Steps forward and back

I've been working away on the car and QMLIrc. In both cases, I've made a little progress but some setbacks.

The car. I'm currently working on the LH rear sill - the bit between the rear wheelarch and the bumper, where the boot floor drops down to meet the rear wing. I've successfully patched the outer panel and I'm now working on the inner panel, which is a slightly complicated shape. See below...

Here, I'm trying to make a patch from sheet steel. The trouble I'm having is that the metal is a bit thin in places, so I'm blowing holes. I keep having to cut back. At the moment, I've cut right back, which will allow me to get inside the panel and clean up the metal a bit better.

On to QMLIrc. I have made some progress. I've created a IRC channel selection dialog, which shows channels and topics. This uses the QML ListModel system, and it worked surprisingly well. The QML UI code sends a signal to the C++ IRC code, which requests a list of channels from the IRC server. As channel list messages are received from the server, the C++ code creates a list of channels and their topics in a custom C++ class. When the list is complete, the C++ code registers it with the QML code and emits a signal. The QML code then responds to the signal by creating a SelectionDialog from the list.

The trouble I'm having with QMLIrc is that there's a bug which crashes on exit when there's been more than one channel tab open. It's annoying.

TR7 Progress

A wee note about progress on the TR7.

• LH Door is reskinned, awaiting fitting and tweaking (which I will do once the floor on the LH side is completed). It also needs seam sealing inside.
• The LH front floor is practically complete. All I need to do is dress the plug welds, and get rid of the remaining surface rust on the interior before giving the bare metal a temporary coat of primer.
• The quarterlight frame for the LH door needs starting again, as there's some surace rust reappearing. It needs stripping, derusting and repainting.
• I have enough parts to repair the LH rear floor.
  
• I have rebuilt the LH rear drum brake, and have some parts to re-build the RH rear drum brake. I only need to rebuild the brakes enough now to ensure the handbrake works, as I plan to pull the rear axle out. This is so I can turn the car round on my slopy drive so I can fix the floor on the RH side.
  
• The bumpers are in the process of being refurbed - they need stripping down, derusting and the plastic parts repainting. I need two new sidelight assemblies - the fixing bolts were seized and broke on both of them, as well as a replacement front centre bumper cover.
  

That'll do for now...

Skint

I'm short of cash. Not a good situation to be in, I'm sure you'll agree. eBay have suspended Mrs MnG's account for no good reason. She has an arrangement with a caricaturist to put his pictures on items, so she bunged a load on eBay, as her website hasn't got much exposure, as yet. Some of these caricatures are of footballers. Umbro, in their ultimate wisdom, have decided that a T-shirt with a caricature of a footballer on infringes their copyright in some way. So they moaned to eBay, and eBay removed the items.

This was a pain, but there's thousands of images (I've got the job of putting them on the website. Oh joy.). Then eBay removed items for infringing trademark, and suspended her for relisting removed items, or something. But the items in contention were put on at the same time as the Umbro ones, and aren't even Umbro!

So now Mrs MnG can't list the normal items (like T-shirts, bug and stuff that people send their own images to be put on), despite waiting the 7 days eBay insist on, and faxing identification through. So our income is seriously compromised. Earlier in the week I had to pass on some TR7 parts that I need on eBay, that were going for a good price.

And I can't weld, because a connector on my gas regulator is broke, and the company I ordered the replacement from sent the wrong one! Bah!

New car

well, I say new - it's 12 years old. A 1.6 Vauxhall Astra LS in grey. A cheap runabout in surprisingly good nick, which will do for our holidays and for daughter #1 to drive once she's passed her test.

Interestingly, a 56 plate Corsa pulled up behind me when I was taking daughter #4 to school, and it was the same size as my Astra. New cars are bloating.