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blakeyboy

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Posts posted by blakeyboy


  1. 6 hours ago, Coinery said:

    In the very, very, beginning I used to use olive oil, until I discovered it wasn’t benign at all. Olive oil is actually a weak acid, apparently characterised by an acidity between 1-2%.

    Just taking a quick Look at fingerprint oil, it looks to be 95-99% water and measuring anything up to 5 on the PH scale, which I read makes it comparable to black coffee.
    Needless to say I had an anxious few weeks decontaminating all my coins with acetone and sealing them back up again in airtight coin flips!

    To be honest, though, I don’t think the dry, ambient air of modern households would notably tone a coin more after decontamination with acetone, than it would before, but everyone to their own experience and views on this, I do however choose to keep mine in flips anyway.

    Yes, hurried sloppy mistake.

    I work with recording studio  mixing consoles that are changing hands at £300k plus at the moment,

    and are full of silver plated brass switch contacts. 

    A $12 can of 'switch cleaner" will  do £40k of damage to those contacts.

    Properly thought through "Switch Lubricant" is another matter....

    Try Electrolube EML.

    It was specced for pro use in the 1970's, and still works, for _minuscule_ layer of protective oil.

    • Like 1

  2. I lost count of the times I emailed Torr coins to tell them to stop hanging their coins in photos on Ebay....

    Acetone can leave a coin 'too clean', and the atmosphere loves that...the TINIEST amount of a benign oil,

    olive, EML switch lube, etc etc and I mean the TINIEST bit, keeps things stable.

    Put a speck on a small clean brush and apply like that - _no_ rubbing!

    • Like 2

  3. 2 hours ago, Rob said:

    They only book at £10 Unc or £35 BU, whatever that difference means, but I can't shift them at 35 (maybe 25-30), so given £700 hammer is £868 with juice, who in their right mind would pay 30x market rate for one of these?

    ...do you have their name and address?     I have some tat to shift...:-)

    • Haha 1

  4. Absolutely. _My_ gardening year is over by April/May- I then hand over the reins to my plants and stand well back.

    October and November are my planning and re-potting months. I re-pot before putting plants away for the winter.

    One tip I discovered- when re-potting a tall plant with a single stem/trunk, re-pot it off-centre.

    Then, in a tiny green house, you can turn the pot and it moves the position of the plant to fit in better, or, you can leave the plant where it is,

    and turn the pot so it's not under your feet!

    Another trick is you now have a bigger single area of bare compost  by the plant's stem, onto which you can stand another plant pot...cram 'em in!!

     

    Some plants don't mind going dormant, but some plants from sunny places, like aeoniums and agapanthus don't like a dark winter.

    Agapanthus flower stems become rare the next year, and aeonium schwarzkopf ( the black form ) goes green!.

    Aeoniums, also, only grow in the winter, so you don't let them dry out- you know you have it right when they start flowering...

    Cannas, too, hate being dry for the winter- always keep them slightly moist.

    Canna 'Shenandoah', the best pink flower you will ever see, likes bright light in storage, and the summer outside,

    but not too powerful a sun, since it hammers the blooms, BUT of all the cannas, this is the one that needs heat. Lots of it.

    It's the one canna that's the easiest to lose if it's cold and too wet.

    If you have room to overwinter plants, and you have a shady garden, but want a tropical show, get a Brazilian Plume Flower.

    Just hack it back each autumn when you bring it in. The cuttings root really easily, so you will have a good display the next year!

     

    The main thing with a lot of plants from hot places, is to check whether, where they are from, like in deserts, there are some frosts, but never when it's wet.......:-)

    I

    • Like 2
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