Aston Martin Rust Oration

When I was doing my welding certificate at the Coolege of NW London all those years ago, I found the most challenging technique to be oxy-acetylene or gas welding. Mainly because I had real trouble in seeing the weldpool properly, MIG was just so much easier. Saying that I still passed the certificate.

Watching Malcolm using the TIG welder brought back all those horrors – it was the difficult bit of MIG with the difficult bit of gas all rolled into one. If I had attempted to weld ROJ myself it would have ended up looking like the rolling hills of the Cotswolds. The aluminium body is far more susceptible to distortion under heat that steel.

I think Malcolm was also pleased with his efforts as he’s written it up on the MIG welding forum:

I have also had drummed into me the importance of the door gap, get that right first and work on everything else from there.

Frankenstein's Aston

Before I can take time off again to dress the welds, fill and rub down the body, I’ve got three meetings to organise in parliament for the Landmine charities and an exhibition of Giles Duley’s photographs in the Upper Waiting Hall.

 It was emotional.

The garage door came off. Gary’s Alfa burst into a throaty roar and burbled backwards into the yard and then…. the lawnmower pulled ROJ from his lair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv8M-IF_xWo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcxb-xTPkbw

We took it down to Phil’s workshop for Malcolm to do the TIG welding on the roof joints and the front and rear wings.

the dramatic artistic shot

Will I finish the car before the barn falls down?

TIG’ling my fancy

Now I am really fortunate in having  one of the country’s most aclaimed welders as a friend – Malcolm is an artist with a welding torch, and he agreed to help me glue ROJ back together again.

TIG welding ROJ

…then the Argon ran out – so we’ll finish this weekend.

Hannibal’s Home

In between farm visits I’ve had a little adventure.

(Yes, yes another one) This time sadly I was winging it solo as Stephanie is still recovering from a knee operation.

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I got an invitation to join a ‘MICE Fam’ trip to Tunisia.

In the industry this means a Meetings, Incentives, Conference and Events familiarization trip, essentially to check out the country’s events facilities.

I normally just delete these things,  but Tunisia is a country of interest, and I really wanted to sound things out politically following the revolution. So I went.

We set off from Heathrow with Tunisair and had a pretty uneventful flight to Tunis – Tunis was once known as the mighty city of Carthage, so unsurprisingly my archaeology hat was tucked into my duffle bag too.

Our Tunisian hosts from Eden Tours met us at the airport, and I must say they were terrific, and as with so many North Africans they were charming, hospitable and generous – and dare I say – every bit as good as the guides that our old friends Explore Holidays use.. I would happily recommend them to anyone.

Our little group was a cheerful bunch of mismatched professionals who all hit it off and had a great time together. From the tattooed 19 year old web journo – to the (only slightly) older and greyer Malaysian travel agent with a wicked sense of humour and a penchant for the Hookah pipes.

Our entusiastic guide Sammi describing the spectacular Roman mosaics

The hotels that Eden put us up in were spectacular – if somewhat on the over sized variety – I had to keep reminding myself that this was no holiday, and that I was looking at them from a conference organiser’s perspective. From the typically Saudi style Golden Tulip Gammarth to the Swiss clock efficiency of the Mövenpicks at Gammarth  and Sousse to the final spectacle of the Hasdrubal Thalassa at Hammamet.

In between the visits to the hotels and meeting rooms we had some time for a bit of rubble gazing – a bit of ancient Carthage, and the magnificent Roman mosaics and Colluseum at El Jem.

I spotted a few old and interesting cars – but they were difficult to get snaps of – one place we did stop was my idea of heaven – the New Fly Restaurant in Port El Kantaoui – I have always wanted to have a place like that!

Plane Heaven

Coffee, tea or me?

 Tunisia seems to have come throught the revolution well. we only saw a few reminders – such as the ex-president’s son’s villa.

We got caught up in a fairly good natured demonstration about amnesty for political prisoners:

Despite the police presence and rolls of barbed wire there was no trouble at all.

I enjoyed Tunisia -  it would make a great destination for a full archaelogical tour – and I would also suggest it would make a good incentive trip for the right kind of company.

Where to next? Stockholm for our wedding anniversary later this month.

With Parliament in recess, and Stephanie with her sister Alicia in Yorkshire, it seemed an ideal opportunity to spend a week on the farm and get some major work done on ROJ.

The front panel needed riveting to the chassis – and each hole had to be drilled out first – that’s nearly 200 rivet holes I’ve now drilled in this car. 

