Lights, Camera, Action

After looking at FMC Dove’s blog from a couple of weeks ago, Andrew showed a photo of a new chimbley he had made and after writing the blog on chimbley chains, I got to thinking that it was about time I put the fittings onto a chimbley I made for Minnow last year but never finished. One of the big advantages of being the Manager of an engineering apprentice training school is that I have the full range of engineering facilities at my disposal, fitting, fabrication, welding, machining and a group of more than willing staff (tool makers-welders-fitters-pattern makers etc.) at my beck and call, as well as the 30odd 16 to 18 year old apprentices!

Anyway after starting the day with a bit of ‘home improvements (she who must be obeyed) having bought a new central spotlight fitting for the kitchen in our bungalow. Our existing brass three spot light fitting had gone on the blink as while replacing a blown bulb, part of the internal connectors fell out.

Why is it that whenever you start one of those easy ten minute jobs there are always problems that turn it into a major event?

To start off with, after removing the old fitting, when I came to fit the base bracket for the new one, the holes were at vastly different centres and so did not line up with the timbers I had fitted for the old fitting behind the ceiling.

Put old shoes on to go down the garden to the shed.

Fetch ladders from down the garden shed.

Spend next half hour moving all the gardening equipment over wintering in the garden shed to get to the ladders.

Remove old shoes and put clean shoes back on.

Set ladders up in hall at half height

Climb ladders to open loft hole.

Climb down ladder.

Extend ladders to full height to gain access to loft.

Roll loft insulation up from round light fitting timbers.

Remove and reposition timbers to suit new fitting bracket.

Climb back from loft, close cover, change shoes, return ladder to shed, change shoes back again.

Screw new light bracket to ceiling

Wires in new light much shorter than old wires, need to pull more wire through ceiling hole but it is held in position with a cable clip, in the loft. –shoes-ladder-loft-remove cable clip-down ladder-pull cable through. Hurrah light now ready for fitting. The new light has a smaller base that old light and as the kitchen ceiling has just been painted- ladder-emulsion paint-brush-paint ceiling around revealed area to match existing painted ceiling-wait for paint to dry off a bit-(swimbo’s hairdryer) fitted light-turned on-works OK-jobs a goodun.

By now it was about 11.30am and so I spent the rest of the day until 4.30pm fitting the three brass rings, chimbly chain hook and handle on Minnow’s new chimbley.

The chimbley fitted with it's bits and bobs standing outside the 'garden shed' which contained the ladders! In this picture it looks like it is smaller at the bottom, but it is a trick of the camera as the taper is the other way.

The finished chimbley.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with taking Minnows newly acquired Klaxon horn apart and removing the dozens of layers of paint to get a decent surface in readiness for painting. After much scraping and sanding I had all the old paint off and proceeded to re-assemble it.

Before, as bought

After a day of sanding

First coat of green

Just remains for me to finish painting it and to get the ‘apprentices’ to finish off the new handle and the mounting bracket. More pictures as work commences, until then, as always

Don’t bang ‘em about.

Blossom