Free to good home

Wicked Uncle Nigel said:

An infinite number of seagulls ?

 

Who? Mr. Whitworth, the captive nut?

 

Nut Screws Washer and Bolts!

 

ah, the old ones are the best.

 

<Takes cue>

There's nothing like a good old joke....

 

A variation on that joke was told by David Niven in one of his
automobilebiographies.

 

and that...

 

was nothing ...

 

Vary fashionable in Clydebank.

 

The message <1j4cn8k.1qc3pkgxb0yqcN%>
from (The Older Gentleman) contains these
words:

Indeed - but this wasn't a joke - a teacher and I overheard it in the
playground.

 

....like...

 

Way back when that machine was popular, needles didn't have a
standardised fitting. Each manufacturer's needle had its own sectional
profile. Over the years many got dropped and a more common fitment
evolved.

 

Sure you did.

 

My father in law had a Singer Vogue.[/QUOTE]

With that nice 1725cc aluminium head engine ?

 

old enough.
(Samantha blows whistle)

 

Lucky old Whistle!

 

With that nice 1725cc aluminium head engine ?[/QUOTE]

Coo, I dunno. I've only seen pictures of the thing. This was an old
convertible, in the 1950s/60s, so not the variation on the Hunter.

 

I had that engine in a Sunbeam rapier (minx-shaped). It had twin
weber carburettors and frameless windows (the car, not the engine).
Electric overdirve and freewheel device on 3rd & 4th. wierd
"progressive" dampers on the back, that got stiffer if you drove it
hard. Don't know how, but they cost a fortune to replace. around
30zu each, which was what I paid for the car. Engine was a little
trojan, till my dad put "white knight" oil in it that he got cheap
from the CSMA. Don't ask. We'd already had to change the main
bearings on his minx twice 'cos he insisted on using it.

He drove it whilst loooking for a new shop to invest in, and I was on
the high seas. I came back and the eclectic overdrive didn't, and the
rattles had taken up home in the engine. Big rebuild took about a
week, but it was never the same and the tinworm was by then rampant.
The frameless winjows did not seal and a lot of the upholstery was, by
then, a bit smelly as a consequence. The fabric covered alleged seals
on the inside of the doors that the windows rubbed past were green
with mildew. Last seen as a chicken shed on Gordon Abbots farm

 

I unforget briefly driving my sister's then-BF's Hunter GT, which had
that engine fitted with two twin-choke Weber carbs. They asked me to
pick them up from a pop concert at Knebworth House. On trying to move
off from our then-gravel drive, a tiny amount of accelerator shot gravel
backwards with some force. The thing went like fuvg off a fubiry.

 

There are a LOT of different needle systems. MOST modern DOMESTIC
machines use the 705 system, which was introduced back in the early
1900's, but there are many others. Some are used for industrial
machines, and some of the processes those do require curved and hooked
needles, needles of differing lengths... One of my machines uses a
needle no longer required by modern domestic machines, but which is
still used by industrial bar-tack machines, so I use those... Schmetz
were the last makers of the needles for the Adria Saxonia, the Singer
12, and various other of the older machines. As they were no longer
wanted by the industry, it was not economical to continue making them
for the few dozen of this type of machine still extant, so they
stopped making them about 20 years ago.