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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

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Remember my post about all the warning signs in the city park? We've got a new one: "Warning, slippery road!" I might avoid the area for now, it's really getting dangerous now! :) I think that city lawyers are running amok.
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My mum was a night-shift Carer at a local Residential Home and would sometimes get a lift home from her colleague who had a Mini Metro (which dates this quite a bit). One morning on the way back the friend commented on the car handling and reckoned there was either a slow rear puncture or the wheel tracking was slightly out. So after dropping my Mum off, she carried on to her friendly Garage mechanic (who was a very nice young man). He did a quick inspection and declared that the wheels and tyres were fine - they just didn't belong to her car. Some-one during the night hadn't just stolen her two Metro rear wheels, they had replaced them. I don't know if that was more strange or less strange.
 
Remember my post about all the warning signs in the city park? We've got a new one: "Warning, slippery road!" I might avoid the area for now, it's really getting dangerous now! :) I think that city lawyers are running amok.
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Bit alarmist, eh? Maybe some concerned citizen putting them up?
 
.....He did a quick inspection and declared that the wheels and tyres were fine - they just didn't belong to her car. Some-one during the night hadn't just stolen her two Metro rear wheels, they had replaced them. I don't know if that was more strange or less strange.

Probably not all that uncommon, considering the vehicle!
Little known fact - The Metro (also the Montego) was known for a specific issue with it's wheels/tyres, which was that it was factory fitted with hard-to-source 'Metric' items. As such the tyres were an unusual 160/65R- 315- 73S size which were not all that common in the UK
What a lot of owners did was obtain a set of 'standard' size wheels with a matching stud-pattern (usually from a scrap yard with tyres already on) so that when it came to buying new tyres they could just go to their local kwik-fit.
(Or, instead, if they were a bit hard-up, they might go out in the middle of the night and swap the worn tyres on their own car for ones from an identical vehicle...)
 
My mum was a night-shift Carer at a local Residential Home and would sometimes get a lift home from her colleague who had a Mini Metro (which dates this quite a bit). One morning on the way back the friend commented on the car handling and reckoned there was either a slow rear puncture or the wheel tracking was slightly out. So after dropping my Mum off, she carried on to her friendly Garage mechanic (who was a very nice young man). He did a quick inspection and declared that the wheels and tyres were fine - they just didn't belong to her car. Some-one during the night hadn't just stolen her two Metro rear wheels, they had replaced them. I don't know if that was more strange or less strange.
It reminds me of an incident a good few years ago, reported in a motoring journal. A shall we say slightly worn car (can't remember make) was stolen from owners driveway. Reappeared several weeks later back on the drive with brand new flash wheels, new tyres, repainted and the interior cleaned up like new. The owner never found out what had happened. Generous friend or relative, or thief with a conscience?
 
It reminds me of an incident a good few years ago, reported in a motoring journal. A shall we say slightly worn car (can't remember make) was stolen from owners driveway. Reappeared several weeks later back on the drive with brand new flash wheels, new tyres, repainted and the interior cleaned up like new. The owner never found out what had happened. Generous friend or relative, or thief with a conscience?
Rather odd!
 
Here's a sad little one:
I got behind in my local paper's crossword puzzles. Started catching up on last Sunday's crossword yesterday. One clue was "A city in Texas." Usually that means Austin or Laredo if it's 6 letters, but this time it was "Odessa".
 
Maybe some one can answer this.

One way of checking that a piece of steel had been heated up sufficiently to harden it is to try to attach a magnet to it.

When the steel is at required heat, it loses it's ability to attract the magnet.

But when It cools down again, it attracts the magnet as usual. Maybe I should say the magnet attracts the steel.

So, where have the magnetic properties of the steel gone when it is hot ? and why do they return ?

INT21.
 
Maybe some one can answer this.

One way of checking that a piece of steel had been heated up sufficiently to harden it is to try to attach a magnet to it.

When the steel is at required heat, it loses it's ability to attract the magnet.

But when It cools down again, it attracts the magnet as usual. Maybe I should say the magnet attracts the steel.

So, where have the magnetic properties of the steel gone when it is hot ? and why do they return ?

INT21.
High heat randomises the atoms of the steel, so they can't form the groupings that allow magnetism to work.
AFAIK, the crystalline structure of the metal forms structures called 'domains' that are aligned a certain way. The heat sends those atoms into a frenzy and they move about really fast, unable to form molecular bonds.
But I might be wrong about that - I'm no physicist.
 
