Happy Christmas and Happy New Year

All the best to all that watch my videos

Van Problems and the Doctors

Had a few problems with the van over the last few weeks
firsty the exhaust has started to blow on one of the silencers so this needs to be addressed before the MOT.
 Next was having starting issues probably due to the cold season starting  went a got a new battery  but this did not help the issue was the starter motor had gone chips.
And I will need to replace all the tyres again for the MOT the one good thing is the trailer i have is coming in very handy so that might be staying. Its still a pain trying to reverse with such a small trailer attached 7ft by 3ft that's including the Hicth which is only 2 foot plus not being able to see it in the wing mirrors is an issue.

Another thing now is age related The Doctors appointments are never ending since registering 3 months a go I have had 3 appointment each month at the doctors plus two at the hospital up untill registering my last doctors visit was about seven years ago 

Whats going on

 Hi all just a update as to whats going on with me and how I feel.

 1st

 having issues with the videos trying to up load them and finding something of interest to up load and with not moving around a lot at the moment I don,t really have much new to offer you.

2nd
A lot of my time is taken up with my new found fascination the Cigar Box Guitar, making them and learning to play them. 
This is taking over my Life which other than moving into my van is the best thing that has happened to me.
And life,s to short to miss this learning curve I have always loved music but the ability to play an instrument has been a difficult task that is until I found 1, the Harmonica, 2, the Cigar box guitar.
If I found these two instruments years ago my confidence level would of improved greatly allowing me to go and do a little Busking which is number one on my bucket list.

3rd 
The response to my Blogs/Videos and you tube channel has in all honesty been poor to say the least
this blog (bricktorubber) is more of an open diary than anything else.
I remember saying last year it was not worth keeping this going and unfortunately i,am still in the same frame of mind.


Back to the Blog


 Just got myself a new workbench the Mac Allister type its a good stable bench that I can place on my kitchen top this will let me do a bit work work inside the van when the weather is to bad outside.
At the moment I have a small trailer that i,am towing around its useful but not very practical for me being so small 5ft x 3ft I can not see it unless using the rear view camera.
and being so small its super responsive and twitchy when reversing will be selling it soon.
the workbench will fit nicely inside the van as it folds up like a table and is only about 5" deep.
I,am still down south and moving around a little bit more retracing my steps at the moment so not really anything new to show you in the way of videos.
And talking of videos I,am having big issues with uploading on to you tube and also trying to load direct onto my blog page they only allow a small file size to be uploaded this is not of any use unless uploading snippets of film.
I now have a blog which is just for my Cigar Box Guitars and other related items.

SBBGUK cigarbox guitars

Problems with up loading Videos

SORRY I Can not get any Videos to upload and have tried for a few weeks now.

End of the Car boot Season

The end of the car boot season is next week we had far to many cancellations over the last two months due to bad weather so selling was very poor and this will reflect on next years work.

I have no intentions of buying any more cigar box guitar parts at all for next year i have 6 neck blanks along with fretboards and 3  complete necks that I have already made up along with a dozen boxes and quite a lot of hardware so might make these up plus the unsold one from this year.

I know car boots are not really the best place to sell new higher priced goods but  for advertising with over 600 plus, people walking past on the average Sunday it pays to be there So with 7 of my own  cigar box guitars sold plus 5 other guitars that i picked up at the boot sale that i made good all was not lost.

However I was disappointed with the overall response and as a result will not be doing just that one car boot next year  Depending which part of the country i am in I will try to do a few different venues

Fitted A Gas Shower.

Have been doing a few more jobs on my motorhome I fitted a calor gas shower and I changed the submersible water pump which is in a 80ltr tank fitted to the underside of the floor.
having read the owners manual to check where the feed pipes and the pump are situated, with spanners at the ready and the van safely up on blocks we were ready to go.I asked (Alan that's the lad out of the caravan that i wrote about the other week) to help me to be honest Alan did most of the work we got the tank down and dragged it from under the van.
The tank and placement of the feed pipes and pump were nothing like in the hand book could of been a replacement tank so I fitted the new pump checked everything then replaced the tank.
While taking the tank off we had to cut one of the metal holding brackets which meant making a replacement.
Everything fitted back into place turned the taps on inside all was working well (or so i thought )
after a few hours I tried the taps only to find no water coming out.
OK i will have a look in the morning while laying in bed I went over the way we refitted the pump and tank I remember saying to Alan when I fitted the water pump that it seemed to be high in the tank
for a submersible pump.
In the morning I still no water coming out of the taps so back up the the layby where Alan and char were staying I had convinced myself that the water pump had been fitted on the inlet pipe and not on the outlet.
Sorry but it got to come off again taking it off the second time was a hell of a lot easier than the first time
dragging the tank out from under the van we checked to find everything was correct and in the right place.
Only a ten minute job putting the tank back in place refitted the pipe work  filled up with 80ltrs of fresh water turned the pump on opened the taps and bingo all was working.
One last check run the shower that worked fine I can now run the shower off the gas using the shower unit or I can run the vans shower which is heated from the blown air heating system through the shower unit the big difference here is the water temp from the shower unit is 28Deg and from the vans heating unit is 40 or 60degs.