There’s still a few things to iron out or tweak a bit more, but it’s mostly functional – or as far as I can tell.

So, if you care to pass comment on anything you’ve come across that you don’t like or don’t quite understand, please let me know in the comments.

Both the main Butler Sheetmetal site and the blog have been revamped, with both a more minimal and integrated feel.

We’ve also added a client case studies section and a job book section which contains all the photo galleries.

If you have a couple of spare minutes, do have a little mosey and let me know your thoughts if you care to share them.

I’d be terribly grateful.

Talk about pudgy round the gills and waxing not too lyrical. He’s simply a sequence of Scottish grunts and groans.

The last thing you’d want to do with him he engage in a conversation, let alone touching any kind of sharp instrument or operating machinery.

Still, it’s not like most of us aren’t a bit like that of a Monday morning.

But, fear not people. Those of you (and me), like Jasper, reaping the health and safety whirlwind due to early morning mental blurring need fear no more when faced with sharp blades doing anything over 1,000 RPM.

There’s some clever fella devised a circular saw locking system thriggered by by conduction – and with water being a conductor, that means your pinkies.

The following video is most impressive as they try and attack the blade with a limp hot dog and it shutting down without causing even the slightest of Stevie Nicks.

But, it gets darn close and then some – as in a 1,000th of an inch – then kachunk-a-blammo; the automatic locking system kicks in and halts the blade dead in its tracks.

Hot dog wieners are all well and good, but you need someone with real sausage fingers to really put it through its paces. So, the inventor steps up and volunteers his digits for the camera – one of those super duper slow-mo affairs that takes nearly as long to set up as it does to display the slowed down version of the film.

It takes a while as the crew wants to show exactly how close the guy gets with his finger and the forces / tensions on the blade as it abruptly stops. Either that, or they manage to film the first ever slow motion finger slice with Tarinto-esque blood spurts arcing across the shot that’s guaranteed to go viral.

But, I won’t tell you anymore. You can just watch it yourself:

Weather closing in over Todber Caravan Park

Will somebody explain to me the difference between any town in the north of England covered by a marauding ash cloud and the same northern town round November?

Apart from the fact it probably goes dark earlier in Wigan in November.

The BBC isn’t talking about Eyjafjallajoekull, but the other angry sister to Katla – Hekla when it reminds us that:

“In the Middle Ages it was believed to be one of the gateways to hell, or Judas’s prison.“

Eh? I thought these buggers were exploding in Iceland, not Bolton.

Anyway, while we’re not on the subject of Owen Coyle, but of the Reebok:

IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN TO THE NORTH & NORTH WEST MANUFACTURING & ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY EXHIBITION AT THE REEBOK STADIUM, BOLTON, 5TH – 6TH MAY.
THERE ARE JUST THREE WEEKS LEFT NOW TO BOOK A STAND OR GET A TICKET TO VISIT THE LEADING ENGINEERING, ELECTRONICS, MANUFACTURING & TECHNOLOGY EXHIBITION IN THE REGION.

EXHIBITING MEANS MEETING WITH THE REGIONS LEADING BUYERS & SPECIFIERS FROM AEROSPACE, AUTOMOTIVE, ELECTRONICS, FOOD & DRINK, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, MEDICAL, ENERGY & UTILITIES AND MANY MANY MORE, ALL LOOKING TO PLACE NEW ORDERS WITH COMPANIES COMMITTED TO DOING BUSINESS IN THEIR REGION.

VISITING WILL MEAN CATCHING UP WITH THE LATEST INNOVATIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES AFFECTING INDUSTRY TODAY AS WELL AS SEEING THE 100 PLUS EXHIBITORS. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ATTEND THE FREE SEMINAR PROGRAMME HITTING THE KEY TOPICS THAT AFFECT INDUSTRY TODAY FREE OF CHARGE.

Find out more here.

It could’ve started off so well had Burnley thought about turning up against Blackburn, but as dire no-shows go, that little tete a tete takes the entire biscuit barrel.

The next day my mother moved house from the one I grew up in to a lovely little cottage but a mere stone’s throw away from my sister and John’s house in Trawden. That means she’s equidistant from her babysitting duties and mucking out John’s chicken shed.

The only phone calls I’ve received from her have been because BT hadn’t installed vision, thus leaving her Corrie-less, as well as endless inquiries as to why her computer wasn’t working properly.

Shades of The IT Crowd:

Then we hit Tuesday and I hit 40. No problems with that, other than I felt strangely at ease with the world. And trust me, I rarely feel strangely at ease with the world.

