Kitchen Garden Forum

Not cold out there this morning but sure is damn windy.

Got three more seed deliveries to make to the buying group, then that's that job sorted.
Will arrange that to take place at the lottie site.

After yesterdays downpour the ground will be too wet to work I suspect. Might be able to get raised beds split into two's though and into new positions.

Mrs Snip is hoping to borrow one of my camera's today to go out and take some photographs of the dogs. Must be important as one got a shampoo bath last night and the other got a coat trim.
Shock horror, I may even go with her !!!!!

The wind is still blowing here, but i have had a look around and there doesn't seem to be much damage.....just the normal gardening tat, that seems to get blown out onto the road.

I just gave someone a couple of sheets of glass, to replace the ones that had blown out of their greenhouse overnight.... i told them to put a couple of extra spring clips in, to hold them a bit tighter, but i found their answer a little strange. They said the glass had broken and blown out because, it was old and had gone brittle and was nothing to do with the amount of clips.

So my question is, does glass go brittle? I've never heard of this before.

Morning OH,

I'm not sure about going brittle but do know it discolours.
I assume that over time the pressures exerted by expansion and contraction night cause it to just break.

Think your theory may have been more likely than theirs though, weakened clips

It definitely changes, I'm not very good at cutting glass but old glass seems more difficult to get to break straight than new glass. I've found if the same panes keep coming out 'putty' them in with silicone.
This might be interesting, though it doesn't answer that question http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ss-liquid/

Afternoon Geoff, i have just been talking to a very knowledgeable person and he was telling me the exact same things that were in the link. He did say glass doesn't go brittle, though. Something that did make me smile was, his surname is Glasse....so i suppose he should know about the product...

Perhaps they're confusing glass with polycarbonate?

Built a second log store today, one pallet by six foot high with a plywood and felt roof.
Having got a log burner I've probably spent as much on special tools as I'd have spent buying logs. A Cargo Cycles pallet dismantling bar, excellent device provided the pallet maker hasn't gone oversize on the supporting sections. Managing to get 80% of the planks off undamaged, which was useful for building the log store. Got three pallets off free cycle on Friday, two came apart with the bar, one got cut in two as the fingers of the bar wouldn't fit. A bit of sawing and hand axe work results in lovely kindling and the wooden blocks are OK as logs, but I'm unable to de-nail them fully.
A logging bench, that you clamp a chainsaw in, with an electric chainsaw. Brilliant, one handed cutting of lengths to 10" logs. Which is what I spent another hour on today.
Now have a pile of neat logs to split, up to a foot diameter stuff.

Wondering how much rain this area might get today.
Managed to get 3.5 hours in up the plot yesterday before rain stopped play.

Got two tonnes of sharp sand being delivered today and have to be at the plot to let the lorry in.

Also got another two tonnes of topsoil due sometime this week.

Woke up to a chilled house this morning, wind had blown the boiler out. Not looked outside yet to see if there is any damage

oldherbaceous wrote:
So my question is, does glass go brittle? I've never heard of this before.

Glass does go brittle with age, you would know the difference between new and old glass if you had ever tried to cut old glass compared to new.

Even if the old glass doesn't look old you know it when you scribe your cut, when you break the cut line often wanders and/or shatters with old glass. If you do get a clean break its never clean like with new glass.

More like you chewed the edge.

Time for 'Late Autumn Bits and Bobs', OH? Certainly feels and looks like it.

Talking of glass and its reaction to various conditions, can we share experiences of storing glass containers in a freezer. I have occasionally stored small glass jars of items like chilli paste or pesto in small jars in a freezer without mishap but am wondering about the long term advisability of doing so.

If you dip the end of your glass cutter in a bit of oil it will cut any glass as long as you use a diamond cutter in decent condition it should not be a problem, the only reason you will find it hard cutting old glass is what has been applied to the surface over its life time, I've had over 35 years working with glass mainly in the double glazing industry even new glass is hard to cut if you are not set up properly