Dont waste your breath.
He's now roped his 88yr old mother to waste some of her holiday doing his lazy arse job of hawking round chandlers looking for bits to maximise his profit on some old eBay boat.
Need I say more.
I think that last is your most obvious problem...
S p a c e c a d e t - just get off your lazy moaning arse & take your bits of old broken plastic to a chandlers & ask for their help?
Bombarding businesses with gobby emails (presumably like the posts you make on here) appears to be having the opposite effect than you would like... hmmm I wonder why?
HTH (lord knows you need all you can get) ;-)
WTF for ya twit?
Perzacharly!
In reply to what?
Sounds like an ideal place to visit with the knackered items & just say "I want some of these please".... Simples...
Time to vote for a real (hopefully local & small) business instead of trying to shaft it using the internet.
Just a little rant.
Is it just me or do others believe we have lost the general era of good customer support?
Example. I'm trying to replace some rowlock crutches and (top mount) sockets on an old but unused ('as new') fibreglass pram dinghy I'm trying to sell on behalf of my Mum (it was Dads).
Now, the nylon rowlocks weren't kept with the dinghy and whilst we have a small container full of them, most are also quite old and even if not exposed to sunlight, they tend to become brittle with time and I feel replacing them on this dinghy would be a 'good thing' (for the sale and new owners especially).
There are no identifying marks on the existing sockets (that I have found so far) and from measuring them, seem to come from an imperial era as the numbers seem to come out best in inches. Eg, the OD of the tube is 1", the ID (for the rowlock stem) 3/4", the distance between mounting hole centres is 2-1/4" etc.
So, I've Googled quite a bit and none of the offerings from the usual suspects (Holt, Allen, RWO, Plastimo etc) seem to have anything that is directly compatible and that means any replacement may require screw holes filling and re making etc. Worse, I think quite a bit of support for the socket is provided by a reasonable fit between the socket and the gunwale and so if it's not a 1" socket (they are typically smaller [1]) I may need to 3D print / turn suitable bushes etc?
Now, the frustration is trying to get accurate and complete dimensions for any of these things. Some sites give you some dims but it's rare to find all. Now wouldn't you think that if selling something like this that is an 'engineering' type thing, the complete engineering drawing with all the key measurements would be right there beside the picture and price?
So, do I have to order one of each of the possible candidates to either measure them myself and then send back what I don't use, as most of the emails I've sent (politely) asking for such dimensions have either missed the point or not got a reply or push the suppliers to do the sensible thing and offer these items for sale with some supporting dimensions?
Is this how the world is now, no "I'll go and measure one now, email you the result and update the website, sorry for the inconvenience sir."?
Cheers, T i m
[1] What complicates matters is that you then also need to find a compatible rowlock crutch with a big enough jaw to allow you to get the oar shaft in but an ID small enough to be a good fit on the sleeve.In message snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk>, Jim K.. snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes
I don't know if it would be any help, but when I needed odd things like this, our local chandlery were excellent. They seemed to manage two premises with only two staff, so how they manage now they have gone online as well, I don't know. The owner must be getting very old now, as well.
Their great selling point was that they had all sorts of little fixings and fittings on large cardboard sheets hanging up so you could go and measure to your hearts content, then go up to the counter or shout for the staff and say I want, say, 3 of W16-3-24. There would then be a lot of scampering of feet, climbing of ladders etc, perhaps the odd gentle curse, and you would have what you wanted.
I haven't needed to go there for years, so it may not be the same. They were always, shall we say, very slightly odd of manner and did not suffer fools too gladly, but they _were_ brilliant. I don't know what reaction you would get if you asked them to measure anything. They do appear to list imperial and metric rowlocks and mountings.
I'm afraid the minimum work for the greatest profit seems to be the order of the day these days. Even something simple like clamps for scaffold poles are like this, so if you are a scaffold, fine, but if you want a pole to use as an aerial mast then any old junk could turn up in hardware. Brian
Email reply from our 'local' Chandlery ...
"Many thanks for the inquiry,
Unfortunately that's not something we can help you with.
