OneGuyFromBarlick

Hi,
I wandered onto this site from a model engineering workshop link and have lurked for a while. I decided to register and post a little cash for the enjoyment it has given me.
My interests are metal workshops (I have a Boxford & a Senior M1 & a bodged Clarkson), steam engines, ships, history of technology and family history research.
No links with Barlick except RR and this site. When I retire I fancy a weekend there. You'll have to recommend me a B&B when the time comes.

Hello Bill and welcome to the site. If you have been visiting for while you will probably know your way around the site. Please join in to any of the threads, your contributions will be most welcome.

BillHowcroft wrote: ↑19 Aug 2017, 17:57 Hi,
I wandered onto this site from a model engineering workshop link and have lurked for a while. I decided to register and post a little cash for the enjoyment it has given me.
My interests are metal workshops (I have a Boxford & a Senior M1 & a bodged Clarkson), steam engines, ships, history of technology and family history research.
No links with Barlick except RR and this site. When I retire I fancy a weekend there. You'll have to recommend me a B&B when the time comes.

Hello Bill and welcome.
There are lots of things in line with your interests. I'm sure you and Stanley will have plenty to talk about.
I'm fascinated by what Stanley does in his workshop but most of the time I haven't a clue how he does it.
Graham

Morning Bill. Welcome to the site. Nobody bites and we sweep the streets every day so feel free to join in anything! Stanley

Stanley wrote: ↑20 Aug 2017, 03:35 ... we sweep the streets every day ...

What a nice way of putting it. I haven't heard that one before.

Wendy and Ian don't do a lot of shouting but they are constantly on watch and pounce on any litter! That's why the site is so clean.....

Wendy keeps an eye on my clean !! joke entries Bodger (Ireland)

Welcome Bill.
Funny you should say that Bodge, that's one topic I rarely look at! I rely on regular members to police it themselves....

I keep an eye on it Wendy and will flag up any problems. Bill posted there yesterday and was perfectly well behaved......

I am having occasional problems with viewing images.
I can for example see all the workshop pictures from Stanley.
Some others just show up as (unlinked) text <image>
Others have a link but go to for example: No route found for "GET /gallery/image.php"
Could someone please enlighten me.
Bill

We had a site crash a while ago which required updating to the latest version of the site software at the time and also to the latest version of the Gallery mod which holds all the images. The upgraded Gallery mod references images differently to the previous version. The upshot of this is that a lot of the images originally linked into historical posts now have a different reference in the Gallery which produces the image errors in older posts.

It is possible to edit up the old posts with the new image references but I have not yet found an automated way of doing this. You will see that the Gallery has over 15,000 images, the majority of which were originally linked into posts. I have updated a number of threads with favourite topics of my own or that I started which in many respects rely on the images to support the narrative but it is an onerous and repetitive task. It would require searching every post (over 92,000 of them) and replacing the old image URL strings with the new references for each image.

All new images added since the crash will correctly link into posts. This is why with the larger topics such as Shed Matters only the posts since the site rebuild have images. It's a problem we have to live with unless an automated solution for the platform and Gallery mod can be found.

The site crash also damaged some of the images in the Gallery so they will no longer display.

It wazs a bit of a disaster Bill but we did our best. These things happen every now and again. In a previous crash we lost everything!
You mentioned Clarkson in your original post, does this mean a T&C grinder? Newton had a Senior M1 milling machine and did good work with it.

My father-in-law worked for Clarksons in Nuneaton and I inherited various bits from his shed including a homemade grinder made from a Clarkson head and cross-slide and various pieces of channel and a very ancient washing machine motor. I bought a pedestal from ebay with the intention of amalgamating the bits but so far it's another round tuit.
The M1 is a mid-50s machine with the usual dinks. Vertical head is a bit slow for small cutters and eventually I may get a small Oriental vertical mill too. Would like a shaper but am running out of space.