Although I did have a hankering, nay craving, for something quintessentially English for my Birthday tea. Now I understand why John plumped for cheese and onion pie and mushy peas – besides him being cheap, that is. But, because it was my Birthday I had no intention of making it, and because I’m living in America I had no chance of finding a café, restaurant or chippy to quell my pangs; unless an out-of-date, overpriced tin of mushy peas from World Market’s ‘English’ food section and some mini quiches from Aldi’s count. I would’ve struggled for OXO cubes, mind.

Instead, we sauntered off to find some faux Irish boozer selling faux steak and Guinness pie – which was obviously shut.

How we wound up in some rather posh gaff chomping ourselves daft on lamb shank served with garlic-enthused (sic) mash topped with arugula and pear salad is beyond me. Plus we hadn’t the shame to refuse our server’s (a camp hybrid of Stephen Colbert and Phil Brown’s tan & goatee) warning that our expensive bottle of wine was, in fact, only a half bottle.

Stephen Colbert & Phil Brown

But it was bloody lovely; so bloody lovely that I felt compelled to order the Mexican spiced cocoa crème brûlée. That was also bloody lovely until a blow-torched sugar chili twig sank itself into the deeper reaches of my back jaw, where it has remained ever since as a constant reminder to eating above my station in life.

I mean, the worst injury you’re going to receive from a micro waved Greggs’ pastie / mushy peas combo is Pete Burns lip, right?

Maybe when I’m 50.

The second edition of the brochure PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE FABRICATION OF DUPLEX STAINLESS STEELS has now become available. The 64-page manual is published by the International Molybdenum Association (IMOA), in co-operation with Euro Inox and the International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF).

Contents:

- History of duplex stainless steels

- Chemical composition and role of alloying elements
— Chemical composition of duplex stainless steels
— The role of the alloying elements in duplex stainless steels

- Metallurgy of duplex stainless steels

- Corrosion resistance
— Resistance to acids
— Resistance to caustics
— Pitting and crevice corrosion resistance
— Stress corrosion cracking resistance

- End-user specifications and quality control
— Standard testing requirements
— Special testing requirements

- Mechanical properties

- Physical properties

- Cutting
— Sawing
— Shearing
— Slitting
— Punching
— Plasma and laser cutting

- Forming
— Hot forming
— Solution annealing
— Warm forming
— Cold forming
— Press forming
— Spin forming

- Machining duplex stainless steels
— General guidelines for machining duplex stainless steels
— Welding procedure qualifications
— Welding methods

- Other joining techniques
— Joint preparation
— Adhesives
— Soldering
— Brazing

- Post-fabrication clean-up
— Crayon marks, paint, dirt, oil
— Embedded iron
— Weld spatter, weld discouloration, flux, slag, arc strikes

- Duplex stainless steel applications

- Suggested additional reading

- References

- Appendix 1: Duplex stainless steel designations and product names

- Appendix 2: Summary of specifications

To download a PDF copy free of charge, please go to: http://www.euro-inox.org/pdf/map/Guidelines_Fabrication_Duplex_EN.pdf.

If you prefer to receive a printed brochure, please send an e-mail to info@euro-inox.org, not forgetting to:
- use the keyword DUPLEX BROCHURE
- give your full mailing address.

Hopefully, that should be enough for you not to ask me in the comments if I can send you a copy.

Being the fair-minded chap I am I suggested drawing straws. Nobody seemed overly interested in that as a concept seeming an equal number of boys and girls were asked to turn up and the number of boys in our class was the number of boys expected. Cue bitch-fight.

I don’t remember much other than standing right at the front of the Burnley masses, plastic Union Jack in hand, camera around neck whilst sheltering from the elements in a knee-length green kagoul.  Although I do remember being yanked from my vantage point by my hood by our teacher and shrieked at for wandering off on my own – in full view of everybody.

To this day I still don’t think I was in the wrong. I’d gone to see the Prince of Wales and I’d wormed my way into what I thought the best spot. Fortunately, the kind people behind me took pity and allowed me back after my bollocking.

So, the thought of the not-so bonny Prince visiting Burnley again sets me off on some form of anxiety attack – well I struggle to catch my breath as I think of my industrial-strength zipper pressing hard into my windpipe.

Anyway, at least this time round he’s got his own Burnley shirt (more pics):

We didn’t bankrupt the club with the cost of lettering.

I shudder to think what Owen Coyle would’ve been like had he not trotted off down the A666. Expected Prince Charles to bow I would imagine.

But we haven’t been short of our own royalty round here y’know. That is, if you consider Obama turning up at Lorain County Community College a royal visit just down the road from my father-in-law’s house in Elyria.

Here are a couple of pictures of him at LCCC’s Wind Turbine Manufacturing and Fabrication Lab:

Obama’s customary fist bump.(SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Looks like somebody’s got a man-crush…(SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

And to think, if I’d broken ranks to wave flags at yon President I’d probably have been shot.

