h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I'm sure its a previous botched repair"
Oh tell me about it! I once saw one where the regulator cable had been repaired using an expanding retrofit assembly - I nearly died laughing at that one!

Now a good source for the X-splaide-end (and it's nice to find someone else who knows how to spell that correctly!) is from '88 spanish knock offs. Sorry, commemorative editions. I think they must have mis-read something as all the eccentic leader connectors we X-splaide - although oddly they used a combination of Y- and B- splaide for the common connectors, weird huh?

Agh, I just discovered my urfer's curled up again. I can't remember what I did last time. Any advice? It's non-braided and comes with a J-ring.

Non-braided? That's tough. Is the rubber very badly perished?

No rubber on this one - it's Japanned, so you can't crimp it, unfortunately.

Well, that does make it a bit easier. My Dad had one that went the same way, but it had the rubber sheathing. I think he put it in the vice and shimmed off the knurled flange.

I did have a Bosch attachment for it, but they've gone Snap-on now.

How are the new EU regulations going to affect things? With it being the LED model I have, I'm naturally a bit concerned...

It depends, if it was made before 1982 you should be fine.

I've heard that too, but ever since the campaign against the Hetherington brace mould, who really knows for sure?

Right... I've heard, though I haven't been able to try it myself, that if you can get hold of one of the old Gribblethwaite cross bars cut it in half and replace the flim shafts with the two pieces, that solves the issues with the Hetherington.

Ah, the Gribblethwaite. Now there was a classic.

I remember seeing on the news when the factory closed down. Lack of funds, they said... just shows that people don't appreciate quality.

I've finally managed to find one, picked it up in an army surplus store, and found the head socket for it misfiled in a box of thread converters.

Now I need to get the sights aligned, can you still get the tuning kits ?

Well, there's always ebay.... I picked a tuning kit up there for a couple of bob a year or so back, but it turned out to be for the Mark II. When I got back to the bloke he said "well, that's pre-1978, isn't it?"

*sigh*

That's the problem with eBay there are a lot of people selling things they got from a house clearance or something with no real understanding of what it is. I mean, scans of the documentation and manuals are available to download and are easy to find with a simple web search, so there really is no excuse for such lack of knowledge about the tuners.

Well, there's worse than that. I saw an ad for a Mark III tuning kit, but the photograph was of a scrimmaging set. Fair play, it was for the Mark III, but even so.

Is that the one with the integral cleat?

God, I hope not - the draughtsman who came up with that one should have been flogged. The number of ballustrade fabricators who succumbed to *that* one makes me weep to think of it.

No, while there are arguments for the cleat, it's definitely a measure of last resort, in my book.

The cleat saves a bit of time when you're using it offsite.

My late dad used aglet pins - I found them in a labelled tin of Golden Virginia when I did his shed clearance. It was like Jack Hargreaves' cave in there!

Yeah - I've looked on e-bay but all I can see on their is the left-handed one with the offset cam, and that's not going to work on a Froggatt ~ not without a damn great hammer anyway.