Spent a very pleasant few hours puddle jumping at Enstone.No rain on drive up or whilst there and the sun shone for a short time. I think maybe the number of sellers was slightly down this time altho there were plenty of buyers for the variuos items on offer. On a personal note I prefer this event to the Sodbury sort out. Mike.H.
As usual you also imparted some of your knowledge to those of us you spoke with, i.e. speed of rotation of turbine engines. It was warm for once even though I stood out of the wind in the lee of my van. I sold a few bits, the rest will appear on EBay. Apart from the inevitable walk to the loo I made no attempt to visit any stalls except one where I bought a 12v Battery charger, my wife was nearly pleased :-))
At one point most of the participants of the NG where present together as well, we should have borrowed one of Kim's swords and sworn an oath regarding the NG. I must say that I watch "Merlin" on Saturday nights and feel that Kim is right for the part :-))
Spent a very pleasant few hours puddle jumping at Enstone.No rain on drive up or whilst there and the sun shone for a short time. I think maybe the number of sellers was slightly down this time altho there were plenty of buyers for the variuos items on offer. On a personal note I prefer this event to the Sodbury sort out. Mike.H.
Mike's right, it's more fun at Enstone even if the broken surface turns your ankle & the muddy puddles dirty your jeans ;o)) I left home at about 6.30 & was rolling in the gate at dead on 8.00. It rained on the way up, but the roads were predictably empty & I could bat along through the dawn as it revealed the glorious late autumn colours. There were not a lot there at eight, but it soon picked up & became one of the better attended Enstones by the time I left around noon.
I found an unusual Villiers Model 25 (the little OHV job) It has a half speed output gearbox, a prewar style motorcycle Villiers carb on a l-o-n-g manifold with two right angle bends in it . Someone has gone to great lengths with a specially cast manifold to get the carb out of the way of something! It also has a decent silencer, something the others I have do not. They make poor neighbours on exhibit, banging away like a machine gun.
I dickered long over a Marvil, all complete & hunky dory but with a none standard silencer. He had reduced it in £25 increments from £150 to £100. I started at £50 towards lunchtime & stopped at £75 & him at £80. We chatted for a while & I went away twice but he wouldn't come down any further. In the end I thought is silly to miss it for a fiver & coughed up the £80. There was the earlier American version on sale but he wanted £180 to start & it really isn't worth that, so I walked away leaving a trail of "but it's very rare" in my wake.
I also bought - all for a couple of quid - a WW2 air raid wardens rattle, a hydrometer (two thermometers in a case), a small pair of opera glasses that Hazel was delighted with, a lamp from a Morse set with a very good mirror to replace my manky one, a couple of hurricane lamps for my mate Paul who collects them, a very early RDF instrument - probably prewar - and a nice MkVII Admiralty issue AVO, all sound & even boasting its original battery but sans leads or case.
There was a nice OHV Capel for sale (£500) which might have tempted me before I saw sense a few years ago. It stood there very nicely in its heaviness!
I saw many of the active participants of the SENG except for Peter Forbes, but I called Martin Peter in an absent minded moment, so that made up for it!
As usual, I had a good time & was pleased I'd got up early. I even got home to find Hazel out shopping & a clear run to stagger through the house with my brace of Villiers engines!
On Sat, 8 Nov 2008 22:18:23 -0000, "Mike.H." finished tucking into their plate of fish, chips and mushy peas. Wiping their mouths, they swiggged the last of their cup of tea, paid the bill and wrote::
I'm going to ask what might seem to be a daft question. Where is Enstone? I know of one in Staffordshire.............
Brian L Dominic
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On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 12:35:43 -0000, "campingstoveman" finished tucking into their plate of fish, chips and mushy peas. Wiping their mouths, they swiggged the last of their cup of tea, paid the bill and wrote::
Ah - NOT the same one - if it HAD have been the Staffs one, I'd have got my wrist slapped for not going!
Brian L Dominic
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Newsgroup readers should note that the reply-to address is NOT read: To email me, please send to brian(dot)dominic(at)tiscali(dot)co(dot)uk
Never been to Enstone, or Newbury. Fairford was a good event until the thieves spoilt is for everyone. The one time we were due to go to Enstone, the bcambelt went on the van the night before.
The last Sodbury event we did attend was in the late 1990's when we took the trailer and had to be towed off the site after it finished, that was before Newbury.
Peter
-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@prepair.co.uk
Nice to see you all there, I found much to admire but curiously nothing to buy. The Capel, which BTW had missed its reserve on ebay earlier in the week (170274368402), was a nice engine except for the lashed up mag drive - don't recall having seen an OHV one before. There was a Stuart Sandhurst chuffing away nicely and a slightly incomplete example of the earlier 1/2 hp horizontal. Models included a nicely made Westbury 1831 or Wallaby which I rather coveted and an Engineer's Emporium Little Wonder which I didn't. The latter was on the same stall as a Mar-Vil, probably the one which Kim eventually bought, I don't know who this seller is but he often has nice unusual stuff - for example a Levis flat twin and Stuart K over the last few sales. Didn't see the "American Mar-Vil", unless you meant the Maytag in which case it was definitely over priced - if it was a Johnson or Jacobsen Utilimotor, then I'd say the price was ok.
A few years ago I would probably have ended up buying something just to 'make the trip worthwhile' but this time I resisted and came away feeling like I'd just been to an interesting little rally!
Apology for the double posting(a Virgin Media gremlin) Hope I did not bore you too much Martin.After 35 years "playing" with aero gas turbines I still find them fascinating ,so simple in principle but complex in practice. Must thank Roland for pointing me towards the Stuart bedplate ,very useful. Did not anything else interesting and like Nick saw plenty of stuff I liked but did not "really need". I 've decided to limit my collecting to Stuart Turner products and will be selling off anything not ST in the near future.My very first engine way back in 1980 was a P4 followed shortly after by a P5 genset .I've been through the Amanco/Petter route with various oddities thrown in such as a Grigg and a Chugga drill .To date seven Stuarts have found a home with me but a P3 has yet to be found. Mike.H.
Anything to do with hairy planes suits me, spent a while as a volunteer at Duxford and only live four miles from Shuttleworth collection so eyes always slightly elevated :-)
For me it is about eighty miles, more or less split 40 - 40 motorway and cross country A roads. I really enjoy the drive there & deliberately get up early to benefit from the empty roads around dawn. The drive back is more prosaic, but some squirmy stuff on rising & falling topography makes overtaking more fun, especially with purchases in the back trying to escape !
I forgot to say that I also bought a double hoe Honda rotorvator for our permanent site. In running order, we soon folded it up & shoved it in the back. I look forward to churning up the compacted ground rammed solid by the repeated passing of digger & dumper in August & getting some woodland wildflower seeds into the ground to make spring more cheerful instead of a rutted & ravaged landscape.
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