A new book?

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SplinterA
Posts: 243
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 7:35 pm
Location: UK

A new book?

Post by SplinterA »

Is it new or just new to me?
http://livres.histoireetcollections.com ... -1945.html
For the younger members these are like a website but dont need power or a wifi connection. Each page can be sequentially accessed or randomly. They run on any system that cant turn a physical page and read the language.
saddler
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:22 pm
Location: Edinburgh area
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Re: A new book?

Post by saddler »

...but what about the integral code errors, whereby the wobbly jpeg images and none pixelated text suggest data that does not compute with "research" obtained from [insert name of HBO mino-serial/Hollywood mega-movie] ??

Teddy bears may then be seen traveling in the general direction of AWAY from the PanzerPram at a rapid rate of knots...
HausFrau's may be called away from the lines of production to the kindegarten to escort junior back to his bunker for some re-education and a biccy
SplinterA
Posts: 243
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 7:35 pm
Location: UK

Re: A new book?

Post by SplinterA »

Your data source of TV/Film is weak, secondary to the primary source of video games.
Whilst we are on the subject of weak, have you returned all the goods you owe people or issued refunds yet?
saddler
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:22 pm
Location: Edinburgh area
Contact:

Re: A new book?

Post by saddler »

MODS - If you think this should be moved then do as you see fit, but please don't chop the text or edit any of the info
SplinterA wrote:Your data source of TV/Film is weak, secondary to the primary source of video games.
Whilst we are on the subject of weak, have you returned all the goods you owe people or issued refunds yet?
Hi SplinterA - et al

Tried to send a reply to this earlier today, but 90 minutes worth of typing a very detailed response was binned in a nano-second by the bloody mobile android phone I was using! (this retype has taken 3 hours)

In a probably vain attempt to address some of the issue with the "other forum" - here are a few snippets of info.
Hope its not too rambling, but up to now it's been one way traffic & jungle drum rumours...some from folk that I've never even dealt with.

Oh - not trying to be a tit & tell folk what to do, but PLEASE read all of it...it DOES have a bearing on the FACTS...but why let them get in the way of a good rant elsewhere? We'll see...

Example One: I was sent a tool box which needed work.
Parts were missing/damaged - why else would it have been sent to be repaired?
I spent a lot of time studying plans and drawings, had wooden moulding blocks made (by a carpenter) at my expense, plus agreed a rough timescale...as other jobs on the box could not be completed on the repair until I had had some metal fittings made by a friend of a friend. ALL of this was agreed to and known by the box owner.
PROBLEM #1: Fittings.
Aside from the PITA of trying to get good fittings for my everyday work, having copies of WW2 Soviet rivets and other metalwork made from scratch can go one of two ways; I nip to the industrial estate, knock on some doors, get prices (set up cost, tooling cost, minimum order runs, etc.) all at £40 or so per hour on top...or I call in favours. MUCH cheaper using the latter, but prone to delays.
PLUS my experience of factories is far from good - it took me 20 years (not a typo - 2 decades) to find a supplier for M6 scabbard fittings that didn't look like Stevie Wonder made them with one hand behind his back...

Which would you choose? A repair that takes a little longer, but is in budget, or a faster service which you'll need to sell a kidney to fund?
MOST re-enactors in the almost 30 or so years I've dabbled with the hobby are of the mind-set that lower cost takes priority over accuracy or authenticity or in fact ANYTHING...

Anyway. Time passes, I'm let down on the rivets a couple of times...& OTHER THINGS HAPPENING happen - read the final section below for some fun facts in that area.
The box owner is kept up to speed as I am myself updated, but as the job is not "in progress" due to delays with fittings, I HAVE to concentrate on jobs that bring money in...so until I hear about fittings I put the job aside.
Next I know is that Trading Standards come knocking. I chase up the fittings, AGAIN, no joy...AGAIN!
In the end the box owner, as is his right, asks for the box back unfinished. Not a problem.
The box owner is told that I will not charge him, as the job is not finished, AND that IF he wants the box unfinished I will return it as it was when he first sent it...the work that had been done (missing straps) was removed, the inner molded parts were not riveted in place so were removed, etc.
Box was returned at my own expense. Owner offered to pay this but not arguing over a few quid...
Outlay for box owner - the cost of sending it.
My outlay - sending it back (* see above - owner offered to cover this), having molds made, sourcing correct leather/buckles, phone calls to possible suppliers, etc.
How much do I refund/owe the box owner?