You may remember that I managed to re-install my 'Monuments' images using PanBiker's instructions. I notice in the thread 'The View from Up Here' mine survived mainly because at that time I was using attachments rather than the gallery route. Wendy suffered a big hit with all hers going AWOL. Over to you Wendy.

Attachments are treated differently to Gallery images, they are stored within the platform hierarchy rather than in the Gallery itself. One of the problems with them is that they only display at a reduced size in the posts. The Gallery route gives a lot more control over the images with auto resizing , comments, rating and the ability to search for images.

In odd idle moments on the site If I come across a popular thread that has lost it's historical images I have session of updating with the new reference URL's. I'll do Wendy's View from up Here at some point, a view is not much good without an image.

For shorter threads it's not much of a problem but for Shed Matters it would take over you life. Another problem is that posts can only be edited by the person who originally made the post, site moderators and admins. It's not difficult but there are a lot to get through.

I am keeping my eye on the current developer who is now looking after the Gallery mod (he's a Russian guy I think), we cant be the only Gallery user that has the issue since the upgraded version. I pop onto the phpBB mods forum from time to time to see if there are any relevant posts regarding the problem.

Interesting post Bill. I bought the Clarkson T&C grinder on the spur of the moment even though at £600 it wasn't cheap but I got a lot of accessories with it and over the years have become reasonably proficient with it by 'suck and see' methods. (That reminds me, I must have a session of spiral grinding soon, I have been neglecting my flutes!) I have never regretted it. Newton did good work with his Senior M1, he favoured home made fly-cutters rather than conventional cutters. I remember it got a bit worn in the quill so he made new bearings for it...... You mentioned space...... Tell me all about it!!! My shed amazes people because there is only just enough room for me but I like it, lots of advantages in having everything within arm's length so look on the bright side!

I now know you had computer glitches that spoilt some of the links between posts and where you store images.

What puzzled me was the references to Gallery since the folder called Gallery at the bottom of the Board Index under Site Features is empty.
Then, when I logged in this morning, I finally spotted the little button in the top RH corner with a little eye. Revelation - there are all the images tidied into folders.

Can I assume this Gallery folder structure mirrors that of the posts and Board Index? Will the image posting dates approximately match the text post dates?

All of the historical image links in post were broken when we had to upgrade to the later version. The current version uses a completely different referencing system to the original.

Gallery is a separate module form the base phpBB board software. It is the only modification for the platform that provides the features that we require. As an add on mod it is also the biggest and most comprehensive ever developed for phpBB. The dates of many of the images will coincide with posts that they are relative to but there are a lot that don't also. Think of it as a stand alone separate repository for images that can be dipped into for the reference links for inclusion in post. If it's in the gallery you can include it in your post, even if its not your image.

Its a separate module but integrated alongside the platform software. All images in the gallery are stored in the space that we have on the host servers but in a different table in the database to the posts.

Yes, the Gallery forum is just that, a sub forum in Site Features, a place on the site for discussing Gallery related items, but we often go off at a tangent elsewhere.

I didn't even know it existed!
Ian, is this thread self-extinguishing? If so I think we ought to give Bill his own permanent topic as a base for him. He hasn't put a foot wrong and he smells OK to me.......

Just goes to show, lots of folk just browse their favourite topics and don't look at other stuff on the site. The Site Features forum and its sub forums has been there since 2012 when this new platform went up. Since then I have thinned down the number of forum categories by over 60% of what the site launched with. My criteria for the culling was everything with zero posts and anything which was a nuisance such as the old Newshound which we had to put back in his kennel. The drop down filters are good for quick checking of posts but I wonder how many members actually explore the Index page, categories and forums?

Regarding this thread, no it's a bog standard one. Practice Posting is the one that auto purges.

I had thought of splitting the gallery related post off into a new thread in the Gallery discussion forum, stands a chance though that no one will ever find it again.

Have been away on holiday to Normandy. Will post a couple of gags on the joke page.

Good ones Bill.......

04:12 - don't you chaps need any sleep?

Stanley is a very early riser Bill.