Wednesday, July 7
Salcey Forest Sunday Mini-Meet (July)
by
Billy Goat
on Wed 07 Jul 2010 10:50 BST
Apologies for the lack of bike content here recently, been concentrating on 'other hobbies' that are very much Off Topic for this Blog. Bike builds have all but stalled but am getting out and about now and again on some rides and need to do more riding !!Last Sunday was a little jaunt over at Salcey Forest where we have a couple of non-technical, scenic loops we do on a Sunday morning sometimes. On the ride was my EWR, a Klein and a Park Pre.
Loop One - Ride detailsLoop Two - Ride details
Tuesday, June 22
Grave of the Sundew
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 22 Jun 2010 17:46 BST
I visited East Carlton Park a few days ago as we had to entertain a young family member for a few hours. As well as being the location for East Carlton Hall it also houses a Heritage Center for the Corby Steelworks.Some history (Copyright Wikipedia) on both the Steelworks and the famous Sundew Dragline:Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd moved to Corby, Northamptonshire in November 1932, enabling them to make use of the local iron ore to feed their blast furnaces and Bessemer steel converters. The new construction was carried out to a very tight timetable, from the clearing of the site in 1933 the first of the Corby blast furnaces was lit in May the following year. This was followed by coke from the new coke ovens the following month and the ore preparation and sinter plants in September. No.2 blast furnace was lit in November and the first steel came from the Bessemer converters on 27 December. The last of the originally planned blast furnaces (No.3) was lit in October 1935. Following a rebuild to increase capacity of No.2 furnace Corby works became the third cheapest pig iron producing plant in the world. The end of Stewarts & Lloyds ownership ceased in 1967 when the steel industry was nationalised for the second time, and they became part of the British Steel Corporation. Due to the high cost and low quality of local iron ore, steel production at Corby was set to close in November 1979. This was delayed until 21 May 1980, due to a national steel strike, when the last coil came off the mill. In nearly 40 year of steel production they had produced almost 2.5 million tons of steel. Tubemaking continues to this day, initially based on steel supplied from Teesside, and today Corus Tubes is the largest customer of steel from South Wales.Sundew DraglineBuilt by Ransomes & Rapier and named after the winning horse of the 1957 Grand National (Sundew), it began work in a Rutland iron ore quarry belonging to Stewarts & Lloyds that year. At the time of its construction Sundew was the largest walking dragline in the world, weighing 1675 tons. With a reach of 86 metres and a bucket capacity of 27 tons the machine was able to move a substantial amount of material in a relatively short period.Propulsion was via two large moveable feet which could be used to "walk" the dragline forwards and backwards, while directional control was provided by a large circular turntable under the body of the machine.Sundew remained until operations at the quarry ceased in 1974 and plans were then devised to relocate the machine to a recently opened British Steel quarry near Corby. At a cost of £250,000 and taking two years to complete it was decided that dismantling, moving and reconstructing the machine was not a viable option, and so over a nine week period in 1974 Sundew was walked thirteen miles from its home near the village of Exton in Rutland to a site north of Corby. During the walk the dragline crossed three water mains, ten roads, a railway line, two gas mains and a river, before finally reaching its new home.As part of a major restructuring of British Steel in the late 1970s the Corby site was closed down and there was no longer any need for a large dragline to assist in the recovery of iron ore. On 4 July 1980 Sundew walked to its final resting place and the huge boom was lowered onto a purpose built earth mound. There it remained for seven years until being scrapped over a six month period from January to June 1987. East Carlton House Bessemer Converter base (I think!!) Mould for a 7 ton ingot The finished 7 ton ingot Over reach bucket from the Sundew Dragline More over reach Even more over reach A Dragline very similar to the Sundew Shunting engine used in the Steelworks
Tuesday, June 15
A Black Box
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 15 Jun 2010 15:32 BST
Thursday, June 3
More Power...!!
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 03 Jun 2010 13:14 BST
Wednesday, June 2
Vintage Pins...
by
Billy Goat
on Wed 02 Jun 2010 09:56 BST
As well as hoarding vintage Mountain Bikes I also hoard Mountain Bike memorabilia/collectibles so I was quick to pounce on these neat Rocky Mountain pins featuring the original 'Whistler' logo from back in the day. I scored these from a fellow RetroBiker in Canada, neat huh?  