Once that was done, I had to cut and shape the repair sections to fit. Not a job for the faint hearted

While I was doing this Phil and his friend Steve were working on yet another project car – turning a very boring Vauxhall rep-mobile into a flashy Nascar racer with a sweet sounding exhaust!

Phil masks up the yawn-mobile for painting.

...and this is the result - still not quite finished.

One thing I’ve noticed since Phil moved onto the farm, and that’s a better class of vehicle coming to visit…

Pretty car with pretty driver...

Pretty car with, er, Steve

Farwell to a Pretty but Petulant Princess 

On Sunday we finally bade farewell to our little VDP Princess. I was  planning to finish restoring it after ROJ was finished, and i hated to see her go, but I also had to be realistic.

This was the little car we went on family holidays to Cornwall in when Angus was a child. We showed it at Alexandra Palace in the London Classic Car Show – and we won ‘first in class’ at the Gosport Classic Car Rally.

At least it has gone to someone who will do a far better job of restoring it than I.

Sad little Princess

Proud little Princess

Bye-bye Princess

To Business

Instead of boring old photos of ROJ – I’ve made a boring old video..

There’s a problem with the sound, it makes me sound like Terry Thomas! I don’t think Mark Evans need worry about the competition!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9F-er7Yvis&feature=youtu.be

And finally, with Phil and Gary’s help, we jacked the car off the axle stands, and even pushed it forward a whole two inches!

It's on its wheels at last!!

And so the long hard slog of prepping the body work and painting it lies ahead – but first I’ve got to get the doors to fit….

Last night Stephanie and I attended a gala dinner at Old Billingsgate in the city to raise funds for landmines charity Find a Better Way. Guest speaker was BBC’s Stuart Hughes, entertainment was provided by Russell Watson, and Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Alex Ferguson and half the Man U team were among the guests. Over £75k was raised through an auction of various footie related items and trips to the Caribbean.

I had to rely on my new French friend to explain the football jokes…..

I have been looking forward to getting the body back onto ROJ for a long time, and with the help of Young Phil’s friend Johnny, we lifted the front end on at last.

Before fitting the front I had a small repair job to do. One of the drain pipes in the bonnet gutter had broken off. I was keen to try the Lumiweld system to repair it, but decided I needed some practice first.

Using the old bent clip from the barn car, and using a pipe I made from a piece of old wheel arch liner I had a go. I used a steel bolt to hold the pipe in place.

I first needed to tin both the end of the pipe and the main structure – and then using as much heat as I could manage on one of the coldest days of the year, fed the Lumiweld rod into the join.

It took some time, but I eventually did it, and then did the real repair. and on went the front end.

And so ROJ now looks like an Aston Martin again.

So what next? Well I need to dress all the panels before Malcolm TIG welds them together. I need to take the aircon radiator back to the company that pressure tested it because the connection pipe has come off, and I need to spanner up all the bolts on the running gear before lowering the car off the axle stands.

On the day Prince Harry was announced as the new Patron of the HALO Trust I was clearing landmines in Cambridgeshire… well, make believe mines.

I was visiting ARMTRAC who make demining vehicles and robots – and they let me play with one of their toys!

The company manufactures armoured vehicles which are used by demining agencies around the world. A real UK export success story.

Seeing the engineers welding armour plate made me feel very inadequate in the welding department!

The most surprising thing about Prague is why I hadn’t been before.

As a city with so much cultural and historic significance it has to be on everyone’s list.

We stayed in a delightful little medieval hotel right on the end of the Charles Bridge,

with painted ceilings in the rooms:

We had coffee in the famous cubist Grand Cafe Orient and hot chocolate in the Cafe Louvre – so beloved of Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein.. We listened to great jazz in the Ungelt and went to a classical recital in the Lobkowicz Palace. We looked at Alfons Mucha’s paintings and drank lots of Czech beer – one does not, however, visit Prague for its Haut Cuisine…

Down one back street in the Lesser Town has to be one of the most unusual and eclectic museums ever.

…… Stephanie certainly looks the part!

One of the items I found most interesting was a pair of night vision headlamps – which I thought might be something I could fit on ROJ…

Just as charming as his collection was the museum’s owner and curator, a child of KGB parents, he had started his collection at the age of 11 – he was certainly passionate and knowledgeable about the history of of the cold war and Russia.

While the history, art, culture and architecture were wonderful, I also had eyes for other things…

A different definition of a roller-shoe!

And of course there were all the lovely old trams:

I used to hang model aeroplanes from my bedroom ceiling too..

