THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

I've seen IBM punched card machines Peter and of course know about Jacquard control on fancy looms but I had never heard of Hollerith. Thanks!

[Stanley]

It struck me when reading the posts on Clarion House that one thing we have lost, or has at least been severely curtailed, is the community spirit of brotherhood and shared experience that was at the root of movements like the Co-op, the ILP and wider Labour movement and initiatives like Clarion House. Remnants still exist but it is not a rising tide like the one I have watched all my life.

[Tizer]

I share your concern. As well Boris hanging on, Trump probably becoming POTUS again, Putin on the verge of invading Ukraine, China wielding massive soft power to take over the world, I now see - you won't believe this - it looks like Berlusconi is once again going to be Italy's leader. Have nice day!

Oh, I forgot bird flu and antibiotic resistance increasing and climate change...

[Stanley]

I saw a cartoon yesterday in the Eye where 'Is everything OK?' was replaced by 'Is anything OK?'.

[Stanley]

My dad and I used to keep bees. We had modern hives and made a lot of good honey. We talked at times of trying with the old woven straw bee skeps like the one above but never got on with it.
Time was when you made your own hive and begged a swarm off someone. Flatley Dryer country.

[plaques]

This Beehive type was used by the Co-Op in Burnley as the main carved feature over Burnley's first Co-op in Hammerton St. It is also used on Branch No 1 Duke Bar plus one in Nelson.
.

Burnley Co-op 1 .jpg

[PanBiker]

Our Jack is training to be a bee-keeper and is now registered with the bee-keepers association.

[Stanley]

Lovely! I was never as enthusiastic as my dad but could see the sense in it. I enjoyed the harvesting in the upstairs bathroom where we cut the caps off the combs and emptied them in the centrifuge father bought.

[Stanley]

A typical Board School interior around 1900, this one is in Liverpool. The early schools were built to standard designs and featured one large room, often with a small stage at one end, divided during the day by sliding partitions. This is exactly how my earliest school looked, Hope Memorial at Stockport.
Although they were a great improvement on what existed before they were soon modernised and are now Flatley Dryer country.

[Tizer]

I can describe a rather unusual variant of the Flatley Dryer issue. Scientists now have all sorts of fancy expensive gadgets to do their analysis. Geologists for example have X-ray fluorescence that can tell you the proportions of the individual elements in a rock specimen and report the likely identification. They even have portable ones now so they can do an analysis in the field. Amateur geologists like me can't afford such vastly expensive equipment and we still use some simple old methods like testing the hardness by scratching the specimen with a piece of other rock of known hardness, and testing for carbonates by putting a drop of acid on the specimen. These old methods are Flatley Dryer as far as the professionals are concerned but amateurs still use them.

On the other hand I read something yesterday in an 1877 paper in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society by Wilfred Hudleston Hudleston (yes, that really is the name) which I've never seen mentioned before by professional or amateur geologists but is as simple as you can get. WHH was trekking round the Lizard examining the coastal rocks and he reports that some of the serpentine contained trace amounts of magnetite. But it's no good putting a magnet on a bit of serpentine - there's not enough magnetite there to detect. His simple approach was to grind up a bit of the rock and hold a magnet to the powder. Bingo! Particles of magnetite appear on the magnet. I've never seen this done and never seen it mentioned anywhere else before! This is what my PhD supervisor would have called an elegant experiment.

[Stanley]

I love dead simple techniques like that, mostly because they are cheap and they work. A good comparison would be the way I run a lathe and the CNC marvels that are used today. I am Flatley Dryer but still get there in the end. The point being that the standards I am aiming for are nowhere near as rigorous as those demanded by modern technology! Half a thou is brilliant in my world but in modern industry is Stone Age technology.

[Stanley]

Can you remember the Shockstop handlebar grips that were almost universal fifty years ago? They seem to be Flatley Dryer country now....

[PanBiker]

Can you remember the Shockstop handlebar grips that were almost universal fifty years ago? They seem to be Flatley Dryer country now....

Along with three speed Sturmey Archer gears in the back hub. I often wonder how we ever managed as lads. All the local hills are just the same as they were then. I have 18 gears on my bike and still don't seem to have enough, especially at the bottom end.

Our Jack is enjoying his new electric bike, he does the 50 mile round trip to work at least once a week and is hoping to get two runs in. I would entertain one of those if I could afford a decent one.

[Tizer]

I've seen plenty of the electric bikes about and they don't look much different from conventional ones except for a swelling somewhere for the battery. But I see one bloke go by whose electric bike is much beefier and has big fat tyres making it look like a hybrid between a bicycle and a motorbike. I don't know how it fits into the rules and regulations.

[PanBiker]

They will be the Fat Bike ones then Peter. With the size of the tyres they must be hard going on the non electric versions. Sally's cousin Tim and his mate have them. First thing I did when I got my MTB style bike was take the knobbly tyres off and put some slicker ones on. Our Jack has and MTB type and a road bike as well, he rides the electric one in assist mode and says that is a nice compromise for exercise and better efficiency. It still has 12 gears. He got it on a discounted bike to work scheme. His last run to work over to Bradford only took him 5 minutes longer than his commute in the car as he doesn't have to stop in traffic queues. He still has to use the car when he is doing school visits as he has service kit to take with him.

[Stanley]

When I got my first 6 speed dérailleur gear I couldn't afford a new rear hub so for a couple of months had it running through the Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub, 18 gears in 1950..... Having so many gears was a pain in the bum I recall and I was glad when I got a secondhand Italian hub, was it a Campagnolo? That was a lot better.
I like the idea of the electric bikes but wonder about the use of natural resources to build them and how good reclaiming those elements is when they are scrapped.

[PanBiker]

When I got my first 6 speed dérailleur gear I couldn't afford a new rear hub so for a couple of months had it running through the Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub, 18 gears in 1950

I'm confused.

Was that 6 on the front chain ring?

Normal configuration is one, two or three on the front and the multipliers on the back hub of course.

[plaques]

I built a 4 speed archer in parallel with a two speed derailleur like you saw on tandems, plus a double clanger. technically that gave 16 speeds but many overlapped and to be honest it was a waste of time. Some of the modern high number back cogs could only be accessed on specific chain wheels ie: inner or outer. So many of the 18 gear bikes were only 14 ish.

[Stanley]

Ian, 6 gears on the dérailleur and 3 in the Sturmey Archer hub. 6X3 = 18.
And yes Ken, it was a pain in the bum.

[PanBiker]

So just to be clear, 6 on the front chain ring?

[Stanley]

I'll try to make it clear. A single chain sprocket on the bottom bracket driven by the pedals. A six cog cluster on the back axle spindle with a dérailleur mechanism. Three gears in the SA hub in the back wheel.

[PanBiker]

I was at a loss to see how you get 6 on the back of a standard 3 speed SA. If the bike frame was for a 3 speed SA surely the back forks would not be wide enough to shove 6 extra gears in.

[Stanley]

You can get them in. No different than converting a single sprocket to a six pack. You just open the gap.

[PanBiker]

Well you live and learn. I found this site discussing the subject but the kit is for a lot later than the 1950's and they only seem to mention shoe horning three extra rings in the back hub along with the SA. Unless the SA hub has more than 3. Lots of options but all seem a bit messy.

Cycling UK Forum

[MickBrett]

I remember being the second kid on The Ranch to get a 10 speed bicycle. (my claim to fame)