powerrabbit

You can use cellulose thinners only with a cellulose based paint or primer/undercoat. If you use it to thin enamel paint it will all turn to a thick jelly. You can however use a cellulose based primer/ undercoat with an enamel top coat providing you allow the primer/undercoat to 'cure' before aplying the top coat. If you use an enamel primer/undercoat you can't use a cellulose based top coat on it as it will react with the primer/undercoat and you end up with a surface like you've just brushed over with paint stripper. Enamel paints are oil based. If you're unsure as to the base of any paint, lift the lid and take in a good nosefull of the smell of it, if it smells like paraffin then it's oil based, if it makes you cough and splutter, burns your nose and takes your breath away then it's cellulose.

I saw a man today that made me laugh. Well, I laughed after he had left! This chap came here trying to flog me a photo of the house and garden taken from a helicopter a couple of weeks ago, you know the ones. He also tried to flog my Siter-in-law one of their side as well, Brother was still in bed after a night shift. Anyway, Sister-in-law refused to buy as she said the garden looked like a tip and she would never put it on the wall. So that was that. The photo of my side was not so bad, fairly tidy and the garden looking reasonable. He wanted £35 each but I questioned the quality as they were framed in a cheap wood effect frame that you can buy from the pound shop and the one of my side had not even been trimmed properly and was hanging out one side of the frame by a quarter inch. So my negotiaton began. He said that he would do the both for £25, Sister-in-law had already refused so I said that that means they would be £12.50 each at that rate. In the end I had mine for a tenner plus a vegetable marrow and six sweetcorn cobs from the garden. I'm still chuckling now.

List of all 1:16 scale David Brown models made and date line. 1950. Ranaulf Lipkin. Cropmaster. Plastic. 1953. Shakelton. Trackmaster 30. Tin plate clockwork crawler tractor. 1957. Denzil Skinner. 25D. Diecast. Could be stripped down and re-built again. 46 parts. 1989. Malc's Models. Cropmaster. Diecast. 1992. Malc's Models. 25D. Diecast. 1998. RJN Classics. 990 Implrmatic. Diecast. 2002. RJN Classics. 990 Selectamatic. Diecast. 2008. G&M Originals. 50D. Diecast. 2009. G&M Originals. VAK1. Diecast. 2010. G&m Originals. Trackmaster 50. Diecast. Crawler tractor. Production dates are approximate.

I would like to find more old models, possibly more obscure makes and manufacturers. I for one am getting rather tired of all the new stuff being churned out, that's not to say that I will not be buying any, there are some good models worthy of spending a bit.

Hmmm. You could be arrested for that. The word is BASE, not bottom.

I have a couple of A.J Street books, 'Strawberry Roan' and 'Farmers Glory'. I have a fair collection of old farming books that would take me a couple of hours to list them all. Got a copy of 'The Boys Book Of Mechanised Farming' as well. Another interesting book on my shelf is 'The Wonder Book Of The Farm'. This is a 2nd edition, undated but is around 1958. A board covered book like the old 'annuals', it's from the 'Wonder Books' series, with 'seven plates in colour and two hundred photographs'. 224 pages. Another good 'childrens' one is 'Timothy's Book Of The Farm'.

Rory. The book cost me £5. 50p and is in remarkably good condition for its age including its original dust jacket so that's a bonus. I think that the oldest farming related book I have is an old veterinary book titled 'The New Cattle Doctor' or to be more precice, 'The book that every farmer needs. England and America's Cattle Doctor'. Written by a James Lund. A hardback cloth board bound book with 412 pages that has old recipes and remedies for making up animal medicines of which the majority of ingredients are plant and natural chemicals, what we would now call 'natural' or 'organic' components. Inside the cover there are a list of animals that these remedies are applicable to, it says, 'A reformed treatise of medecines and means for the cure of diseases in oxen, cows, sheep, swine and dogs with a great variety of original resipes. Directions for the treatment of Rinderpest and other valuable information'. There is no date printed in the book to indicate the time of publication but there is a reference to a certain prominent veterinarian of the 'recent' time, 1866. There are a number of 'ailments' and 'diseases' mentioned in this book that although then having a different name, we would recognise today, for instance, 'Brain Fever' which is described as ' The symptoms of this disorder are ravings, slow respiration, a disturbed and frightful countenance with signs of madness'. Sound farmilliar? We're talking about the cow here. The reference to 'Rinderpest' I mentioned is what we know as Foot and Mouth disease. A most interesting book and a trip back in farming times. Just found another on my shelf, this is the same type of book titled 'Diseases Of The Sheep' dated 1890. Full of interesting sheep ailments and cures with a good lot of drawings explaining what to look for and procedures, it even tells and shows you how to amputate a sheeps leg, very handy if you only want a leg of mutton for your sunday roast without having to kill the animal first!

