Thankfully I kept all my build pics in a separate folder in facebook, so photobucket just imported all the photos for me directly and then I went through the thread and edited it post by post, finding the pics they'd screwed up and linking to the pics hosted on photobucket instead.
Bleedin' facebook. They did that deliberately to arse up people's hotlinks I think - if they don't like hotlinking, they should've just used a little java to stop people doing it years ago and we'd have all just gone directly to photobucket (or picassa or whatever) instead.
The funky things I did with my avatar - it's just a small PHP script that checks the contents of a folder I keep on my web server, picks a picture at random and displays it. I used the SCUK board's "Link off-site" option for my avatar, pointed that at the php script (with ?ipb=.jpg on the end to trick PHPBB into thinking it's calling a jpg file when actually it's calling a php script that just displays an image) and bob is my uncle.
No really, I do have an uncle Robert. Lives in Norwich. Ex RAF engineer. Top bloke.
And the someone mentioned - the parts I've seen frighten me. Like a piece of rebar in a Jimny radius arm? Seriously? Is a piece of steel plate that expensive that you can't make a backbone style rib out of it? I mean, rebar is made out of a grade of steel that is *supposed* to stretch, as part of a composite building material. It's at it's strongest when stretched, while concrete is at it's strongest while compressed - so they deliberately make the two stress each other in buildings.
Even if it's ok, that's going to be accidentally ok. He's basically picked something cheap and nasty, and without thinking, said to himself "that'll do for the mugs who buy my crap".
I wouldn't use his parts if you paid me to. Honestly, I just don't think he cares if one of his bits fails at 70mph and kills someone. I've seen pictures of his work and his welds look like they came out of a pidgeon's backside. I've done welds like that from time to time, but I always grind them back, cut a channel with the grinder, and re-weld if my welds don't come out strong. Even on non-structural parts - it's a matter of pride if nothing else!
I'd much rather either make it myself, or get someone I know to make it. For example, if I want something in the suspension or brakes welded, and I want it to be perfection, I make it, tack it, then I ask "special" Ross from the HPOC forums to weld it next time he's passing - he's probably one of the top coded welders in the UK. He's so good at welding, he can TIG paper to glass.
Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. But he's *REALLY* good. It's his job though, so you'd expect him to be good at it - he does nothing else, day in day out, and has done for decades.
The "professional" mentioned before seems to be pretty crap, even compared to me - and I'm the first to admit I suck.
That's me testing out my £45 MIG stuffed full of el-cheapo gasless wire. Whilst I don't think I'm bad, I'm certainly no welding genius, but I'd say that my amateur efforts kick that "professional" guys ass.
He really annoys me. Even more than wOllie.