Well, not exactly, and this started as a quick diary entry because I’ve had no time for such frivolous pursuits as writing for a while. You see the team have been working night and day to offload a quarter-ton of useless scrap into the museum by dressing it up as our annual, 4th of January addition to the Ruskin’s display of Bluebird stuff – the best in the known universe.
We’ve finally taken K7’s engine home but what we imagined to be a couple of afternoon’s work soon turned into something akin to taking down Everest with shovels with the momentum of a steam locomotive in freefall.
It’s that time of year when we don the tweed jackets, stoke the briar pipes and re-learn our museological jargon. So sit back, you the public, while we tell you what’s in your best interests.
Remember this crusty pile of scrap?
Feast your eyes on this priceless museum object, the wet-dream of a thousand industrial conservators, the actual engine that propelled Bluebird and Donald Campbell to near destruction on that cold January morning forty-one years ago as it waits patiently for someone to love it.
This is what the public needs…
So after six years of avoiding the damn thing and it’s myriad sharp edges (it’s already landed John-Tidy in the local A&E department) the decision was taken that a conservation-led approach to its sensitive display in appropriate surroundings in order to celebrate the achievements of Donald Campbell and Bluebird seemed appropriate (thanks to the HLF jargon-generation dept for the above); the dead Orph’ was to be uplifted and stuffed into the museum.
An immediate, get rid of the useless lump of scrap-led, amateurish imitation of museum display designers (who seem to charge something like £5K per square metre!) then commenced as we designed and built a suitable display facilitating interpretation of not only the object but the engineering ethos of the late sixties as well as more types of corrosion than you’ll find on a British Leyland car – if you can find a British Leyland car these days.
‘Interpretation’, you understand… that cornerstone of the museum fraternity that can mean anything from mild guilt at not quite admiring a shard of broken pottery in a glass case to happily breathing soot and cinders in the wake of a speeding steam train.
To the Bluebird team it was epitomised by Peter Grieve hauling his Rolls-Royce Merlin into our yard last winter, firing it up and blasting us all with a freezing gale from its propeller then shutting it down so we could warm our chilled fingers on the cam-boxes amidst the smell of heated oil from a living, WWII aircraft engine.
Now that’s interpretation to get excited about… but real interpretation usually involves low-lighting, tip-toeing about as thoughthough someones budgie just died and so many placards and softly spoken tape loops that you’re bored sh**less five minutes into the first exhibit.
So what to do with a thoroughly dead jet engine?
The two big problems with exhibiting the old Orph’ in a public place in it’s bare condition are that anoraks will nick bits until only powder remains whilst low-life urchins from Liverpool or Manchester will either split their shaven scalps on corroded compressor blades or mistakenly snort what’s left through rolled up fivers then call the nearest no-win-no-fee solicitors to seek compensation for the injustice of it all.
The engine had to be protected from the population at large…
To this end we designed a system of hoops to support some see-through, urchin-proof material then welded our artistry to the frame we ‘borrowed’ from Bournemouth.
There you go… two lengths of inch-tube and some 8mm round bar rolled into pretty circles. That’s some scrap taken care of from next door’s workshop too.
Now then, had we been charging 5K per square metre, we’d have explained to the public (and the client) that in order to properly interpret such an important object what we’d designed (in our mystical, museological wisdom) was a visually-minimalist, non-invasive display sub-structure, to promote maximum interpretational impact, etc…
But being engineers what we really did was to build something that would yield easily and therefore take its shape from the covers thus allowing the plastic to define the finished shape rather than its supporting structure.
Bloody worked too!
But here’s the best bit. There’s a local company called Bay Plastics (http://www.bayplastics.co.uk/index1.htm) with whom we’ve actually had a long and happy relationship though I’m not sure they know about it.
You see, when we were divers, our appetite for off-cuts to make battery boxes, slates on which to scrawl underwater messages, and all manner of bits and pieces of scrap plastic (because it doesn’t rot in seawater) was unfailingly satisfied by the guys at Bay Plastics when the boss wasn’t looking.
So remember that we’ve been building cockpit rails for our big blue boat… we’ll shortly need a canopy to slot into them; then there’s the matter of the 67-spec’spray baffles.
So whilst buying some sheets of 3mm polycarbonate last week to render kiddie-proof the glass doors at the in-laws I asked whether they’d be interested in helping us out with Bluebird. (I’d not have been doing my job if I hadn’t).
It’s understandable, I think, that we’d like to keep the sponsor and engineering base as close to home as we can because it’s good for the project as well as local business so everyone wins around here just as everyone in Coniston will win one way or another when we weigh over our big blue boat in eighteen months or so.
The boys at Bay Plastics seemed keen enough and so passed me upwards to the MD whom I reached accidentally over the holidays as I checked availability on material to cover our engine.
An agreement was quickly reached but more of that later... Suffice to say that by the appointed day we had a supply of precision cut polycarbonate panels with which to enclose the dead Orph’.
The plastic still has its white, protective film on at this point (it didn’t come off until the engine was safely in the museum) but you can see already that it’s going to look ‘the dog’s banana!’ especially with John-Tidy in charge of detail work.
He spent forever lining up the plastic sheets and firing in those red skin-pins to hold everything precisely and we had to smile when he became genuinely upset at a gap he could force his fingernail into. We eased the material across until John’s fingernail-width anomaly was no more. A quarter inch was John’s tolerance a year ago; it’s a quarter millimetre these days.
