Gantry Crane

The crane tracking continues! Those who read the last newsletter may remember that I bought a gantry crane from China and it had been chugging along on the HMM Helsinki. You might imagine my surprise when the Helsinki left Hamburg, not for Southampton but back to the Suez Canal.

As it turns out the container with my crane in had actually been moved to another ship weeks ago, back in Korea! My frustration at having tracked the wrong ship did ease when I decoded the rest of the shipping invoice to find a container... that I could track!

It wasn't until I realised ONEU0307570 was the container number I needed (amongst the rest of the questionably relevant letters and numbers) that I added to my basic understanding of commercial shipping. Click the link above if you want to track along too.

Wheeling Machine

Often called an English Wheel this fine, little thing arrived in my workshop recently. Made by Clive from BlackSheepCrossmember, it's what I'd class as a heritage grade machine. Solid cast steel, machined and finished with function in mind.

I've had a lot of fun making some compound curves with it and after 3 years waiting for it, I'm definitely making up for lost time!

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I shared this hammer restoration on Instagram but what I didn't show (because I forgot I'd taken a picture) was the 'before'. So I'm going to give you a first peak!

I had a few people message me about the Thread Repair File I showed off on my Stories. The name says it all but it's a great way to fix threads that while I only need a few times a year, is a real time saver when I need it.

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