I sincerely hope he’s not up to what this geezer in a Southampton fabrication shop has been up to:

A MAN who got his genitalia stuck in a steel pipe had to be cut free by eight firefighters using an industrial grinder. The heavy duty cutting gear had to be used to remove the three-inch long hollow pipe after medics were unable to release it. The painstaking operation, which involved eight firefighters, took around an hour.

The drama began after the man took himself to the accident and emergency department of Southampton General Hospital.

Restricted blood flow had left the man in a state of arousal, and unable to remove the pipe.

Staff there were so concerned that they phoned the emergency services and a crew from Redbridge Fire Station were initially dispatched. But they had to bring in backup from St Mary’s station which has a fire truck equipped with specialist cutting gear. A disc gutter cutter, with a four-and-a-half-inch blade, was used to slice open the stainless steel pipe.

The man, in his 30s, offered no explanation for his predicament but was said to be “quite concerned and anxious”. He had been given an anaesthetic to prepare for the procedure.

St Mary’s crew manager Adrian Johnson said: “It was a very delicate operation. We did not want anything heating up.

The person who did it deserves a commendation for his nerve and steady hand.”

Meanwhile, watch manager Greg Garrett from Redbridge station added: “I’ve only come across this type of thing three or four times in my 17 years as a firefighter. It’s not a daily occurrence.”

The man’s private parts were left bruised and swollen.

I’m generally fairly reluctant to post entire articles seeming it goes against Rupert Murdoch’s grain, but I really didn’t know which bits to cut out (as the fireman said to the bloke with his knob stuck in a steel tube). I mean, this is why you’d love to be a local journalist. Maybe a fireman as well, but not the guy doing the angle grinding or holding the pipe steady.

However, feel free to go and enjoy yourselves in the comments to the article.

Something else I expected even less was Jasper ‘looking well’. I swear he looked three years younger than the last time I clapped eyes on him; and that was probably three years ago. Especially seeming he’d caned a litre and a half of Asda’s premier cooking sherry the night previously. Maybe he’s pickling himself younger by means of a Benjamin Button-esque reverse aging process. Not that there’s much chance of him turning into Brad Pitt.

I fear he’ll probably get stuck looking like a whispy, deep-fried turnip.

While it’s nigh on impossible to seamlessly move from Scotland and turnips to footie you can’t fault the Butler boys having nabbed a few season tickets to watch Burnley (not that getting on the Turf is my festive highlight or anything). Nor can you fault the game against Arsenal. So bring on Bolton. Oh, and don’t be pestering Matt for a borrow of one unless you’ve got a sizeable order up your sleeve.

So, without further ado (as I’ve got to now go and drop all the presents off at John’s) may you have a very Merry Christmas.

I’ve been told the Butler Sheetmetal guys were responsible for the flooring, the glass posts and the signage.

Floor leading to platform lift.

Exhibition stand interior with shiny logo.

Back of the stand.

Full frontal of Axess exhibition stand.

Somebody enjoying a ride in a lift.

So, to avoid any confusion, if you’re looking for a custom lift get in touch with Axess in Clitheroe; and if you’re looking for an exhibition stand, have a word with us down the other end of the A59.

I know how easily confused some of you people can get.

We found your company details on the internet and thought that you may be interested in this event.

At the one-day event, all the essentials about working with stainless steel will be addressed. The workshop will concentrate on practical help, including advice concerning grade selection, fabrication, welding ‘dos and don’ts’ and will also highlight the importance of post-fabrication cleaning.

Specialists from Outokumpu Stainless, TWI, BSSA and member companies will outline best welding practices and correct some misconceptions concerning fabricating with stainless steel. There will also be speakers who will give an insight into using stainless steel in particular projects including the Beckton Desalination plant, being built in time of the London Olympics, and other projects.

The workshop should interest anyone already involved in the fabrication of products in stainless steel but equally will be of interest for those with little or no experience of working with the material.

The event is organised by TWI, Outokumpu Stainless and the BSSA and supported by the Association of Welding Distributors and the Welding & Joining Society. Both TWI and IOM3 accredit the workshop as a CPD event.

Space is limited and previous workshops have been well attended, so early booking is recommended. The enrolment fee is £70 + VAT and includes a copy of the workshop handbook, lunch and refreshments.

For further information please follow this link to the event page on the BSSA website: http://www.bssa.org.uk/events.php?id=573, or find the event flyer/ programme/ booking form attached for your convenience.

For further assistance please contact Lucy Gubbins on 0114 267 1260 or lucy.gubbins@bssa.org.uk