Knives are tools and often made of metal

http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Gunner

In article , Gunner
wrote:

Knives are tools and often made of metal

http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Gunner

I'd be interested in learning what they consider a "knife crime." In
the UK, mere possession of most knives is a crime. They recently passed
legislation requiring all kitchen (chef, butcher, steak) knives to have
blunt tips so they couldn't be used for stabbing. Municipal buses sport
messages extolling citizens to turn in their knives to the authorities.
It's gotten truly crazy.

I no longer ship my knives to any part of the UK for this reason.

-Frank

--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/

Knives are tools and often made of metal

http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html


Must be nasty, my ISP blocks the link. Mind you, The Sun makes the National
Enquirer look intellectual

Gunner

I'd be interested in learning what they consider a "knife crime." In
the UK, mere possession of most knives is a crime. They recently passed
legislation requiring all kitchen (chef, butcher, steak) knives to have
blunt tips so they couldn't be used for stabbing.

News to me

Municipal buses sport
messages extolling citizens to turn in their knives to the authorities.
It's gotten truly crazy.

Don't disagree, though

I no longer ship my knives to any part of the UK for this reason.

-Frank

--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/

Very fine work

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:26:15 -0700, Frank Warner
wrote:

In article , Gunner
wrote:

Knives are tools and often made of metal

http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Gunner

I'd be interested in learning what they consider a "knife crime." In
the UK, mere possession of most knives is a crime. They recently passed
legislation requiring all kitchen (chef, butcher, steak) knives to have
blunt tips so they couldn't be used for stabbing. Municipal buses sport
messages extolling citizens to turn in their knives to the authorities.
It's gotten truly crazy.

I no longer ship my knives to any part of the UK for this reason.

-Frank


It should be noted that the Sun newspaper is held in somewhat less regard in
the UK than Fox news is in the US. It is known more for the mammaries of the
young ladies on page three than the quality of its journalism.


Mark Rand
RTFM

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:21:55 -0700, Gunner wrote:

Knives are tools and often made of metal

http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Gunner

Looks like you could fight that guy off with one squirt from a good fire
extinguisher.

No, wait...

--
Tim Wescott
Control systems and communications consulting
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Need to learn how to apply control theory in your embedded system?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" by Tim Wescott
Elsevier/Newnes, http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

Tim Wescott wrote:

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:21:55 -0700, Gunner wrote:

Knives are tools and often made of metal

http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Gunner

Looks like you could fight that guy off with one squirt from a good fire
extinguisher.

No, wait...


The last fire I had was a breaker box. I turned on the AC and headed
to the kitchen. I heard what sounded like rain for a bedroom, and knew
the sky was clear, and there were no water lines near that room. I
limped in and saw flames coming out of the closed door. I knew that I
didn't have time to get to the extinguisher by the door, so I opened the
cover and turned off the power and beat the flames out with my hands.
Also, the extinguisher I had then wasn't rated for electrical fires. I
had some first degree burns on my hands, and couldn't get rid of the
smell of burnt Bakelite for a couple weeks. It took two years to get
all of the odor out of that room.

It was the main breaker burning and one buss bar burnt in two. A few
more seconds, and the wood paneling would have caught fire. After that,
the whole house would have been on fire. The nearest firehouse is over
five miles away, and there is heavy tourist traffic between here and
there.

The amazing thing is that the 'electrician' who signed off on the job
and had it inspected can't be found.


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On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:46:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
Tim Wescott wrote:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:21:55 -0700, Gunner wrote:

Knives are tools and often made of metal
http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Looks like you could fight that guy off with one squirt from a good fire
extinguisher.

No, wait...

The last fire I had was a breaker box. I turned on the AC and headed
to the kitchen. I heard what sounded like rain for a bedroom, and knew
the sky was clear, and there were no water lines near that room. I
limped in and saw flames coming out of the closed door. I knew that I
didn't have time to get to the extinguisher by the door, so I opened the
cover and turned off the power and beat the flames out with my hands.
Also, the extinguisher I had then wasn't rated for electrical fires. I
had some first degree burns on my hands, and couldn't get rid of the
smell of burnt Bakelite for a couple weeks. It took two years to get
all of the odor out of that room.

Let me guess - Federal Pacific Electric? Extremely Bad Juju...

The FPE main buss design is patently defective, they often tried to
run 100A through the threads of a steel 10-32 screw and/or an equally
small contact-area stab-in fitting stamped out of thin copper plate...

