MarkW

Well thanks for that Joeman - great thread the very day I'm due to pick up a new(ish) diesel XC90!

Thanks for the input guys. I disassembled one of the cabs this evening and it's very basic MDF construction (just butt joints) with the odd bit of plywood reinforcement inside around the handles and the mounting socket. I'll probably make a close-ish copy, but with better joinery!

The edges would all be rounded over, but you can get a bit of lateral tear-out with ply, leaving voids that I'd have to fill before painting. That's not a problem though.

Morning all! Packing up our gear after a gig last night it became apparent that after several years of abuse our PA cabs really are on their last legs, and that it's not going to be long before they disintegrate completely. As the only woodworker in the band I was volunteered to make some replacements. Construction wise it's a simple job: make a box of the same dimensions, replicate the internal baffles and route out recesses for the various handles, mounting plates and control panels. The question is what to build them out of. The current cabs are made of MDF covered with standard black speaker paint. Years of being bashed around, having bear spilled on them and being loaded and unloaded in the rain have taken their toll, and the MDF has blown apart completely in several places. MDF doesn't hold screws very well, so their previous attempts at reinforcing them failed very quickly. Bracing them with metal plates would have helped at one stage, but they're way beyond that now. They also weigh a ton as it is! My first thought was to use good quality birch ply, which is strong, durable and lighter than MDF. The downside of ply is that the edges don't machine as well as MDF, so a bit of finishing with wood filler and sandpaper would be needed before painting. For this I thought the rubberised truck bed-liner paint like the OEM stuff Demon Tweeks sell would be ideal. However, a quick scan on a couple of speaker building sites throws up a ton of stuff about cab construction material with convoluted discussions about resonant frequencies, self damping, torsional stiffness and who knows what else. So rather than spend my Sunday trying to make any sense of it all I thought it would just be quicker to see if any of the fine folks on here had any advice they can offer. So: MDF, plywood, or something else entirely?

Nice to see you sporting my initials on your shirt there TC - top man.

"Did I fire three rounds, or was it only two? To tell you the truth I kinda lost count myself in all the excitement..." Joking apart, I'd hate to be a policeman these days. My wife used to be a police intelligence analyst, and between the IPCC and the CPS she couldn't see why most of them bothered to keep showing up for work.

I've had both my bike seats professionally recovered, and having watched the process both times I'd say that although there's a knack to getting the corners neat you should be able to do a decent enough job with a bit of patience. I'd remove the old cover and all the staples, and if the rips in the old cover have let water in you'll want to let the foam dry out before recovering. Pull it nice and tight and then open fire with the staple gun.

Not to worry. We're OK for autoclaves and compressors, but if you have an environmental SEM or a track sprayer knocking around give me a shout!

We may well be interested if it's still available. We've gone PCR for all our pathogen screening, which has drastically reduced the amount of purified water we use because we're making much less agar, but we still chug through a hundred litres or so every month. Just a couple of quick questions: 1. Roughly how long do you reckon the two filters will last, and are they common to any other current model? 2. Will it fit in an XC90 with the seats down or will I need to hire a van? Cheers Fro!

As far as I'm concerned, if Islamic terrorists are so keen to meet Allah we should do all we can to hasten the introduction. That said, I'm not immediately convinced that giving every British policeman a gun would make me feel any safer. More of those specially trained firearms officers wouldn't be a bad idea though, especially in high-risk locations.

As a kid I immediately lost interest in joining the police when I realised I wouldn't be allowed to blow people away like Dirty Harry.

Maybe aim a bit lower then Speaking of which, I had a bike seat recovered by a guy who saw one of his colleagues accidentally shoot himself in the nads with a nail gun. That's got to smart a bit.

Indeed. As the saying goes "Hell hath no fury like a woman who catches her husband balls deep in a whore". Or words to that effect.

I've been following this pantomime on Facebook for a year or so, which involves an old acquaintance from years back: 60 year old man decides to sell successful UK business and put everything into setting up new venture in Thailand. Sets off to get things started, leaving wife behind to tidy up sale of business and house, with plans for her to join him later. No sooner does hubby arrive in Thailand than he falls for teenage prostitute in lap-dancing club, and promptly acquires startling assortment of STDs. Hubby tries to tempt prostitute away from seedy lifestyle by giving her lots of money. Prostitute moves in with hubby, but returns to turning tricks whenever she wants him to give her more cash. Hubby keeps paying her to come back. Time between coming back to hubby and going back to turning tricks sometimes as little as 24 hours. Eventually wife comes out to visit, and immediately acquires aforementioned startling assortment of STDs. Wife confronts hubby, and says she'll forgive his dalliance if he draws a line under it. Hubby says he can't, because he's in love with teenage prostitute. Sometime thereafter teenage prostitute turns up with his baby, hands it to wife, and goes back once and for all to turning tricks in strip club. Wife says this is the final straw, and wants divorce. Row ensues, and hubby punches wife in the face. Wife goes to police, who can't do anything because there were no witnesses. Hubby feels remorse and writes wife letter apologising for the fisty-cuffs. Wife takes letter to police, who promptly arrest him. Wife appoints hot-shot lawyer. Hubby wants divorce over and done with and signs paperwork without reading it. Wife gets the business, 75% of the proceeds and all its assets. Hubby gets criminal record and a Thai baby. Ah... how many times have we heard that story...

I really like that! I can sort of see myself doing something like this when I've gained more mechanical skills, money and a bigger garage! Looking forward to seeing your outcome Mark. Err.. might be setting the bar a bit high there... It's worth next to nowt as it is, so I've got nothing to lose. But I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, so it might be a long term project.

If the offer still stands after I've modified it I may well be taking you up on it.

