The end of the shed - but theres more and more being found !

I have honestly been up to my ears with sorting a massive amount out since the last post.

The main thing was that we finished clearing the shed :-(

After months of good solid slogging away, some 16 tonnes was sent off to be recycled, and the rest was sold or added to a rapidly growing collection. House has been emptied and settlement taken place, so theres no returning anymore.

Heres the final photos from the shed - Grandad, its been an honour to do this, and I hope you are proud of what we have achieved here

This is how I will always remember the shed, even from my childhood - that door !  In fact I reckon a few of you out there would recognise it too !

Just inside the door -

To think that was a huge mound of stuff chucked in there originally

Once full to bursting, now, no more

 Those boxes up in the corner we simply could not move, too heavy and required a forklift or something similar so we had to leave them. When the place is pulled down they can sort it out then !

 One lot of skip bins on the very last day - we had two lots in two days

 Useful member of the public decides to park almost in front of the shed door (the black car, white one is the scrappy's van)  Somehow we managed to not damage the car at all (came close a couple of times)

So then is that the end ?  OF COURSE NOT !!!!!!!!!

As I have mentioned before I have been working on another property recently, and in the last few weeks have started on a country property as well !  Yes, there is more stuff to be found, but as the pic below shows, where the hell am I going to put it ?  This is my shed on Xmas morning - no, Santa is not stuck in there, nor did he leave any presents, but somehow I am going to get that all sorted out soon.

I'm happy to report the inertia switch breeding program is going well, there is a very large family of them residing in my shed, heres a little group of them....

What you can see in the pic includes  - big wheel (Beaufighter), F86 Sabre Tyres, Vampire Tyres, RAAF / CAC Ceres Wing Flap/Centre Spar Ribs, Boxes contain Beaufighter cutoff throttles, torpedo and bomb cables, phone exchange wiring, aircraft rivets and a couple of hundred gauges.**NB CLICK ON THE PIC FOR FULL IMAGE***

The Beaufighter wheel is one of a pair, and you can see that I am doing some work on it, cleaning it with a toothbrush (literally) and silicon to soften it up as there is a flat spot that I need to ironed out when I inflate the tube eventually. As there is no room for the other wheel, it lives in my car at the moment !

I have been also travelling out and about and occasionally find some stuff destined for the scrapyards. One such trip recently netted a big box of stuff that I wasn;t paying too much attention to, other than it had an original CAC Boomerang ammo chute from the Tocumwal scrapyards and also three of these panels 

These didn't look like anything at first until I saw the second one which helpfully had "NEPTUNE" written in texta on the front !  That washed off easily enough, and I was excited to find the aircraft number on the underside as well... so yes its from a Lockheed Neptune

In the box was a load of parts for engines etc, which all turned out to be from a Cheetah engine - heres a bit below :

This monster is an Avro Anson Carb unit - from the box !

This part I got the week before, and was excited as it had the valve assembly on the rear still attached

But this was the big suprise in the box - an original KiGass Primer dated 1942. Never saw this at the time, and in fact didn't find it for a couple of days !

 So there we are for now, plenty more to come, including a small cache of Sabre parts, radio parts, and my attempts to restore an ejector seat that I found in a chook shed on the edge of the desert !

Have a great New Year, and keep reading !

Where Have I Been ?

Dear readers - you may very well be asking that question. And I apologize, time has run away from me !

Among other things I have been working on a building project for my son's kinder which is such a massive red tape affair that I think I've aged 15 years in the last five days ....

Oh yes, and I have had to catch up on the washing - I am a house dad after all !!!

But also, I have simply been flat out on a number of clearances. The shed and house are settled in three weeks. The end is upon us, yet I am still finding little bits in the dust on the floor - crazy !

Here's a selection of the best stuff over the last six weeks...


I often wonder why I did this for a career change ! - Now you see it......

And now you don't !   Around seven tonnes out of this aisle !

In among the stuff we found these things - the two on the right are quite dangerous things, used on aircraft years ago, but contains barium chromide - nasty nasty stuff...

I am stumped by this as I really don;t know the application other than it was used as per instructions for gapping aircraft sparkplugs...

There is still demand for tins of this type and in this condition. I would think that most are pretty ruined these days, and that this is older...not bad given its been in the garden for years!

This is pretty nice. Its a jet engine cover, certainly post WW2 with both RAAF and CAC badges on it. 

No its not a self portrait (I'm much prettier than that) but a shot of a pile of aircraft batteries sitting in the sunshine. The ones at the top (smaller ones) are Exide Batteries used in RAAF Wirraway aircraft, the big ones are unknown (I'm guessing Liberator or other such bigger craft) There is a badge on the side that says

AN Part 3150 (So its US - which it also has stamped on a different part of the body)

24V 34 A.H at 5 HOUR RATE

WT FILLED 76 LBS

SPEC GRAVITY FULL CHARGE 1.285

THE ELECTrIC STORAGE BATTERY CO

Anyone able to ID these?

Initially I thought these were just hand fire extinguishers but then found a metal tag on them and in fact they are Country Fire Authority. Only a couple in boxes and age has not been kind to them but no matter, still a nice piece of history from the late 1950's.

When I first picked this up I thought it was something from a toilet system ! It had the floater part attached to the rear. When I turned it over I still didn't think much until I saw the 01- part number. Its a floor gauge for fuel from a Wirraway !  Glad I hung onto it !!!

