silo

Steven is a gentle gem. He has spent the last three weeks helping me get a large house in Underhill rd. re-painted. I?m very glad I found him via the forum. I have worked in the set-building/exhibition industry as a carpenter and gave him this job as soon as I heard which companies he?d worked for. (Principally imagination.com) 20 years working on their huge high-spec. productions all over the world has shaped him into a streamlined expert finisher who?s happy using any process, coating any product day after day, faster than anyone I?ve met. He?s a regular time-keeper and at 6 foot three doesn?t even need a step-up to cut in domestic ceilings. Nuf said? Simon

here's how a bespoke recycling tool does the job...er plus a few others mostly american(sorry still ghoulishly fascinated by the how and why this happens) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpM5ByOGk8Q -s

Hi Sue, thanks, AFAIK regulating scrap merchants is a very old debate. They hold that it would be unworkable and not their responsibility to effectively police their customers, so they would go out of business. The green imperative these days tends to weigh in on their side too. s

met another guy at Kwik-fit with the same problem, also done yesterday afternoon on Melbourne Grove. We both made reports to the police who commiserated as they regularly lose their converters too....great. they confirmed the modus operandi with the tool which takes 60secs max. It's used for cutting the thick copper cables beside the underground tracks.... The operators dress up in hi-vis workmen's clothes and target quiet camera-free streets. Police advice is to park near CCTV in well lit areas. -s

and here's the other very clean cut just for the record....and to get it off my chest before going back to Kwik-fit for the replacement in a few minutes...gnnnnnnr. -s

Sure is, I have to admire their efficiency as well as cheek. here's an image of both together -s

Posting this is hopefully a useful heads-up to everyone in response to a new motoring hazard I just experienced, beyond being therapeutic for the exasperation it has evoked in me. My wife parked on Ulverscroft Road yesterday afternoon to shop on North Cross Road and Lordship lane. She noticed the car was unusually noisy on returning and mentioned it to me after using it again this morning. Seeing the exhaust hanging low I took it to kwik-fit who took one look/listen and diagnosed "someone's taken your catalytic converter, sorry...expensive!." They are stolen for the platinum scrap value. The parts supplier had had 4 such cases in the East Dulwich area in the last 24 hours. The Kwik-fit guy observed that the removal method was the same as the others. One customer had theirs taken in Sainsbury's car park. They were slightly surprised they targeted my lowly astra estate as they usually preferred 4x4's which afford more crawling room underneath. They use a powered pipe shearing tool that squashes and cuts the exhaust pipe in one clean movement that takes only moments (see attached image). apparently for low cars they send children under.... The replacement cost for mine is ?344. After paying the excess of ?150 and losing 2 years no claims bonus and hours making statements etc... this is another cost that's not worth claiming on....sigh curious how they did it I've found this eminently suitable tool which will do up to 85mm diameters. http://www.cabletooling.co.uk/Cable_Cutters/battery-hydraulic-cable-cutter-85mm