Rob, in the meantime, was working on some dramatic lighting effects. We consulted with Keith the cameraman, as he knows about such things, then darkened the workshop and experimented.
Rob really is the inspiration behind these additions to the museum.
Remember how he spent weeks polishing Donald’s ‘bell end’ then risked life and limb up a ladder installing it last year. He enjoys creating these offerings so we all muck in to help just as he helps us with our specialties. That’s what being a team is all about.
He bought a red LED bulb to go up the jetpipe too – for which I still owe him six quid.
Spooky, eh?
On went more plastic…
…until the whole engine was covered and safe from harm – or being harmful to others.
Much as we’re doing with the rest of K7 we gave the new display a ‘dry build’ then with everything looking good we went for it with the rivet gun.
A coat of paint was applied to the frame too; then the covers with one side of the protective film stripped away were made secure.
Work continued night and day (literally) through New Year’s Eve and on to January 2nd.
We ratcheted up the pace another couple of clicks on Thursday evening with everyone determined to see the job done for Friday morning but by the middle of the night we were wrecked so we called it for safety reasons. I’d cut my head so many times whilst working under the engine that Rob reckoned I looked like I’d been fighting and Rachel asked who won when I finally got home so I guess he wasn’t joking.
It was a bleary-eyed gang that regrouped on the morning of the fourth – our deadline – to finish what we’d started while Novie, Vicky and Paul Hannarack set up the receiving end at the Ruskin.
They had to open the double access doors at the museum, which turned out to be seized through lack of use and a locksmith had to be called so that by the time Alain and Mike arrived in the Merc’ Sprinter with our Orph’ in the back all was unlocked and ready.
Rob and Gill made their own way as Rachel and I made the trip with baby Lucy secured behind us explaining all the way that ‘Conston’ boasted only, Robbie, eggs, (as cooked by Robbie on her last visit), ‘Doobird’ and Donald…
I’d also warned Vicky that if she had a hot date for the evening she’d best cancel because there remained much to do so if Brad Pitt was waiting in her bedroom with a single red rose between his teeth he’ll have suffered grave disappointment because Vicky stayed with us ’til the last.
And what an ordeal… Our twelve-foot masterpiece was a terrible thing to load using the van’s narrow tail lift and getting it out again was made a hundred times worse by the steeply sloping car park, high winds and lashing rain. And that was after Alain almost suffered a nervous breakdown whilst manoeuvring a hired Luton van into a confined area in pitch darkness with six people simultaneously yelling instructions through the open windows.
But we’re a team – so with much pushing and pulling the engine was eventually lowered safely to ground level, manhandled over the gravel and through the doors.
We slalomed it enthusiastically between the other priceless exhibits then parked it where we could apply the finishing touches.
The museological-muppet who wanted a separate area for wet hats and coats would doubtless have given birth to a litter of kittens as we wheeled our quarter ton of sodden scrap through the display but I didn’t see any of John Ruskin’s watercolours beginning to run as we pushed and pulled our burden.
And that wasn’t even nearly the end of it – we still had lots to do as we plugged in our compressor and unpacked the tools to finish assembling the display because we’d dared not remove most of the protective films from inside the plastic while the object was in transit in case our display arrived full of loosened dust.
Unfortunately the engine is slowly consuming itself and will not stop as it’s a cocktail of 1960’s metals on the receiving end of exceptional circumstances that without serious scientific intervention (and a shedload of money) will one day be vacuumed out allowing our display case to be put to better use as a poly-tunnel for propagating vegetables.
It’ll also be a reflective demonstration of what would’ve happened to the rest of K7 had we not intervened.
So each team member went to work on their respective specialties. Hannarack took charge of our ‘Henry’ vacuum cleaner and slurped up all the Coniston mud dislodged by Alain’s technique at the wheel before we closed the last openings in our display and started removing the outer protective films.
Rob kept a close eye on us.
What soon became apparent was that we’d created a display of astounding quality using only a few bits of scrap metal (the engine being the biggest bit) and some generously donated plastic panels.
It looked awesome to say the least – not bad for amateurs…
We parked it up proudly by the windows, gave ourselves a pat on the back then lashed into the magnum of champagne that Gina sent over for the team’s Christmas pressie. Two glasses later and Vicky was ready to knock the other door mirror off her car.
(Pic by kind permission of John Wood)
And here’s another thought. Had the museum sought to put this object on display through the correct bureaucratic channels just imagine the ball-ache it would have been. Consultations with designers and artist’s renderings of the finished job; greedy display designers with palms outstretched and tenders going out all over the place for a steel and polycarbonate display case paid for by endless applications for funding… nightmare!
Never underestimate the power of passion… our engine looked even better in daylight.
And daylight itself looked good too after several too many in the bar of the Sun Hotel with the usual crowd of nutters.
(Pic by kind permission of Mike Ramsay)
Rachel and baby Lucy made this one a family trip and there’s no better alarm call than a two year-old leaping on your bladder at daybreak. So having almost shaken off last night’s champagne and local bitter the team met in the Bluebird café for a brew then jumped aboard Gordon’s boat for the ‘Campbell’s on Coniston’ cruise.
What a nightmare that must be for Gordon…
On any given day he can drive fifty tourists up and down the lake and tell them pretty much what he likes.