Yes its a wrapped package - and I have many in different sizes!  Most contain Fuzing shutter springs - they are tiny and generally there are between 10,000 and 70,000 (yes thats right) in each pack - and no I'm not counting them !~ Some are addressed to military, others to RAAF and ones like these to the Navy.

This was a bit of a find. In amongst a whole load of fencing wire and old phone line wire (complete with ceramics) was this box. I spotted a DAP tag so got into it further and discovered this is a box full of Bristol Beaufort 200Lb Bomb Cables !  

Here's a prop governor made by Hamilton. Unknown as to what aircraft this was from....

These next couple of things take up far too much space. They are ENORMOUS !  This one took a while to ID but very sure its an Avro Anson undercarriage wheel (main)

For quite a while I had been told that these were Mosquito Wheels. At some point they have had an axle added to them - easy enough to remove but they are not Mosquito. In fact after a bit of chasing around and some great assistance by a customer, they have been identified as Beaufighter Wheels. Incredible to be able to find a pair still together and in pretty good shape after all this time....but boy are they big !

OK I know this is a sodium valve, and thats about it. I have plenty of them but no idea what engine they are off....anyone recognise this and what engine it could be from?

I can't put into words what I;m thinking just looking at this picture. In fact I'm getting a headache from it !

So on that note I must jump back into the sheds and get discovering !  More stuff to follow as there is a lot of things being found - its just finding the time to post it up here....!

Nearly there - But Wait, Theres More !

Yes indeed, I haven't been around for a few weeks, but with good reason !

Firstly, I've been as sick as a dog, and still not 100%. That time of year of course, being winter in Melbourne, and working in all that dust and stuff just adds to the issue. But I'm well on the way to being fit and well again :-)

On with the show !

Heres grandpas shed this week - my brother has had construction workers in who removed a lot of shelving (it was all sold to one person). Its really empty now and starting to have that kind of empty ring in the place when you clap your hands.

Sad to think that after all this time, its finally over. One man's passion for 80 years is finally no more.
But, I have to ask - why did I find an original ABBA tour belt from the 1970's in there????  (no pic yet)

But even in this empty state I have found a gem or three

This is a rather wonderful looking (almost art deco style) Western Electric Intercom Unit. I assume its from around the 1930's.  Was surprised to find it still there.

Doesn't look like much right? Probably to the untrained eye, but I've learnt to look further than that ! This is a CAC Boomerang (RAAF) Firing Button ! Still works - well its presses down anyway, and of course its not connected to anything :-)

This could have easily ended up in the scrap pile, if not for an eagle eyed restorer. Its a seat pole for a CAC Wirraway (RAAF)  - something that I am intrigued by is the amount of material that is "unfinished" - ie not chrome plated, or even smoothed down. This is one such example, and has no part number markings.

Odd looking things, but they are components from either a Beaufort or Beaufighter (Part starts with E2)

And then the goodies begin!

Every plane needs some spark plugs ! I may have located some aircraft batteries too (they are hefty !)

Just as all planes need sparkys, they most likely need something like this too - this is a starter switch for a CAC Wirraway

These are generic push buttons - apparently used as starters on British craft, but also used heavily as a number of buttons (Start, bomb release, jettison, fire etc) on Australian aircraft.

Funky walking stick?  Nope, its a tank link part for a CAC Boomerang - even has the filter on the bottom right.

Time for a MYSTERY PART!  What on earth could this be?  I found loads of the bottom half at the shed, but this is one of a few complete units. Doubt its air related, the general thought is that its military, maybe tank ?

Yegads thats a lot of rings!  After much consultation we have worked out they are aircraft hydraulic tube clips. There's quite a few boxes too !

Moving across to tank matters, this is an oil can of some sort from a Bren Gun Carrier. Still in pretty good order after all this time.

This is a prop feathering switch from a Liberator - the big one !

Now one of the things I have always loved in particular with aircraft are the gauges - how people read so many at any given time while flying has always left me in awe.

Lucky for me I found a big box of them !  Heres a selection :

This is a brake pressure gauge for a Mosquito Fighter. Made by Dunlop, its a wonderful looking unit.

Now this unit has had lots of people talking. Its a boost gauge for a Spitfire, and has an amazing bakelite edge around it. To the right of the gauge is a blue tag. I hadn't paid much attention to this originally other than to note that it said Recovery Department. Now I know what that is - these tags actually help (where legible) to identify the actual aircraft from which it came. This is incredibly exciting and I will be bringing you more of that over the course of the next few weeks.

( I sold this one before I had a chance to figure this bit of info out !)

Similar yet different. This is another boost pressure gauge but for an Anson among others. What makes it different to the Spitfire is that it only goes to +8 whereas the Spitfire goes to +20. Still awesome looking whichever way you view it.

Now you would think that yellow would mean you'd be more easily seen by the enemy!  But this is an oil temperature gauge from a MK VIII Spitfire, so maybe they didnt have time to be looking for brightly coloured gauges

A not so common rear tank fuel contents gauge for a Hudson bomber!

This is an Oxygen Demand Regulator - lots of dials and the like. The oxygen piping was fitted to (I think) the tube on the left and thru to the pilot's mask.

So theres a decent burst of activity for the end of the month. There's so many more very cool items to share - keep reading !