Regards"
Cheers, T i m
I have emailed the nearest things we have to a local chandlery and just got a 'sorry' reply.
I did think of going to those we know on the East coast but it's a matter of finding the time ATM.
I remember all sorts of hardware shops like that as well. Mostly gone now of course. ;-(
;-)
Funnily enough they were one of the sites I Googled upon and have investigated their online offerings (that were broader and better documented than some) but they (now) just seem to stock the mainstream lines (Allen, RWO, Plastimo etc). ;-(
Any NOS would probably be in the same condition as what we have already.
In a way, 'upgrading' this dinghy to a more common / known make / model could be a good thing (for the new owner), even if it's more work for me.
So, their Plastimo offering looks promising, *if* the information that goes along with it is correct:
However, the fixing hole spacing is 60mm whereas the existing holes are 57.15mm (2-1/4"). This means I'll have to fill and redrill (might not be a biggie, depending on what is inside the fibreglass rowlock mounting area). If the 25mm refers to the diameter of the hole / 'tube' that goes though the gunwale, then that too could be useable.
The overall length of the fitting means that it should cover any existing marks / holes (it doesn't show the width for some reason. Another example of the 'incomplete' information I found common).
Again, no complete information on the rowlock:
Like, what size is the opening of the jaw? If it goes over the oar shaft (44mmOD), will 55mm 'diameter' take the 53OD sleeve ok (it looks like it should but does it allow free up and down movement)?
And I really wanted while rowlocks ... ;-)
Cheers, T i m
And you can understand it with things that sell on price because people know what they want or what they are.
Yup, been there as well.
Cheers, T i m
How local? If your email was akin to your post, they may have found it confusing. Perhaps they might be more helpful if you popped in.
Yamas, Richard
15 miles?
Nope, it was pretty straightforward.
30 miles and a couple of hours wasted for the same answer?I've been there several times and they aren't yer typical old fashioned chandlers with all sorts of bits everywhere. They are similar to our local trailer place where it's definitely a business and making money is their only reason for being there.
They are both the sort of place where they only start to smile if you pull 20 grand out of your pocket.
Cheers, T i m
Go on, fire up the right hemisphere of your brain and see if you can work it out yourself! ;-)
Cheers, T i m
In message snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, T i m snipped-for-privacy@spaced.me.uk> writes
In normal times, I would have offered to take a full description in to this local chandlers, but my "under the weather" has turned out to be pneumonia, tests continue and I couldn't face the hassle of climbing over reels of rope etc. My experience of rowlocks is limited to galvanised ones, rather than these modern plastic things. We have big ones on the 3 ton yacht, and oars that bend if you try to row, and normal ones on the fibreglass dinghy we moulded. That has wooden gunwales/rubbing strakes, so the rowlock mountings are in wood. Is there no way of fitting wooden supports and "proper" rowlocks? Or maybe a fitting at the stern so the dinghy can be sculled, rather than rowed. That's what all the local fishermen do! :-)
Reliance are, or at least were, much less "professional" than the web site suggests and might respond to a clear phone call. Or not, depending on mood.
Understood (and thanks for the thought, hope you get well soon etc).
I think that's the case here, except that it might be wood in a fibreglass moulding.
I'll have to flip her over and have a closer look Bill. There is a 16' tandem touring kayak in the way at the moment. ;-(
That's what I did on the 6' pram I built and it works reasonably well.
Understood. I often email these days because at least they can have all the facts in front of them, rather than what they might have tried to remember or noted down etc.
I asked an eBay seller that I would like to ask them 3 numbered questions.
I got a non-answer to one of them (a partial link to their eBay shop) and a (polite) follow up reply re the other equally important questions didn't get a reply.
Even our local plumbers merchants (who have been there for at least 40 years as I used them when I was doing up this house) give the 'Sorry, we aren't plumbers, we just sell the parts' when you ask for anything other than just parts.
Garages employ fitters, shops employ shelf fillers and checkout robots and we are shocked when someone goes out of their way to actually help. ;-(
Cheers, T i m
Ere, Jimmy, look at this as an example:
Cheers, T i m
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