stuffing a cotton square, peice of material from an old T shirt and soak this pad with the polish and then put a drop of linseed oil on it and then apply to the wood in small circular motions and with the grain, allow to dry and keep repeating until the desired thickness is achieved and finally buff up with lint free cloth, that's the basics but if you google 'how to french polish' there's lots of info there.

Yes, next weeks. Reading back my last post it reads like that episode was the last but I meant the last episode to be screened not the last in the series.