Tuesday, May 25
Sunday Ride @ Salcey Forest
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 25 May 2010 10:43 BST
Due to previously reported 'issues' bike riding hasn't featured on my agenda for some time but now things have changed I intend to get out and 'do a bit' again. I figured the best way for this was to start gentle so I hooked up with fellow RetroBiker GT-Steve for a few laps of Salcey Forest ) which was probably the last time I rode a bike back at the start of March). It was the start of a VERY hot day for the UK so we started the ride at 10am and did 17.674 miles of hot dusty trails. GT-Steve tore a valve off his front tube about 5 minutes out but after he switched tubes we had no more 'mechanicals'  I did a lap of the woods on his Alpinestars Cro-Mega and I must say it rides brilliantly, much better than what I was riding on this day... 
Wednesday, May 19
Red Light District...
by
Billy Goat
on Wed 19 May 2010 10:02 BST
If you can cast your mind back to February when I bought these toys for my Home Cinema, you might recall me talking about an issue I had with the Kef KUBE-2 Subwoofer....or maybe I never posted this up here  .Anyway, there is a fairly well known issue with Onkyo AV Receivers and KEF Subs, maybe other subs too (just try Googling 'Kef Kube red light issue') so I've been suffering with this for a few months. Basically you turn all the kit on, the Kef KUBE-2 sits there with a red light on it (not working!!) and about 20 minutes later it realises its purpose in life and starts delivering the deep rumbling bass it was designed to do. I roughly understood what was happening but I didn't know how to fix it....basically the KUBE-2 was consuming lots of signal and the Onky amp wasn't giving it what it needed. Me being lazy just posted up a question on an internet AV forum and forgot about it after adding it to my 'chores list'. You see, I have a Zen like approach to my chores list, just like every self respecting male should have. My chores list just 'Is' (If you have Zen figured then you will understand this phrase  ), things appear on the list (normally added my Mrs Billy Goat !) and they just 'are'  . Eventually someone replied to my post and this is the official line from KEF:In the test tone menu of your AV receiver, set the subwoofer output to
maximum, then you can come out of the AV receiver's menu.
On the back of the subwoofer itself, set the crossover to maximum and
put the volume at a level which you are comfortable with as some people
prefer a bass heavy setup, but some prefer it more subtle, at the end of
the day it is personal preference. Set the phase to either 0 or 180,
whichever sounds the loudest. The 'Bass Boost' switch is also down to
personal preference and room conditions. What it will do is give you
either a flat response through the subwoofers frequency range, or give
you a raise of +6db or +12db at around 40hz.
This should then stop your subwoofer from going into standby as the
signal output from the AV receiver will be higher.On the Onkyo 607 OSD menu's you go to Speaker Setup>Level Calibration, scroll down to the sub and up the db (try starting at +10), then drop the volume on the KUBE-2 itself. Well, this works for sure, in fact the way I first had it set was
insane...the whole house was shaking  .I'll tweak the bass levels over the next few days and fine tune it but the problem is now finally over.  
Monday, May 17
Green Light
by
Billy Goat
on Mon 17 May 2010 11:26 BST
Ok, time to breathe again....Things have been very stressful since February, Mrs Billy Goat was suspected of having a very serious illness and all this time has been spent at hospitals getting loads of tests done, waiting for results, then getting more tests done, waiting.....blah blah. Bikes (and pretty much everything else) have been on hold, hence the lack of posts here but on Friday we got the letter we have both been waiting for and luckily for us she has the all clear  So its Green Light time at Goat Central.....normal service will resume here shortly....stand by for a bunch of new posts  
Thursday, April 22
Status change...
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 22 Apr 2010 08:56 BST
Friday, April 16
Now breathe.....
by
Billy Goat
on Fri 16 Apr 2010 13:12 BST
Without airing my private life online, lets just say the last three months have been among the worst I can remember for the last 15 years....hence me 'Going Dark'......To summarise....my life has been like this since February: And now it's like this: Normal service will be resumed shortly
Tuesday, April 6
It's Tool Time...(Contd)
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 06 Apr 2010 09:15 BST
There's a bunch of 'heavy' stuff going on at Goat Central, hence the lack of Blog posts but here's a quick update on the continuing 'Tool Time' post from a few weeks back . The second task on that list (M100 'Dale - Remove 1 1/4" Chris King
NoLogo (bike being sold)) is now complete and I have this beautiful 3DV King No-Logo headset back in the spares box. Harsh economic times says sell this badboy but my heart says I should keep it stashed as locating another one of these would cost $$$ if I ever have another 3DV project 
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