Example Two: An old motorbike saddle.
Again, do you go with the option of me charging normal rates (£20/hr) and charging for ALL the hours spent, or my agreeing with the client that the job will be done as & when time allows between other work, etc. & charged at a wallet friendlier base rate of £45 or £50 or some such??
From memory the owner was also in no rush, as he was away with the pongos, so the box with saddle was shelved until time allowed some work on it.
BUT
OTHER THINGS HAPPENING comes into play - so events took over and time passes and the box is not taken from the shelf & no progress is made. Next I know the owner is throwing accusations around on the other forum & filling in missing spaces. Fair do's.
Box sent back to him, again at no cost to him.
How much do I refund the saddle owner?

Example Three: Chap wants some inert .303 ammo - but has no cash.
Nice bloke, called to see me at the previous previous address (see OTHER THINGS HAPPENING )
He wants several hundred inert .303 rounds, which I normally do for £1 a pop or something like.
Not much cash - been there too often, as you'll see why later - so offers a de-act Bren gun & a couple of knives.
He also wants something I don't have in front of me - .303 Browning MG link. I agree to source the link, also agreeing to the failsafe of if I cannot find it in .303 then normal .30-cal link will do the job.
I source the link, eventually, but in .30-cal not .303. Link is new U unused, and not in the UK. I have it sent to a friend for sending on to me. Time passes, too much time, I even get to the point where I have a feeling may mate may have died so I contact his daughter. This takes a while...two years. Meanwhile the chap I source the links for decides he wants the cash difference, then changes his mind & wants more inert ammo, then says that he'll take the link (which I sourced on HIS instructions & is not physically in front of me to mail to him!)
The link is finally sent & I contact him again. Not heard from him for ages...though OTHER THINGS HAPPENING may come into this (my first note above, using an Android to get online - PC issues - LOTS of spam and other crap had killed 2 PCs in 3 years so I have lost a LOT of data and had continual e-mail issues)
Yes - with this one I need to have him send his address again so I can send him the package with the agreed link in it.

We go on...

Example Four: LW FJ pack
As per two, agree to do the job as & when for a better cost.
Not a problem. I start changing the leather fittings from black to brown. Sent the owner an email last year, he's still happy, no rush...as & when...just tell him when the job is done & how much he owes me.
No problem with this one that I'm aware of...?

Example Five: knife scabbards
Someone wants ten knife scabbards, as a rush job.
I fail to supply the scabbards...
Do I owe him the £500 back for the order total? You'd think so...but NO. Me being a c unit? NOPE.
How come, with MY reputation??
I turned up on the day agreed, to deliver the ten scabbards in person, to be greeted with "Oh, I don't need them now"
He'd had a chap that worked in the local morgue knock them up instead.
I refunded him? NOPE.
He never paid me for them even though I supplied them as ordered & on time.

BUT the ONLY issue with me is MY non-delivery of goods...isn't it? If YOU had the same happen, what would you do?
I should have followed the accepted practice on the other forum, named him as a non paying twat & killed his reputation.
I also had a cutler in Sheffield ask me to chase him up for a debt that he owed the cutler for some work the cutler had done for him, several hundred quids worth...
He also still uses photos of MY manufacture scabbards to advertise his morgue-made specials...kosher? Not very.
£500 loss to me; plus about 3 or 4 nickel chapes that he "borrowed" for a rush job that he'd replace later.

Example Six: We're forming a new FJ unit.
I'm asked to provide samples of my EM Belt & FJ Y-straps. Do as requested. Plus a P38 holster as well...
Told that all is going swimmingly. Unit only wants to be THE BEST so they only want my leather kit.
No problem. They do a head count, total up how many belts & Y-straps are needed...I order the metalwork from the USA & buy in a couple of extra hides ready.
Fittings arrive, tell the chaps...."Oh, did we not tell you...?"
Ho Hum...more giggles all round from them. VERY amusing, NOT.
I'm out almost £200 on fittings and more so on leather.
Again, do I name them? Surely I'M the ONLY problem on the "other forum" & the ONLY one that messes folk around and costs them money?? The blokes in question WERE, I thought mates, a good mate in one case...were! I still see one of them at the rifle range near Edinburgh, though he doesn't mention the outstanding debt - but why would he?
The warning about him from about 25 years back is true, sadly...

