Van Dyke Crystals

[Penners]

she was brought up thinking it was quite normal to have an engineering workshop in a spare room

You mean.... it isn't normal? :shock:

 

[skier-hughes]

I always had my lotus in the spare bedroom, in fact it probably spent more time in there than on the road!!

 

[Toby Newell]

Ah memories, pushing the motorbike into the hallway... taking the carb tops off and wondering what athe hell all the springy things were bouncing off the cieling about.... mopping up the kitchen floor when draining the float bowls as I discovered that Jelly moulds aren't designed for petrol resistance, those were the days.

 

[Nemesis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_oak

 

[Toby Newell]

Beware of wikipedia, it is in general a very good way of getting an overview of subject but a particularly terrible way of obtaining accurate information, as I am sure you are aware.

And also be aware of any specialist conservatory companies, like the ones who restored the nicoteen stained period fluer de lys wallpaper in the bar at the Great Eastern Hotel at Liverpool street station (I did some of the colouring on the oak, but was working for a company who coated the whole lot in cheap acrylic floor finish, hmmm so much for the whole conservation thing, kerching is all anyone hears...) they did indeed clean up the wallpaper lovely.

They did indeed charge several thousands of pounds to do so.

They did indeed use cotton wool, warm water and fairy liquid.

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.ipcc.ie/infobogwood.html

 

[Flyfisher]

They did indeed charge several thousands of pounds to do so.

They did indeed use cotton wool, warm water and fairy liquid.

Ah, but I expect they used a secret formula for the proportion of fairly liquid to water known only to wise old craftsmen with decades of knowledge and experience plus the use of highly specialised thermal management equipment to main the absolute, precise temperature of the 'secret formulation'. Not to mention the use of cotton grown in special conditions to regulate the soil pH.

What else could justify such a price? :wink:

 

[Penners]

In order to justify such a price, all you need is the brass neck to charge it. And the nowse not to let anyone into the secret of just how easy the job is.

I won't bore you yet again with my story about a school holiday job in a greengrocer's shop - sufficient to say that there are still plenty of people in this world who are naive enough to believe that if something is really expensive, it must be good.

 

[Nemesis]

There are also some who are good at their jobs.

5.The Great Eastern Hotel
The hotel, opened in May 1884, was designed by Charles Barry
and his son Charles Edward. Charles Barry was the son of the
Charles Barry who designed the Houses of Parliament. For some
time it was the only hotel in the City of London. It was extended
in 1901 to designs by Colonel Robert Edis.This extension was
known as the Abercorn Rooms and entered from Bishopsgate.
Of architectural interest is the heavy rococo plasterwork of the
Hamilton Rooms, named after Lord Claud Hamilton who was
Chairman of the GER from 1893 to 1923.
The hotel now forms a separate building to the station and
is privately run by Sir Terence Conran.

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=435249&mode=quick


http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/wallpap/wallpap.htm

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/templenewsam/house/collcon_wall.html

 

[Penners]

When I'm reincarnated as a higher life-form, I shall be a hand-made wallpaper expert. It must be a wonderful job.

 

[Nemesis]

This is wonderful stuff, all the more interesting to me as many, many years ago I was a member of SOCEM, a group which tried to stop the demolitions in Newcastle of historic buildings.
This one we won.

http://www.ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/74/wallpaper/wallpaper.html


It was also an early SAVE case, when SOCEM got the fledgling SAVE involved.

(Save Our City from Environmenal Mess...)

http://www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/a167m/motorway_planning_in_newcastle_upon_tyne.pdf

More wallpaper conservation:

http://www.ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/60/wallpaper/woburn.html

 

[biffvernon]

Come on Biff, you should be able to tell your oak from yer pine! As far as I understand it bog oak doesn't need to take millenia and true bog oak is, er, actually oak thats been found in a bog.

I cannot believe you have any large logs that predate God's son's arrival upon earth by four millenia but I am sure they look nice all the same. If you can get them carbon dated I would be happy to come and gaze at them for a while. I am sure they must have gained quite a patination by now... it would almost be a sacrilidge to cut them up.

Can't claim to know anything about gods or their sons but I do know something about geology. The things that Lincolnshire and Cambridshire farmers haul out of the peat, cursing when their machinery slams into pieces of timber weighing tonnes, are from forests that grew between four and six thousand years ago and were then flooded and covered in a great thickness of peat. The locals cut them up and use them for firewood. I have three logs, 12 feet long and a bit over a foot in diameter, for which I have not yet found a use. It is known as 'bog oak', but, as I said, I suspect it is actually Scott's Pine. After it's been burried in peat for a few millenia it is not quite so easy to tell the species - black is black and hard is very hard.

 

[Nemesis]

As it said in the link I posted:

http://www.ipcc.ie/infobogwood.html

The three important types of wood found preserved in bogs today are Scot's pine, oak and yew. They can be from 4,000 to 7,000 years old.

 

[biffvernon]

Indeed. It just so happens I have in the room with me right now a man who has 18 tonnes of bog oak, all sawn up neatly and ready to heat his bungalow and cook with for the next few years. He's just been showing me photos of his woodpile.

 

[Nemesis]

I have beside me a black brooch which I think is bog oak, or wood of some type, and not jet.

It's a lovely Victorian thing, probably a mourning brooch, although it could signify friendship, a gloved hand holding a wreath, which has what I think is a spray of laurel (signifying everalsting stuff) forget me not and roses,

The flowers are a little out of scale.

(How we spend our Sundays in the country, eh Biff? )

 

[biffvernon]

Ah, the only use made of my bog oak so far is for a necklace from small polished fragments that my daughter made.

 

[MdB]

My parents have a fantastic coffee table made from wood mined(?) from a New Zealand bog. It has a stamp on it saying the wood is between 30,000 and 50,000 years old. Colour is a little darker than new wood but it certainly isn't very dark. I love it.

 

[Nemesis]

Bog oak was avery popular for jewelry in Ireland but that table is some astonishing age!

Maybe it's fished not mined?

Here's a bit of bog oak carved into a brooch:

http://www.bathantiquesonline.com/antique-collectible/victorian-jewelry/antique-irish-bog-oak-brooch-collectible-30739.html

 

[Nemesis]

And here's an article that will interest Biff for a number of reasons:

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Walker-discovers-5000yearold-log-path.1212340.jp

 

[MD]

Thanks for the info Toby - very helpful and informative. I'll report back with results, should I decide to go down the route.