TALES FROM THE SHED

You know that old saw about it never raining but always pouring? Well, gentle reader, I can reveal that the reverse is also true. The sun never shines – when it’s out there it’s simply brilliant. Which is a slightly unusual way to introduce you to a time of delight in The Shed.

Remember that nut which was holding on the Matchless’s magneto? The one which was unturnable by any spanner in my vast range of strange tools acquired down decades of merrily mis-spent youth? I asked for advice from the grizzled sages on the RC Facebook group, and their replies were entirely entertaining, involving cutting torches, welding torches, magic invisible special tools and bending spanners. However.

There’s a kind of spanner, common in the long-ago wayback, which you rarely see in these shiny days of £10 socket sets and mysterious tools of dubious function but considerable cheapness at the supermarket. Triumph – and BSA too, I think – used them on their engines, specifically on the cylinder base nuts, which often boasted twelve flats rather than the usual six. They were flat ring spanners. And of course eBay is my friend. I went a-hunting and stumbled over a chap selling a wide range of elderly tools of considerable variety. Including Imperial flat rings in various