Look BAA – in Prague planes take off and land even when it’s snowing!

Dr Who really, really needs to go to Prague!

….and so does Luke Skywalker!

This year is already flying by, I’ve only just got my socks on, and one of those is inside out!

I’m in a state of mental block at the moment – I’ve got so much to write, but just cannot get organised – even sitting down to write this blog took  some doing.

2013 is a year of change – I always knew things on the farm could not continue forever. It was no surprise then when Malcolm said he was buying a house and moving out – it was more of a surprise when Clive decided to follow suit. I am really most grateful for everything they’ve done for me over the last few years. I will miss Clive’s bonfire parties though.

Thankfully Phil and Gary are staying on and have agreed to continue renting me the workshop and letting me stay.

Eight years though is rather a long time to rebuild a car, and I now have an imperative to get the damn thing finished.

I popped up twice in January to get the wiring sorted out (still not quite done) and earlier this month I spent six days getting some of the bodywork on – the new roof to replace the hacksawed one, and I’ve decided to use a different rear end, with the reversing lights in the main cluster. Purists may shudder, but ROJ has parts of over 10 different cars, all those parts (apart from the ones I fabricated) are genuine Aston Martin parts, the chassis number and registration are original, and I have the original engine if I can ever afford to have it refurbished.

To get the body work on meant drilling out all the rivet holes in the steel chassis – I seem to have spent my life drilling holes!

I have been using 3mm countersunk rivets, but in one or two places have had to use 4mm ones as the old rivets were not all evenly drilled out.

I have been really looking forward to doing the body as  ROJ now looks like a car rather than a Mecchano set. I’ve still got to get the front clip on which will be my job for March. I am considering trying to use Lumiweld on the non-vital parts, opinion seems quite divided on the various fora, but it’s certainly easier than trying to TIG weld the fiddly bits.

While I was in drilling mode I got under the car and attached the two protective panels that have been hanging around annoying me for quite a while. (I’ve just had to change from Google Chrome to IE as GC wouldn’t let me load the photos).

Before getting the back end on – which needed the help of Clive to manouvre it into place, I needed to secure the breather pipes from the fuel tank and make sure all the holes for cables etc had the right size grommets.

The breather pipes had to be moulded into shape using a heat gun.

I actually started the riveting with the A pillar pieces – then the roof, and lastly the rear clip.

Moulding the ali round the b pillars was fun.

And it was at that point that my battery died, so you’ll have to wait until next month for more photos of the work – and of Phil’s exciting new Nissan ‘drifting’  project.

I’ve got some travelling to do before my next visit.

In January I went up to Dumfires to visit the Halo Trust who are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year – I’m looking foward to doing some work with them on Sri Lanka.. Last week I met with Geneva Call, who do a fantastic job of trying to get non- state armed groups to be considerate of civilians in their conflicts, and later this month I’m in Cheshire helping Find a Better Way with their forward strategy.

But before that, next week is half term so I’m taking Stephanie out to dinner for her birthday. In Prague.

The answer to the question “what sits on the bottom of the sea and quivers?”

The thought this week as I was begining to fit the wiring loom was that ROJ was finally getting a nervous system., He just needs his big pumping V8 heart and he’ll be a car again instead of a barn wreck.

Stupidly, I forgot to charge up my camera before going up to the farm, so my photos only show part of the work I got done – Mainly getting all the new aluminium  sections fettled to fit around the side air intakes, putting new sound proofing on the inner sections under the wings and preparing the new aluminium wheel-arch stoneguard liners..

Originally these liners were held on with 2BA bolts into rivnuts.

As 2BA rivnuts are hard to get, and even harder to fit, I am going to use a more modern alternative – No 14 hex head screws.

When I put the radiator in I hadn’t fitted the side bars and rubber seals. To fit them I had to take out the radiator again… usual story! But they’re in now, and the radiator is back in. I am now quietly confident that the engine bay will be finished at my next trip to the farm.

I was bemused to find that AM stamped the chassis number onto the mesh stoneguard – which meant I had to restore the old ones instead of using the better condition ones from the donor car.

The best bit about this week was that I didn’t waste any time – all the jobs I did on the car went well, and I achieved exactly what I had planned to. If I carry on like that I may just finish the car before I retire! Roll on next month.

Back from Christmas week skiing in Austria and raring to get 2013 off to a good start with some work on ROJ – if the landmines work doesn’t get me first…

Have a Great New Year every-one!

Nigel