Example Seven: US units need canteen cork gaskets
I get the call, order the correct grade of thick cork. "Mate" sends the size info I need, I get a knife made to stamp them out on the clicker press. Supply a few samples..."Oh, they're too big - YOU got the size wrong
I use a smaller disc cutter, change to the now corrected size...
OK - who wants these? Sell about 10.
I'm stuck with 120+ cut out gaskets, plus about £80 worth of cork, plus a disc cutter that is the wrong size & a disc cutter that's the perfect size for an item that WAS in demand but is no longer needed it seems!

Example Eight: time delays are FUNNY
Give a "mate" a helmet to have some work done. Keep chasing it up...and keep chasing it up...repeat for a while.
How long? I gave the helmet to be fixed prior to starting my 3 year degree, got it back after I'd graduated.
But, again, I'M the sole cause of delays with jobs being done. When I have delayed projects, the I MUST be a thief and have stolen the goods: other folk take 3 years, giggles in the beer tent at every show when they tell everyone about how long they had the helmet.
Do I name them? Same chap in this & the previous example.
He CAN be a good bloke, when it suits him...how else could he be a moderator & unit commander?

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This same chap above, I thought, WAS a close friend. Known him almost 30 years, used to phone him at least once a week for a catch up...
Not spoken to him for years...as OTHER THINGS HAPPENING took me off the forum and away from the sites at times.
Did I get a concerned call? Nope...
Same applies to a couple of other folk that I rated as good mates. Comms all silent...one way radio traffic...
A COUPLE OF PHONE CALLS FROM THESE BLOKES, THAT KNOW ME WELL - would have killed all the shite being posted - but as they never bothered their arses - then jungle drums kicked in, rumours were rife, I'd shot JR and slow cooked Shergar with some fava beans and a nice Chianti...and the OTHER THINGS HAPPENING were personal, so I chose to keep them that way. UNTIL NOW.

Some people have very short memories & it was most surprising to see that the people mostly voicing concerns to keep my reputation afloat were fairly new customers.
LOTS of folk on the other forum have been the recipient of freebies, better prices on kit, below cost repairs (try getting Timpson to do your leather repair, spend all day on it and only charge for a couple of hours...)

To protect my reputation from additional jibes & attacks I will no longer carry out repairs for anyone as a favour, at mates rates. Anyone want a job doing, full wack or jack...
Anyone cancel an order = see you in court, I WILL pursue for lost revenue.

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I DO still have a leather M1917A1 helmet liner.
It was loaned to me by a chap from Belgium/Holland? It was in bad condition when he sent it...it's not stood up to being handled well...
Lost his details in the time since he sent it - read below - as lots of paperwork was destroyed and the liner was not stored well due to lack of time & the fact that I was not the only person doing the packing.
Not heard from him for a long time...ask him to PM me here or email me.

Again - things happen and other jobs come in & go out. If I don't hear from someone for a while their kit will sit in a project box until the inbox lights up on the PC or the grey matter reminds me that among the two+ tonnes of books, leather, tools & machines there is a strap/belt loop/frog - literally, my gear almost wrote off a fork lift truck as it was too heavy. They later weighed it & told me what the total was!

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OTHER THINGS HAPPENING
While some of you may dismiss some of this as irrelevant, it DID have a direct impact on MY usual routine & to put it bluntly fucked things up big style and has meant that the last 4 years or so have been far from a barrel of laughs.

The house we were renting was very badly flooded in an upstairs room by heavy rain, while we were abroad. We returned to a damaged bedroom; lots of beyond repair bedding, furniture, kit, clothing, books, mould growing on carpets.
The remedy? The landlord provided a room heater....that was it.
We complain, get nowhere. We complain to the Housing inspector at the council who deals in private rentals.
He reads the landlord the riot act...so the landlord FINALLY takes action. We're evicted without any recourse to appeal...
= HOMELESS

Luckily? we're given temporary housing by the council for a year. During this time the move from a rented 4 room house to a basic two room furnished place means that ALL our furniture & 95% of my kit/tools/books/leather is stored in a shed at a disused airfield in the area.
It was at this time that some of the repairs above, with esp. relevance to Example Two, are out of my hands in storage so I have no access to them.

Homeless eh? Not good, but not the end of the world. You'd think...
Anyone else here try it? Oh, it's FUN - even in a temp. house!!

And as Jimmy Cricket was want to say - "There's more..."