This topic hasn't been added to for some time so time to revive it. Bought a nice hardback book in a secondhand book/record shop today. Saw it on the shelf and had a quick squiz at it 3 weeks ago and dismissed it but it's been eating away at me from then so I went in the shop and it was still there so I grabbed it. This book is titled 'Harvest Triumphant' by a chap called Merrill Denison. It is a first edition and was printed in 1949, expensive for the time at 12 Shillings and 6 Pence (65p now) but the interesting thing about it is that it is actually the complete history of Massey Harris. Lots of photos and has 351 pages. I bet there's not many of this book still in existence, I think it was quite a good find.

The Britains one was the Bomford Superflow.

I did one a while back in Twose livery and decalling, there's a picture of it here somewhere.

This rather nice Meccano 'Mettoy' farm set. Pretty hard to find the complete set all in one place. Found at the local boot sale yesterday.

Yesterday and today been helping my brother put up a big shed in his garden to put his Land Rover and car in under cover. Built like a sectional garden shed but more complicated being 24 feet long, 14 feet deep with two 8 foot openings in the front, box profile steel roof with a 2 foot canopy overhang at the front. Not too difficult to build but there were no instructions just some fuzzy colour pictures most of which were partly superimposed over each other and a few bags of nuts bolts screws and nails. But we did it!

Could be a 'bean'.

The answer lies in an article on this tractor in one of the very early Classic Tractor magazines I seem to remember.

I can see all sorts of things in my minds eye but yet to see that that will make me rich beyond belief!

Logic tells me that to be able to see detail beneath a model would require it to be elevated off the mirror. Perhaps on a pair of clear perspex 'tressels' across the axles to support the model or four axle stands. Is that a good idea or not?!

You can find some really nice turntables, I bought a plain black one from a toyfair a couple of years ago and that also is either battery or mains adaptor powered, I cut a circle of green baize to cover the black felt top. Found a large one at a boot sale a bit later with a mirrored deep side the same style as a glitterball. I've also seen glass (or maybe perspex) tall display cases/cabinets that revolve as well.

Talking of balers, Allis Chalmers bought the Jones' baler Company in the very late 1960's, the first of the Allis ones was the formerly blue Jones Star MK4 baler, you still find a few of these that have been overpained in orange. In the model world, Bruder made a Welger baler about 4 years ago based I think on the AP45 conventional baler, came in a plain polythene bag, powered by 2 rubber bands to work the packer fingers and the bale chamber/pickup. I found 2 of them but never seen any more since.

We tend to get a lot of 'celebs' down here, they seem to gravitate to these parts and the areas around Dartmoor are very popular for settings and there are quite a number of well knowns that live around here as well, perhaps it's something to do with the as yet unspoilt countryside, a large number of untouched period properties and of course the slower pace of life and the freindly natives.

Bamfords balers stopped being produced when Kvernland bought out the Company. They also own Lister.

Sometime in December Bill, will have to watch the listings or Decembers 'up and coming' episodes on the BBC website or watch the programme every day that month so it's not missed. If I get nodded the wink on what day it's on I'll let you know so's you can set your button to 'record'.

Drove my D.B. 780 out to Widecome Fair for the tractor display with 4 others from our D.B. Club. A bit wet but not too bad. Had a good day and 3 of us had an 'interveiw' by a very tasty young woman who wanted to know all about or tractors. She was doing a peice for the BBC2 TV programme 'Escape To The Country'. She was non other than Niki Chapman of 'Wanted Down Under' and better known as one of the judges on 'Britain's Got Talent' (and other programmes). Spent quite a time chatting to her. I had first prize for my tractor in the post 1965 class, a nice trophy plus a plaque. Chuffed to bits.

Sheet of corugated card, horizontal, using plastruct u channel bent in an ark under roof and straight down the front of the shed so the card will slide up and down.

At the rally today, caught up on a few models. UH Claas 450 Tucano combine. Hell of a model! Siku year model 2010 silver Claas Axion 850. Norscot Cat Challenger MT765C. Another cracking model.

Attended a 2 day rally just down the road yesterday and today with 2 tractors, left one there overnight with a mate who was camping there and hitched up the plough before I went down this morning and did a bit in the working field, very hard to plough, the ground was dry, very stony and the carpet of stroil roots (cooch grass) was near imposible for the disc coulters to cut through, a heavy plough would have been better suited to conditions. Fantastic rally this year, around 60 tractors attended and none broke down. One very interesting tractor was a very original (rusty) 1937 green Massey-Harris Pacemaker. The owner started it up 3 days before the rally, pumped up the tyres and drove it 5 miles on the main road to the rally, the astonishing thing was that this tractor had been in the back of his shed, untouched for the last 28 years. I don't think that I would have been brave enough to drive it like that but it ran as sweet as a nut. No pics, couldn't carry the camera on the tractor.