And the breakers go bad internally and look fine to the naked eye,
even turn on and off normally - but they will not trip open even on a
10KA-plus bolted fault, with the overload heaters glowing white hot...

The Korean knockoff replacement breakers are no better, they just
copied a defective design. If anyone still has old FPE panels in
service you seriously need to look into changing them.

It was the main breaker burning and one buss bar burnt in two. A few
more seconds, and the wood paneling would have caught fire. After that,
the whole house would have been on fire.

Not if you'd have left the door closed - that's the whole idea
behind UL insisting on the steel enclosure for breaker panels and
self-extinguishing plastics for switch boxes, so if something catches
fire on the inside it stays on the inside. At least long enough to
burn itself out.

If you had the box mounted deeper than flush into the wall, and the
cover was lifted off the rim of the breaker box and directly exposed
to wooden paneling butted up against it, that kind of gross stupidity
is NOT the fault of UL. If nothing else, the electrician should have
cut back the paneling and cut & glued in shims out of sheet-rock to
make a firebreak.

The nearest firehouse is over
five miles away, and there is heavy tourist traffic between here and
there.

The tourist traffic you can't do much about. But don't let your
neighbors install speed bumps on the only road in, no matter how much
they moan and whine about "all the people zooming down the streets..."
- because that firetruck has to slow down to a dead crawl to go over
every single speed bump so they don't drop the water tank onto the
road or break an axle.

Every speed bump adds thirty seconds to the FD response time.

And besides, it's usually their own kids or their kids friends doing
the speeding down the street at 2 AM, and they won't admit it. If
they can't properly discipline their own spawn, they don't get the
right to endanger my life and property by slowing down the FD or PD.

-- Bruce --

I'd be interested in learning what they consider a "knife crime." In
the UK, mere possession of most knives is a crime. They recently passed
legislation requiring all kitchen (chef, butcher, steak) knives to have
blunt tips so they couldn't be used for stabbing. Municipal buses sport
messages extolling citizens to turn in their knives to the authorities.
It's gotten truly crazy.

I no longer ship my knives to any part of the UK for this reason.

-Frank


It should be noted that the Sun newspaper is held in somewhat less regard
in
the UK than Fox news is in the US. It is known more for the mammaries of
the
young ladies on page three than the quality of its journalism.


Mark Rand
RTFM

Sounds like a paper for conservatives.


Hawke

Looks like you could fight that guy off with one squirt from a good fire
extinguisher.

No, wait...


The last fire I had was a breaker box. I turned on the AC and headed
to the kitchen. I heard what sounded like rain for a bedroom, and knew
the sky was clear, and there were no water lines near that room. I
limped in and saw flames coming out of the closed door. I knew that I
didn't have time to get to the extinguisher by the door, so I opened the
cover and turned off the power and beat the flames out with my hands.
Also, the extinguisher I had then wasn't rated for electrical fires. I
had some first degree burns on my hands, and couldn't get rid of the
smell of burnt Bakelite for a couple weeks. It took two years to get
all of the odor out of that room.

It was the main breaker burning and one buss bar burnt in two. A few
more seconds, and the wood paneling would have caught fire. After that,
the whole house would have been on fire. The nearest firehouse is over
five miles away, and there is heavy tourist traffic between here and
there.

The amazing thing is that the 'electrician' who signed off on the job
and had it inspected can't be found.


I bet he wasn't a union electrician.

Hawke

"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:46:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
Tim Wescott wrote:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:21:55 -0700, Gunner wrote:

Knives are tools and often made of metal
http://extras.thesun.co.uk/flash/kni..._07/index.html

Looks like you could fight that guy off with one squirt from a good fire
extinguisher.

No, wait...

The last fire I had was a breaker box. I turned on the AC and headed
to the kitchen. I heard what sounded like rain for a bedroom, and knew
the sky was clear, and there were no water lines near that room. I
limped in and saw flames coming out of the closed door. I knew that I
didn't have time to get to the extinguisher by the door, so I opened the
cover and turned off the power and beat the flames out with my hands.
Also, the extinguisher I had then wasn't rated for electrical fires. I
had some first degree burns on my hands, and couldn't get rid of the
smell of burnt Bakelite for a couple weeks. It took two years to get
all of the odor out of that room.

Let me guess - Federal Pacific Electric? Extremely Bad Juju...