The girlfriends dad retired about 4 year back. Within a month he was unwell, he was in & out of hospital for tests. He is then admitted to Biggar general for 14 days observation...he ends up stuck in there for 18 months, loses about half his body weight and they're using him as a tablet testing unit as the medication he's on seems to change with the weather. Time moves on & he's moved to a hospital near us...there for a couple of years. Moved to a nursing home near his wife in Dec last year. Died this Jan from Dementia & chest problems.
All this time, muggins was the designated driver, to do the 2.5 hour round trip to her mothers, to then do a two hour round trip to take Eegor to the hospital...weekly at best, more if he'd had a fall or there was a meeting to attend.

Oh, I also was the ONLY person that could hire/drive the removal van when Eegor (the land mass that is her mother) moved into sheltered housing...her sisters husband is too important!!
HE has a proper job HE can't get time off for such a trivial job of heavy lifting for 3 days - ah, the arrogance of the wage slaves & them that love them most.
Self employed? Walk in the park compared to clocking in every day & having a lottery win drop in the bank every month...we can drop everything & come running 24/7. We'll even lose money on fuel and cancelled orders...no problem. What time shall I be there? Oh, aye, please scowl at me for being English every time you see me, yet WHO is the one chucking furniture in a van at 11pm after being there since 8am?

Aside from that, I was also doing what little I could to help my grandmother as her health failed in the last couple of years.
She finally passed Dec '12 at the age of 99...

That it?
Sadly, no. The last three years have seen me have four car crashes...two within 6 weeks of each other.
No limbs lost or anything, but still a PITA when all the other crap is also happening...and being rural in a quaint village, the bus service timetable was written by Fred Karno. No buses on a Sunday, none after 6.30 at night...
But car crashes are water off a ducks back...make NO difference in anyone's life, what with the insurance for one crash taking 14 months to sort out. Rural buses are lovely...

The current house is in a conservation area, so I cannot have a workshop-shed unless I give several hundred quid dead money to cover planning fees, with no guarantee that the plans will pass!!
I'm currently working on a 2m by 1m table. With tools/supplies in every room of the house apart from one bedroom and the bathroom.
Back when I started I had a 22 foot workshop with several workbenches, loads of storage, etc.
On top of that the house is damp, very damp....but we had ZERO option, as being homeless we had to accept it or face being dropped off the list & having the temp. housing given to the next in line.

A little window into my last few years. LIFE gets in the way of other plans!!

Make of it what you want to, as not everyone will be reading with an open mind or both brain cells in gear.

No doubt it'll possibly even be copied & pasted onto the other forum. Fair do's...though based on the how some of the detailed emails I sent some people were condensed into "I have heard from him..." then it may be business as usual.
Cherry pick away to make of the facts whatever suits your viewpoint...ignore the debts that are/were owed to me & the cancelled orders...ignore the time I take away from the bench to help folk out, point them in the direction of the data they need for research, etc.

If I am so bad, HOW was my previous reputation at the high level it reached?
Because of the time I take to get kit RIGHT...20 years to make the best M6 scabbards available since 1943.
Similar attention to detail that pleases the stitch counters IS the ONLY attention to detail I will accept.
SOME jobs above I could have knocked out with pop rivets from Halfords. Add some generic army green paint & jobs a good 'un!
No bugger will know....
Time is a sliding scale for some folk. Not that they're impatient, just that they seem to think EVERYTHING can be picked off the shelf at B&Q or ASDA & it'll do the job.

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I only joined this forum as I was doing research into Finnish WW2 units.

Given the small world that is re-enacting I expected people to come out the woodwork to pass on their compliments.
Again, surprising how they mainly seem to be people I've had no direct dealings with...surprisingly, some coming to my defence -almost as if someone DOES want to hear both sides of the tale.

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My apologies if this rambled a little or took anyone too long to read...

ANYONE want to contact me?
PM on here, or my email is on my website, as most folk very well know.

Forgot texts/mobile - there's no network coverage in the village so I binned the mobile SIM card last year - only use the handset as a WiFi browser for getting DAB

Anyone want me to repay the favour & name names of the folk that fucked me over? Again, happy to oblige. PM me or send an email
poteau rottenfurer
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:46 pm

Re: A new book?

Post by poteau rottenfurer »

jon
the leather 1917 liner belongs to stijn steegen from belgium

he is "lightningdivision" on the ww2 forum-you can pm him on there as he wont be on here
alternatively you can pm me here and arrange to send it to me and i will send it on to stijn via llyodd richards or Glen M

i am only interested in stijn getting his liner back

regards

dave grover

normandy jeep raid driver
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