Recent content by alz

I didn't realise that JCB made bandsaws until I acquired this sizeable, and weighty, machine recently. Needs a bit of fettling and I,m bit wary about the working but old motor.

Using old woodturning lathe to make a base for gift of a cast metal figure. It's a little model of Kipling's "Gentleman in Kharki", a wounded Victorian soldier holding his rifle. Never made a cast metal item before, and don't know what type of glue used to put figure together? Advice appreciated.

Just had a 60ft conifer tree felled as it was too near neighbour's house. Now logging for for woodburning stove and will leave to season. Having a large garden, decided to use the branches to build a "cave" for my grandson, a big lean-to structure in corner of a large drystone retaining bank. He...

As the former Aberdeenshire reporter with the local daily newspaper. I often attended royal events across the area from the days of the Royal Yacht and the Royal Train arriving in Aberdeen to events at Balmoral. One Balmoral day a photographer and I were at the private entrance to the castle. I...

Our elder daughter was born in Aberdeenshire in the 1976 heatwave, and it was really hot. We must be a hardy lot up here if you think it was chilly! Speaking of chilly, it is still freezing up here each winter and we rely on a woodstove for back up heating, particularly when the power lines go...

Sorry to lower the tone, but it reminds me - as a retired newspaperman - of one night when a latter-day Fokker aircraft was involved in an emergency landing at our local airport. The editor was an aeroplane enthusiast, and when a senior reporter returned from the scene he asked exactly what...

The B&D router guide for letters and numbers was item number A5622. Both sets provided came in two sizes, 2.5ins and 1.75ins.

I'm pretty sure B&D did their own router letters and numbers template kits. You might be able to come across something on some of the auction websites?

My father was in the Home Guard during the war, and years later I found a box in the workshop bench full of 9mm and .303 rounds, along with 12-bore ball cartridges covered in cobwebs. There was also a small .32 revolver that I sneaked up to my bedroom, tried trigger to see if still worked ...and...

If the spurtle was an essential in every Scottish kitchen - and it should really have a thistle shaped top, laddie - then so was the "tattie masher". A wooden item for mashing up boiled potatoes, it resembled the wartime German version of the hand grenade - in fact, the Scots soldiers nicknamed...

I am surprised more use is not made of hydro power in this country. My father worked with the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board, and recalled the enduring success of dams built in Scotland to generate power just after WW2. He also had a set of 1890's bound volumes of Work, An Illustrated...

Lovely piece of work, I envy you! Remember years ago local builders used similar wheeled hut. It was actually an old roadman's hut complete with stove, large cart wheels and steps up to door, that the former county council had sold off. Wish I had bought it from them when they finished the site....

Received both flu and booster jabs earlier this week - one in left and other in right arm. Bit of an ache but cleared up in a day or so. Must say I have been impressed by the way the Scottish Government has handled the whole covid crisis, both by the injections programme and keeping people...

Don't think the "older generation" is committed to the BBC anymore. Remembering the quality of the programmes that was once produced by the BBC, it's sad to see the rubbish screened now. Even the former staff admit the whole service has dumbed-down its content....and as for making old folk pay...

Sky Glass is pointing the way ahead by having reception not through aerials/dishes but by internet. Develop a set-up that provides a means of deleting BBC would suit me perfectly.