Austin Shackles

As I'm about to attach a bench to our Matt Walker stove, this thread contains invaluable information.

On my stove, I built in a bypass at the back of the core direct into the chimney for easy lighting, and also for the possibility that some day I may want to cook on the stove without heating the whole thing and the bench.  Yes, it does require thought and discipline not to leave the bypass open and waste heat up the chimney, but it's well worth that in my view for the ease of lighting.  We live in a fairly warm climate with only 2-3 months of not super-cold weather.

When I built my Matt Walker stove Matt Walker build in Portugal I built the lower part of the body using refractory mortar.  The top part I built using clay-sand mortar as recommended by many folks, on the grounds that it's possible to get it apart if need be.

Now, the problem I'm seeing is that it tends to come apart by itself.  The clay-sand mortar adheres poorly to the bricks, so poorly that some of the one on the top came loose and had to be stuck back with alternative stuff to hand such as high temperature silicone or some fire cement stuff intended for sealing chimney flue joints.

Now, it might be that the sand I used was an issue.  It's sold as "yellow" sand and is what you would normally use for rendering, as distinct from building a wall.  I guess in the UK I'd call it soft sand, rather than sharp sand.  It's also possible I should've had more, or less, clay in the mix.

As I'm soon going to embark on building the bench, and I would like the top of that to be removable in case of need, can I ask what sand and what mix ratio other people are using in their clay-based mortar?   The clay I have is dry powder in a sack.

Can confirm, properly dry eucalyptus is excellent rocket fuel.  

As for splitting it tends to have a twisty spiral grain so it doesn't split straight, also it tends to make little thin bits that try to join the 2 parts you are attempting to split.  It is easier split when green.  I recommend a hydraulic log splitter, biggish logs are a mare to do with an axe or wedges.  Good exercise I suppose...

If you spot anyone replacing old tiled roofs, the beams were often eucalyptus as it grows straight, is fairly strong, and somewhat resistant to rot.  Old roof beams (aside from the nails they contain) are a superb source so worth trying to make a deal for them.

If you have mimosa/acacia where you live that is also invasive and is also good fuel, and dries quite fast as well.

Well yesterday was the first burn of the season.  I did prime the flue just in case, and I lit it with a regular lighter 'cos I'd mislaid the gas blowlamp.  But she did us proud and fired right up and burned very nicely.  As yet still no bench, that's lined up for building this winter with luck.

Today, didn't bother priming just bypass open and off she went.  Feels like I can shut the bypass sooner but that may just be the wood is nice and dry, so it gets going fast. Anyway, the stove is burning nicely.  It's not all that cold here, mind, but recent rain made the house damp downstairs.  

Jay Angler wrote:At Nina's request:

1-2 chicken livers and hearts chopped finely
Maybe we need to ask Burra for her recipe?  See how different they are?

Well, when I make it...  it's about like this

Ingredients:
About 1/3 Kg chicken livers, cut into smallish pieces  (we use re-purposed butter tubs to freeze the liver when we get a lot cheap from the shop and they go 3 to the Kg for fresh liver)
1 medium onion or equivalent, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped (or to taste)
If available about 100g mushrooms, chopped
If available fatty scraps from meat or failing that a decent amount of fat.  Can be lard, oil, butter, whatever is to hand.  You want a generous amount for frying, which ends up in the paté
herbs to taste
salt/pepper to taste

method:
Using an iron skillet or other pan-of-choice melt the fat if needed (or heat oil), add the onions, garlic, mushrooms and fry for a few minutes on a medium heat.  Add in the herbs, stir around nicely then add the liver.  Turn the liver frequently until it's browned all over, then reduce the heat, add a small amount of water (around 2 tbsp) and let it simmer until the liver is cooked through (doesn't take long if you cut it small).  Turn off the heat, cover the pan and let it cool.
When it's cool enough blend it with a magic wand/stick blender etc.  If you don't have that it can be done in a jug blender but that's more cleaning.  Or you can use a fork but that's a bit like work - my grandmother would approve though
Season to taste and place in jar(s) with a good lid and put in the fridge.  It keeps for at least a week in the fridge although in this house it rarely lasts that long!

modern day Vimes got sent back in time to when young Vimes had just joined the night watch.  Old-Vimes takes on the identity of Sgt. Keene (IIRC).  In due course they start the treacle mine road republic or some such and foment a revolution against the city, with the aims of achieving "freedom, reasonably-priced love and a hard-boiled egg"  - on the grounds that old-Vimes didn't much rate their chances of achieving the first 2 but a hard-boiled egg should be do-able.