Bit late to the party, but I too once found a decomposed mouse stuck to the grill at the back of my fridge freezer. It was the most disturbing looking little corpse. Poor thing.
 
So, where have the magnetic properties of the steel gone when it is hot ? and why do they return ?
What you're referring to is usually known by the scientific term "Curie Point"

In physics and materials science, the Curie temperature (TC), or Curie point, is the temperature above which certain materials lose their permanent magnetic properties, which can (in most cases) be replaced by induced magnetism. The Curie temperature is named after Pierre Curie, who showed that magnetism was lost at a critical temperature.
Practical applications include highly-precise thermostatic electroswitch control systems, metallurgical foundry process pathways and nuclear power industry.

But the summary explanation provided by @Mythopoeika is spot-on.
 
Just on the subject of magnets, I had a funny little happening last week.
I was experimenting with a couple of small 20mm diam rare earth magnets to hold parts of a large model together. They are really powerful even at that size so I totally cleared my small hobby table. Used quick drying epoxy and applied to one magnet and promptly dropped it. Looked round my chair and it was nowhere to be seen. Glued the other one and stuck it to the resin part and left it on the table for a few minutes. Go to make cup of tea and sit back at table. The resin part starts moving randomly around the table totally on its own. I have to say I was a touch spooked (!). Get up and part flies off table. Only then did I notice that the magnet I had dropped had stuck firmly to my jeans and moving my legs under the table was causing the wild antics of the model part. I managed to peel the stuck magnet off and even under my jeans I could make the part dance around with only minute leg movement.
The possibility of fake paranormal effects is endless.
 
... The resin part starts moving randomly around the table totally on its own. I have to say I was a touch spooked (!). Get up and part flies off table. Only then did I notice that the magnet I had dropped had stuck firmly to my jeans and moving my legs under the table was causing the wild antics of the model part. I managed to peel the stuck magnet off and even under my jeans I could make the part dance around with only minute leg movement.
The possibility of fake paranormal effects is endless.

So that's how the technology of illusionists and paranormal fakers advances ... :thought:

:evillaugh:
 
Hmmpf. Nothing supernatural, but odd...
My bedroom light stopped working the other day, so I replaced the bulb and found that it didn't work. Tested the bulbs, found that they both work in another light fitting. So I thought 'OK, light switch needs replacing - it was a bit wobbly anyway' - and I just replaced the lightswitch 5 minutes ago. Only to find... that it still doesn't work.
So - I'm guessing that the cable up in the loft has something wrong with it. I haven't heard any mice or rats up there. It's a mystery.
I guess I'll just get an electrician in.
 
Spent yesterday with Escette and my wonderful son in law who is a gas fitter. He was telling us about things that happen at work. Recently he was in a customer's loft and took out a voltmeter to look for a current. (In case the casework on a boiler was live and so dangerous.)

As soon he switched it on it registered a current. Wherever he waved it in the air it did the same thing. It was as if the whole area was full of electricity.
He rang the works electrician who said 'No idea Mate, that's bizarre!'

Son in law is still alive so it wasn't that dangerous. Dunno.
 
Might be worth a try before you fork out for an electrician
Yeah, I might have a go at it tomorrow while it's still light. It might be a loose connection.
The plumber is going up in the loft on Wednesday or Thursday, so I might ask him to give it a visual check.
 
So - I'm guessing that the cable up in the loft has something wrong with it.
Cable- no. Very unlikely. Check the ceiling rose in the first room *after* the bedroom, as you walk towards your fuseboard. Just tighten all the connections in that overhead rose, THEN all the ones in the affected bedroom.

Do all this with the breaker or fuse protecting the upstairs turned off, or pulled, and work in daylight off a stepladder (no chair acrobatics).

UK lighting is wired as 'loop-in', in that L/N/E are presented as a series-parallel shared single radial per floor (if small house) or area (if larger).

The only other complication could be two-way switching (eg if you have a 'lazy switch' above your bed AND a wall-switch beside your bedroom door).

Check with the power back on, and if still no light in bedroom, go for an AC multimeter set to eg 400V FSD ~. CAUTIOUSLY insert the black probe into the neutral common block (easily identified by having a single black or blue 1.5mm cable, and one of the two drop-flex leads feeding the bulb-holder) in the rose, and put the red probe to the other drop-flex cable.

Try the light-switches in multiple combos, and if you DO get power, @Shady is quite correct, it's the fitting at fault.

If I lived closer, I could diagnose it in under 2mins
 
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I don't have a multimeter. I really should buy one at some point, they're now cheap enough.
 
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