From far away!

We've had people from all over England coming to the Playdays....and even Mark has flown over from Ireland twice to join in the fun.

January 30th saw our furthest travelled visitor: Thomas (AKA The Doctor) who travelled all the way from the Netherlands in his Toyota Chaser to take part in the Playday. A 1,200km round trip!

He's quite a camera shy kinda guy but I did manage to get a few snaps of him at the unit.

In the background here, cleaning the 2 post lift (he's not afraid of getting stuck in!)

 

 Here he is checking up on me cleaning some pistons. Quality control is a good attribute of his

Laughing at Mark & Ryan 'pimping' in the Hustler

 

...and overseeing the installation of the chain on the 2 post lift

It was great to have you over Thomas, thank you for coming such a long way to join in...and please come back whenever you can - I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that you are always welcome at Area 52. :D

We have heat!!!

After a number of very chilly sub-zero Playdays, Alan turned up to the last one with a custom made woodburner.

Made out of an old 47 litre gas bottle, the burner has a really neatly hinged door with a handle fashioned from Alan's old, broken Land Rover steering box. Complete with baffle made out of the centre of a steel wheel, damper made out of more of the steering box and a base from the remnants of the old wheel (used for the baffle)

Seen in a previous post were Ian, Steve and Dave cutting a large hole in the wall - this was for the chimney flue to exit.

After getting the burner alight outside to burn off the exterior paint, it was carried in (still alight and red hot!) where Alan quickly set about welding up the flue...with smoke & heat pouring off the burner. That's hardcore! Ryan lent a helping hand.

Welding on the flue

 

 Nearly there

Enjoying the novelty of warmth - the wood burner seemed to be the source of much congregating all night

 

A bit later some shelves were added to keep cups of tea nice & warm. You can also see the A52 detailing that Alan added as he was making it

 

Huge thanks must go to Alan for the construction of this awesome bit of kit. Also to Ryan for supplying the flue...and everyone else for helping to get it fitted and supplying wood to keep us warm.

If you would like Alan to make you a wood burner, he can make them to order and can be contacted through Retro Rides here: Grunty's PM