I wouldn't have bough the property if there was any FPE installed.
It was an ITE EQ12F 125 A 12 circuit panel. I kept the scorched cover
as a souvenir.



The FPE main buss design is patently defective, they often tried to
run 100A through the threads of a steel 10-32 screw and/or an equally
small contact-area stab-in fitting stamped out of thin copper plate...

And the breakers go bad internally and look fine to the naked eye,
even turn on and off normally - but they will not trip open even on a
10KA-plus bolted fault, with the overload heaters glowing white hot...


I saw the first bad FPE breakers at a military TV station. The damn
things would trip when a halogen studio light burnt out, and wouldn't
reset. The panel was less than two years old, and I used every spare in
the panel within six months. Of course the base electricians were ****ed
that I was swapping the breakers around to stay on the air, but their
response time was weeks.


The Korean knockoff replacement breakers are no better, they just
copied a defective design. If anyone still has old FPE panels in
service you seriously need to look into changing them.


That, or move.


It was the main breaker burning and one buss bar burnt in two. A few
more seconds, and the wood paneling would have caught fire. After that,
the whole house would have been on fire.

Not if you'd have left the door closed - that's the whole idea
behind UL insisting on the steel enclosure for breaker panels and
self-extinguishing plastics for switch boxes, so if something catches
fire on the inside it stays on the inside. At least long enough to
burn itself out.


Flames wee coming out of the closed door, about two feet up the
paneled wall. After the fire was out I found that the asshole
electrician had knocked out almost every knockout on the box, and ran
the four aluminum conductors through separate holes, allowing plenty of
air to get into the box. Some of the Romex was burnt a foot away from
the box, inside the wall.


If you had the box mounted deeper than flush into the wall, and the
cover was lifted off the rim of the breaker box and directly exposed
to wooden paneling butted up against it, that kind of gross stupidity
is NOT the fault of UL. If nothing else, the electrician should have
cut back the paneling and cut & glued in shims out of sheet-rock to
make a firebreak.

The nearest firehouse is over
five miles away, and there is heavy tourist traffic between here and
there.

The tourist traffic you can't do much about. But don't let your
neighbors install speed bumps on the only road in, no matter how much
they moan and whine about "all the people zooming down the streets..."
- because that firetruck has to slow down to a dead crawl to go over
every single speed bump so they don't drop the water tank onto the
road or break an axle.


We don't need speed bumps. There is only one road into the
subdivision, and thanks to FEMA contractors there are more potholes than
we can repair. Instead of picking up the downed limbs in the street,
they drove a front end loader over them, drooped the blade to the
asphalt and dragged the a half mile to the main road, while removing the
top inch or more of the asphalt. Of course, no one admits to being
liable for the damage. They looked at what was left and decided the road
was defective, anyway.


Every speed bump adds thirty seconds to the FD response time.

And besides, it's usually their own kids or their kids friends doing
the speeding down the street at 2 AM, and they won't admit it. If
they can't properly discipline their own spawn, they don't get the
right to endanger my life and property by slowing down the FD or PD.

-- Bruce --


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Hawkie wrote:

I bet he wasn't a union electrician.


Who knows? From the quality of the work, it sure looks like it.
Union guys don't have to worry about quality, and a lot of them
moonlight, and do shoddy work because they will be in another town
before the fires. The local, licensed electrical contractors are non
union, and a couple fires or deaths, and they lose everything. The union
guys hit town for a large commercial job, then move to another city or
state for the next job.

In your case, though, PLEASE hire a union electrician to work on your
house.


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On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:16:32 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:
On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:46:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

Let me guess - Federal Pacific Electric? Extremely Bad Juju...

I wouldn't have bough the property if there was any FPE installed.
It was an ITE EQ12F 125 A 12 circuit panel. I kept the scorched cover
as a souvenir.

EQ... EQ? Pushmatic? Or standard "Industrial Interchange"? Never
really had problems with Pushmatics, just occasional bad breakers that
won't reset and need to be swapped.

The Korean knockoff replacement breakers are no better, they just
copied a defective design. If anyone still has old FPE panels in
service you seriously need to look into changing them.

That, or move.

Only if you're a renter and you can pack your things in three
suitcases, send out two change of address postcards, and go.

For most of us with large piles of "Stuff" to deal with and many
other encumbrances, it's better to stay where you are at and modify
the environment to be safer.

