... that this product was so good that it seemed almost too good to be true. I coughed up my hard-earned and prepared to be at worst fed up, at best, re-learning the old lesson.

Not so with this one.

I was given a handful of reamers which were in a terrible state of neglect - they'd obviously spent some time in the village pond - you know the story.

After 24 hours in the solution and an occasional agitation in passing, I washed the reamers off with water and gently applied a rotary wire brush. The results speak for themselves. What's more, the solution is reusable and I've got a small puller and some other bits and pieces in the bath as we speak. It's not cheap, but it works wonders with no fuss and very little mess.

Counsel and I are slowly getting through The Great Collectors cars. I thought there was only 38 to get going, but I'd forgotten about a few others, so the total is over 40 now.

We hope that the auctioneer will be happy to attach to the rostrum a painting I did 13 years ago of The Great Collector about to set off on his 1905 Darracq. It would be a nice touch. There's so much stuff that the auction will be held over two days - Friday the 12th of June for the general builder's yard items, and Saturday the 13th for the automobilia and cars.

This is the Cushman Package-Kar with a drop tank body and Boeing B17 yoke for a steering wheel. Regrettably, it looks like I may miss the fun as I'm posted to Finland to load a cable-layer for a week. The date isn't quite fixed yet, but unless the ship is delayed by weather (fingers crossed) I'll be following the proceedings online.

In other news, Leon has made excellent progress with the supercharging of his Coventry Climax-engined Austin 7 Special.

Never mind the technical detail, just to fit all that in with only part of the blower manifold extending beyond the bonnet line, is quite a feat. The engine has been started and run up with a 1:1 crank/blower ratio giving around 5lbs of boost, but a 1.5:1 ratio will give nearer 15lbs of boost. If an A7 passes you on the motorway, you'll know who it is!

And after rooting around in my shed for some plugs with which to test a magneto, I discover that quite by accident, I've become a spark plug fancier! The one on the bottom right is a Hobson H31. Never heard of them.