Insanity has broken out in the HG1 postal district, and I've decided to 'street fighter' the Honda ST1300. I don't care if it looks shit, but I've had it up to here with fiddly fairings, stubborn bolts and stripped threads. And the plastic is all faded anyway. Anyone got any advice (other than "don't") they can't offer? Are there any bits that will now be exposed that need to be covered up or moved? The wiring looms look as though they can be re-routed easily enough, but there may be other stuff to consider. The cockpit, headlight and indicators are all going, but I've not decided what to do with the rear yet. I could go mad and buy shiny stuff from one of those custom bike places, but given how little I paid for the bike in the first place I think bits from the local breakers yard will be adequate. Again, and advice here much appreciated. This could end up being the ugliest bike ever...

Well that's stage one completed: form filled in and returned to confirm that I was the driver at the time of the alleged offence. I considered including a short note to say that whilst I know damn well that I wasn't doing above the 42 mph indicated on the speedo, and was probably closer to the 40 indicated by the satnav, I don't intend to fight it because I have nothing whatever with which to defend myself other than a witness who wouldn't be considered impartial in any court. But then I figured that it wouldn't change anything, and doesn't exactly conform to the contrite and remorseful naughty boy you have to appear if you want to be offered a speed awareness course and avoid the points. And won't that be ironic? I'll be sitting there knowing that I have a considerably better awareness of what my speed was than the sodding detector did.

Yeah, but that stage doesn't last long, and then when they're older you can have the joys of coming home from a crap day at work and just crashing out and building Lego spaceships all evening.

I must admit I've always struggled with the idea that speed cameras are for safety rather than revenue generation. Apparently the UK has some of the safest motorways in Europe, despite the fact that they are also among the most congested, and that something like 70% of motorway users admit to regularly driving at 80+. Merely exceeding the motorway limit doesn't appear to be all that dangerous. I'm no expert in these things, but having been a high-mileage motorist for 27 years I know what I find the more dangerous. It's not people cruising along at 80 or even 90 mph: it's the tailgaters; it's the ones who get right up behind you and try to bully you out of the way; the ones who undertake aggressively and squeeze back in front into a space that's patently too small; the ones who join and leave the motorway by crossing all three lanes in one diagonal slice; the ones who are completely oblivious to everything around them - even when there's a police car or an ambulance trying to get past them; the ones with no anticipation skills or common sense, who sit right in the blind spot of a car that is clearly going to have to pull out any second to overtake, and who slam their brakes on or swerve out into the next lane when it happens because they couldn't be seen; the ones on their phones or fiddling with their satnavs; the ones who are tired or drunk; the ones who drive whilst clearly having a row with the wife and kids - the list goes on and on. And not one of these things can be caught by a speed camera, only by a traffic officer. And yet as the pestilence of speed cameras grows exponentially, the number of traffic officers seems to be being decimated. One of the parents at my kids school is a police officer, and told me that 40% cuts in traffic officers are not uncommon, and that some forces have lost their traffic guys altogether. I'm happy for all of the above to be shot down in flames of course, but as far as I can tell it doesn't add up to road safety being more important than revenue generation.

I don't think that would ever have crossed our minds TC old chap.

Go on - I'm listening....

Thanks TC - invaluable input as usual, and much appreciated. I've had two previous 3-point speeding tickets in the nearly 27 years I've been driving (separated by well over 20 years) and although in both cases they were massively irritating I held my hands up without argument, took the points and paid the fine. This time is different: I know damn well I wasn't speeding, and to have achieved a recorded 53 mph on the device my speedo must have been indicating something like 55-56! There are plenty of sites 'exposing' the inaccuracy of hand-held radar/laser equipment when set up and used according to standard procedures, but even assuming these are legitimate shortcomings of the technology I don't see that it gets me anywhere: the traffic officer will whip out his calibration certificate / expert opinion / years of experience and God knows what else, whereas I have nothing to back up my claim other than the fact that my wife (who can't be considered an impartial witness) was sitting next to me and also knows damn well that I wasn't speeding. I don't fancy my chances in court. It only takes three days training to be a magistrate and no qualifications other than the ability to sit still for long periods, and that's not exactly my preferred forum for questioning the veracity of a police officer's evidence. Besides, they must see so many guilty people trying to wriggle out of speeding tickets that a genuine case would get a pretty jaded hearing. I don't approve of speed trap detectors and have never owned one, but this sort of b*llshit makes me sorely tempted to buy one.

Good thinking, but we were in the car!

Last Wednesday my wife and I tootled off for a day out a few miles up the road for my birthday. As we rounded a corner we saw a motorcycle cop on the grass verge with a hand-held speed gun. We both looked at the speedo, as you can't help but do in such circumstances: fractionally over 40 mph on the clock, 40 bang on according to the satnav. The speed limit on this particular stretch has relatively recently been reduced from the 60 mph it has been for the last 40 years to 40 mph, despite no changes to the road layout or the surrounding area, and it is a notorious hunting ground for those desperate to protect innocent members of the public from the extreme danger posed by reckless motorists who may now happen to go round it at 45 mph. I know that sounds cynical, but the point is I know the road and plenty of people who've been done there for minor infractions (including one of our employees) so it's not somewhere I'm likely to allow myself to get caught. So imagine my surprise when a NIP landed on my doormat this morning claiming I'd been clocked at 53 mph! Absolute b*llocks. Coincidentally, I noticed that 53 mph is the maxim limit in a 40 zone to be eligible for a speed awareness course (really struggling to keep the cynicism in check here). Not sure how to proceed now. I saw the old prisoners dilemma on the back of the form (accept you're guilty and we'll punish you; expect us to provide evidence and we'll punish you even more) which always struck me as not even having a nodding acquaintanceship with any notion of justice. Anyway, any advice from you guys much appreciated...