Okay eveyone, listen up!
First, the trania, oops, I mean the rivits. (Sorry, too much trekking.)
Barry K., it is easy to replace the plastic snap fasteners, at least the ones
on Spitfire 1500's. You have to drill out the old ones, which is not too hard
until the shell of the old one starts to spin with your drill bit in the body.
Still, not too much trouble. Assuming the hole in the body is not oversize
for some reason, the new ones are easy to pop-rivet in with a hand-held rivet
gun, except for two frustrating problems. Most (or many?) guns have a head
that is too big to fit into the sunken hole in the snap, so it can't exert a
good force on the base fo the rivet. It just squashes the snap instead. You
can fix this by fabricating a head "spacer" that is tapered or narrow enough
to fit into the snap. The other problem is that the head of many (most?)
rivets is too big to fit into the snap too! I just hold mine in a drill and
put a small file to the rivet flange as it spins, to take it down to a smaller
diameter that fits.
Okay, SOL fans. Here is a big notice. I am going to be leaving Alliant, so
british-cars as it now stands will have to go too. I will be going to work
for Stardent, and they have said there is no problem with me taking the list
with me. I don't know what future addresses will be, but offhand I'd guess
them to be muller@stardent.com and british-cars@stardent.com. I have made a
tape of the list and will set it up as soon as possible. In the meantime I
will forward a copy of my list to Chris Kent (kent@wsl.dec.com) "just in case".
Chris currently runs the left-coast sub-list. Maybe I'll send a copy to mjb
too, also "just in case".
When will all this happen? Our band goes on the road the rest of this week
and next, so I won't be here to fix things or even read mail. When I return
I expect to be here at Alliant for the first week of October, and start at
Stardent on about October 8. I don't know how long it will take for me to
set up british-cars after that, and I don't know what the mail-forwarding
situation will be, so expect some small delays. The trouble is not in your
workstation.
The past few years have been great, and I fully expect to keep this thing
going even better. (Stardent has Internet connection!) It has been work too.
If it doesn't work out, someone else please pick up the flame, and I'll sign
off with a fond farewell. Until then, keep the revs up and don't break
british-cars until I return! :-o
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/ Jim Muller, Keeper Of the Flickering Flame (It's a Lucas flame.)
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