They wore lilac to identify themselves.

the other aspect of drive though, the drive wheel is on the center line of the trike and has all your weight on it.  Cheap deltas tend to be 1-wheel drive, and thus the drive is off-center and your weight is split between the 2 wheels.

Better ones have either a double-freewheel or a differential.  There are advantages and disadvantages in both systems.  

The cargo trike was a prototype I built but sadly never had the funds to develop fully.  It would've allowed for carrying large items and shopping, or fitting child car seats to the front so you could carry small children safely and where they could be seen.  With modern systems now available it could easily have had electric assist as well.

Per the "tadpole" thing, My father and I used to make the Newton tricycle which was that format.  It was based on the Kendrick trikes which were made in the early 20th century although in fact Kendricks weren't that good as the steering wasn't well adjusted.  My father had a background in automotive design and built a trike with stable Ackermann style steering.  Eventually I took over the building until we had to sell the farm where the workshop was.  My father decided to pursue this after he got a "normal" delta trike and wasn't impressed with its performance.

"Tadpole" vs "delta" is a debate at least 100 years old  However, I can make a good argument based on physics for why tadpole is better:

The most unstable condition for any trike is when going fast around corners.  The biggest risk for tipping any trike is cornering fast downhill when braking.  Now, consider the trike when it begins to tip.  When the inside wheel on the turn leaves the ground, the machine begins to tip over, pivoting around the line between the 2 wheels that are still on the ground.  With a delta layout (2 wheels at the rear) that line is inclined towards the front, and so weight of the machine and rider try to tip on a diagonal which is partly sideways, partly forwards - and in the downhill-cornering scenario, your weight is trying to go forwards anyway.  Now if we consider the tadpole layout, that tipping line is inclined backwards so the forces tipping the trike over act partly in the opposite direction to the force of cornering and braking.

There's another aspect: it's easier to transfer your body weight to the "light" side of the trike with a tadpole.  If you watch racers on deltas, when they are cornering hard they have to get off the saddle and hang off the side of the machine, which is all very well if you're young and athletic.  With a tadpole you can lean your upper body over and put your weight more on one handlebar.

That's a great build, I like that you incorporated a water tank as well.  That's one thing I didn't do on ours, although we do plan a heated bench alongside it.  Intrigued that you put the chimney base at the side, which makes it stick out into the room a whole lot less.  For use the space isn't a problem but in a small room that's a very worthwhile alteration.  

paul wheaton wrote:The "long life incandescent" died today.  Day 3705.  It had a total "on" time of 17,784 hours.

The LED is still going.

Furtling around in these old threads now basically CFls are dead and gone and lighting has moved on to LEDs in large part...

I'd just like to say top marks to Paul for running the light bulb test for over 10 years, and coming back to report the result 10 years later!

One thing that's happened relatively recently (probably in the last 5 years or so) is ready and reasonably priced replacements for regular tube-type fluorescent lights.  I recently got one for the 4ft one I have in the kitchen.  

O'course another thing that's come along is lighting fixtures wherein the LED light source is not (easily) replaceable and those I think are an abomination.  But the LED "bulbs" and now strip lights have come on a heck of a lot since 14 -odd years ago when Paul first posted about CFLs being crap (and in hindsight, they were: but at that time LED tech hadn't progressed to where it is now).  I well recall the first ever commercially available CFL which Philips sold which was as dim as heck for the first couple of minutes.  Now we have LEDs that make instant light, we can to a fair extent choose the color temperature of the light for different applications and provided you avoid ultra-cheap ones form dodgy stores, they are reliable.   I have had a couple that failed prematurely, likely due to being el-cheapo.  But that was always a thing even with incandescent bulbs - if you bought el-cheapo brand from the bargain store, a percentage of them failed on first switch-on.