Apprentices.

The favourite stores items at the engineering works where I was apprenticed were:-

  1. Square drills,
2.Chequered paint,
  1. Long stands and a visit to the office to ask the rather large receptionist if the mammary glands she had were big enough!!!
Reply to
CHARLES HAMILTON
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Others from my apprenticeship. Green parafin, for the Port navigation light. The key to wind up the duty watch. Gloves for the duty hands. The left handed hammer. Ian.

Reply to
ian

Do you not mean the Starboard Nav light

Reply to
Mason

Gentlemen,

We used to get our own back though, one of our instructors in the Training School used to check the toilets for anybody hidding so to give him something to do we would place a pair of shoes with an old pair of trousers placed on top lock the cubicle door and climb out. It would be a good half hour before he twigged :-))

Mart> Do you not mean the Starboard Nav light

Reply to
Campingstoveman

Talking of green oil , the canal working boatmen used to refer to lubricating oil as 'green oil'. Presumably to distinguish it from the fuel oil which would have been red or clear, or can anyone here provide a better reason?

The one about green oil in the Starboard hand light crops up in one of Stanley Holloway's comic monologues, probably "three ha'pence a foot".

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

Reply to
Tim Leech

Steam oil used to be green ?

Mart> >

Reply to
Campingstoveman

I suppose some steam cylinder oils do tend to have a greenish tinge, but steam propulsion had a very short life on the narrow canals. As soon as semi-diesels became available and reliable the huge economic advantages rapidly killed off steam. There was never a great number of steam narrow boats anyway, horses were pretty well suited to the job and it was internal rather than external combustion which supplanted the horse.

Any more ideas?

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

Reply to
Tim Leech

Just a thought, but didn't Duckhams put out green oil?

Tom

Reply to
Tom

Indeed they did (Duckham's Q). This is what I pour through my Morris Minor engines all the time!

I was somewhat surprised to find that they make it to the original spec and flog it for use in vintage cars (at a silly figure a gallon)! The stuff that came at =A36 a gallon in a metal can was essentially the same stuff and it's still got a green tinge now. The only thing that I hate is that it now comes in a stupid shaped plastic 'can' with no pull out pourer, and a handle that is positioned so that you to waste most of the oil by pouring it down the outside of the engine block.

Why can't they go back to a metal can????

Andy G

Reply to
andy G

Indeed they did (Duckham's Q). This is what I pour through my Morris Minor engines all the time!

I was somewhat surprised to find that they make it to the original spec and flog it for use in vintage cars (at a silly figure a gallon)! The stuff that came at =A36 a gallon in a metal can was essentially the same stuff and it's still got a green tinge now. The only thing that I hate is that it now comes in a stupid shaped plastic 'can' with no pull out pourer, and a handle that is positioned so that you to waste most of the oil by pouring it down the outside of the engine block.

Why can't they go back to a metal can????

Andy G

Reply to
andy G

They did, and for a brief period in the late 1960's their products were carried by narrow boat. However, I'm sure that this expression goes back a lot further than that, I remember it being used in the

1960's by working boatmen who were around retirement age, as though that was what it was always known as. Also Duckhams' green oil is not the sort of thing which would normally have been used in Narrow Boat engines whether semi- or full diesel.

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

Reply to
Tim Leech

They could go back to a metal can but.....

these days steel packaging is more expensive and doesn't come in such pretty eye catching shapes as plastic "cans".

and also it's down to image and point of sale display etc. it doesn't matter that the packaging doesn't actually work in favour of the consumer........more proof (if it were needed ) that the world has gone completely barking mad !!!

Tim

Indeed they did (Duckham's Q). This is what I pour through my Morris Minor engines all the time!

I was somewhat surprised to find that they make it to the original spec and flog it for use in vintage cars (at a silly figure a gallon)! The stuff that came at £6 a gallon in a metal can was essentially the same stuff and it's still got a green tinge now. The only thing that I hate is that it now comes in a stupid shaped plastic 'can' with no pull out pourer, and a handle that is positioned so that you to waste most of the oil by pouring it down the outside of the engine block.

Why can't they go back to a metal can????

Andy G

Reply to
Tim Clark

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