It was the main breaker burning and one buss bar burnt in two. A few
more seconds, and the wood paneling would have caught fire. After that,
the whole house would have been on fire.

Not if you'd have left the door closed - that's the whole idea
behind UL insisting on the steel enclosure for breaker panels and
self-extinguishing plastics for switch boxes, so if something catches
fire on the inside it stays on the inside. At least long enough to
burn itself out.

Flames wee coming out of the closed door, about two feet up the
paneled wall. After the fire was out I found that the asshole
electrician had knocked out almost every knockout on the box, and ran
the four aluminum conductors through separate holes, allowing plenty of
air to get into the box. Some of the Romex was burnt a foot away from
the box, inside the wall.

Holy S#*%... You didn't say it was deliberately rigged to burn down
the house on purpose...

That work wasn't done by any electrician unless he was certified
brain dead. And couldn't have been inspected by any competent AHJ or
they would have blown a gasket instantly.

Even a helper learns real fast you don't leave open KO's in a wall,
and every cable gets a connector at the box. And when in doubt you
grab a brick of Duct Seal and stuff the holes.

-- Bruce --

"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:16:32 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:
On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:46:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

Let me guess - Federal Pacific Electric? Extremely Bad Juju...

I wouldn't have bough the property if there was any FPE installed.
It was an ITE EQ12F 125 A 12 circuit panel. I kept the scorched cover
as a souvenir.

EQ... EQ? Pushmatic? Or standard "Industrial Interchange"? Never
really had problems with Pushmatics, just occasional bad breakers that
won't reset and need to be swapped.


They were standard breakers. I would have replace the panel if they
were Pushmatic.



That, or move.

Only if you're a renter and you can pack your things in three
suitcases, send out two change of address postcards, and go.


I could fill at least three tractor trailers right now.


For most of us with large piles of "Stuff" to deal with and many
other encumbrances, it's better to stay where you are at and modify
the environment to be safer.

It was the main breaker burning and one buss bar burnt in two. A few
more seconds, and the wood paneling would have caught fire. After that,
the whole house would have been on fire.

Not if you'd have left the door closed - that's the whole idea
behind UL insisting on the steel enclosure for breaker panels and
self-extinguishing plastics for switch boxes, so if something catches
fire on the inside it stays on the inside. At least long enough to
burn itself out.

Flames were coming out of the closed door, about two feet up the
paneled wall. After the fire was out I found that the asshole
electrician had knocked out almost every knockout on the box, and ran
the four aluminum conductors through separate holes, allowing plenty of
air to get into the box. Some of the Romex was burnt a foot away from
the box, inside the wall.

Holy S#*%... You didn't say it was deliberately rigged to burn down
the house on purpose...


I didn't know how bad it was. A private inspector was hired before I
signed the papers, and he claimed to have inspected all the panels.


That work wasn't done by any electrician unless he was certified
brain dead. And couldn't have been inspected by any competent AHJ or
they would have blown a gasket instantly.


There are too many fly by night electricians in Florida, who manage
to get defective work passed by inspectors. Its no wonder they skip
town after six months, or so. If they didn't, someone would kill them.
Remember Hurricane Andrew? That area has the tightest electrical &
building codes in Florida, yet most of the damaged homes revealed
substandard work that city inspectors signed off.

A friend of mine called the other day. He is disabled, and his home
was damaged by the hurricanes a few years ago. He lives on a tiny Social
Security Disability Pension, so he qualified for the city's program to
repair selected homes. It took almost two years for them to finish the
repairs, then six months later the kitchen ceiling collapsed. The roof
work was signed off by the city inspector, yet he didn't go up on the
roof, to see that the soft spots were gone. Now, the city tells him
it's his problem, and that if he doesn't pay to replace the entire roof,
including all the plywood they are calling in their low interest loan
and taking his home.


Even a helper learns real fast you don't leave open KO's in a wall,
and every cable gets a connector at the box. And when in doubt you
grab a brick of Duct Seal and stuff the holes.

-- Bruce --


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Bruce L. Bergman wrote:

Let me guess - Federal Pacific Electric? Extremely Bad Juju...


I worked at a bowling alley with a FPE panel. Damn box of sparks. yuck!

Clutch
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Wes wrote:

Bruce L. Bergman wrote:

Let me guess - Federal Pacific Electric? Extremely Bad Juju...

I worked at a bowling alley with a FPE panel. Damn box of sparks. yuck!


FPE = Faulty Protective Equipment


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