Any 1/2" Left Hand Thread Plugs in UK?

[abrogard]

I am in Australia. Got an old aluminium dinghy the other day with the drain plug missing.
Had big hassles trying to figure out what size screw or plug was required and finally got
it figured: a 1/2" metal threaded plug just like those used to plug the end of
1/2" pipe.

BUT: In Left Hand Thread.

I can't find any such thing anywhere in Aus, though I 'm told it once was used by
gas fitting plumbers.

I'd be prepared to buy it from UK and have it emailed out.

Do you still have them in UK?

Or is there an Aussie plumber reading who can help me out?

 

[Mike Jackson]

I'd suggest your best bet is to try a machine shop with a good lathe. They may be able to machine one for you.

 

[abrogard]

Been there, done that, couple of hours ago - take the boat to him so's he can check the thread pitch and he'll do it.. no trouble... $50.

I guess I'll take out the whole fitting and fit something else. I've been reluctant to do it because I've never worked with aluminium, nor with boats. But I guess the job'll work out okay with metal reinforced epoxy and if I've got to plug too large a gap then I suppose I can epoxy in a sliver or two of aluminium.

$10 fitting. $10 of epoxy. Learn something.

Bit surprising how the thing can't be found though. As I understand it they were common on gas pipes. 1/2" gas pipe I suppose, running mainly from an outdoor tank hereabouts. It wouldn't have been municipal piped gas throughout the town, though it may well have been in different parts of Australia.

Well gas is still much used.

But the fittings have changed I suppose. You'd expect there to be a modern equivalent, though, wouldn't you? Adaptors and whatnot to join the old gal pipe to modern stuff, whatever it is.

But I haven't found a plumber or tradey anywhere that knows anything about it.

So there you go... time marches on.....

 

[WaterTight]

i'd have paid the £25 to just be done with it. it's probably why i've never got any money.

 

[WaterTight]

Hmm 50 Aus $ = £32.97 apparently.

Well if you went to an English plumbers merchants and they had one - unusual as it is - I honestly wouldn't be suprised if that's the least it cost.

 

[abrogard]

What, for one of these? Or a left hand threaded version? I'd imagine they'd be happy to give it away - a relic of bygone days... junk at the bottom of some tradie's bag.

This rht version cost me maybe $1.50, I forget.



And yes, I don't spend money just to be done with it. I go the other way round. Do without. Find an alternative. Shop around for cheaper. Learn to make it myself. And I consider all of that sort of sensible life skills that I try to teach to my kids....

 

[Rusty333]

I used this type, on mine....could only find on U.S ebay

 

[REDSAW]

what make of boat? they look simular to the sea nymph type.

can you drill the hole out to accept a female brass flange coupler, fit 2 rubber washers and use the right hand thread?

 

[abrogard]

Don't know the make. Or the age. Someone suggested a De Havilland I believe, at one time. All rivetted fittings, like the seats, a bit of a worry to me but I guess okay. Wish I could weld aluminium though, I'd go right round it and weld it all up.

Still, I'm making more of it than it needs, it's only a trivial little dinghy really - just my latest toy/obsession. 🙂

Pics of the whole scene for those who've been kind enough to have an interest and try to help. Perhaps you can see enough of the lines of the boat to identify it. And maybe my pic of the drain plug thing shows what I'm saying about it looking like a home made idea...

 

[tamz]

Try somewhere where they sell bottled gas or a welders shop. Propane, acetylene etc uses left hand threads. Normally 5/8" threads but there are other sizes.

 

[mcniven]

buy a new boat, with a jet ski attached to it, and a chef... i like a good chef.

 

[mcniven]

in all seriousness.. youve maybe used more electricity powering up the pc or the cost in fuel running around welders/gas men/plumbers to find the part! theres some local guy willing to help out and gurantee his work for £30!

what do u do if u get a plug, and make an even bigger mess of it! spend even more trying to fix the whole plug area.

 

[REDSAW]

take the big nut off and bung it permanently, then use a scoop to bail out?.

 

[abrogard]

Ho, ho, ho... That's for the jokes. 🙂

But in all seriousness - are you guys plumbers? Then you'd be of a mind to fix problems yourself rather than go buy someone else to do it, wouldn't you?

Sure I've wasted money in gas, time, pc electricity - but it all goes under the heading of 'tuition' or 'work experience' doesn't it?

Gotta see everything in context, I guess. I used to ask a serles of dumb questions on welding forums and got more than one person asking me why I didn't get someone else to do it - to fix the welding problem I had.

But I was learning. And I did learn a certain amount. Now, two sets of gates later, six tables, one boat trailer modication, one car tailgate repair, body repairs and a number of other items - I am streets ahead of the game. Streets ahead.

See. That's the context those questions were asked within. The context of my life and my needs, then, now and future.

What about your context? What about the old England? I read an English magazine: The Spectator and I see/hear the news. Sounds terrible. Sounds like the whole country is dying a death. How's things really, for the real people of the country, rather than for those whackers living off the fat?

 

[tamz]

You want the truth. It's ****. We have turned into a nation of winging self centred ******* who expect everything for nothing and we are governed by a bunch idiots who couldn't run a manage!

 

[abrogard]

It certainly looks like it's screwed, alright. You know I've been a non-political labour supporter all my life. I mean it was by default. Inherited from my parents. Backed by a couple of minutes thought that said 'labour' = work = me therefore 'I am Labour'.

But now I find myself unable to comprehend what Labour governments do, here and in UK. and I find myself reading magazines like The Spectator and Quadrant and similar which, I'm told, are Liberal or Conservative or something - definitely not 'Labour' anyway.

But it is only in those magazines that I see sensible reporting and discussion.

Which ain't to say that's all I find.

I find they are often quite paranoid about 'the people', being the mass of the population, being supposedly 'Labour' supporters, being the mass on the dole, being the 'force' that they think is pushing all governments of any persuasion into the same idiot actions.

In particular they are down on what we call 'dole bludgers' in Australia - people on Social Security, sometimes whole families who've been there nearly all their lives...

And I'm sorry to see that because it is a sweeping generalisation which is always a logical falsity and it lets down the quality of their otherwise excellent appraisal of the situation.

And because I've been there, I've done that, I've been a dole bludger and I've known many of them - even there in England where I spent some time.

And what the rich or the 'middle class' or the thousands/millions of secure public servants or whatever - all those who choose to denigrate this 'dole bludging mob' don't realise is two major things: 1. It is far, far from easy to get into employment. Far from easy. And almost impossible to get into something as cushy and secure as millions of govt employees have and totally impossible to get into something as comfy and satisfying as those in the better situations have. They are urged to do it, condemned for not doing it, yet the urgers and condemners for vastly the most part never did it for themselves but rather fell into something good and easy for little effort on their own part. I've been there. Done all that. Both sides of it.

2. Those people represent 'people'. Probably represent more purely what 'people' are in the world. True people. Real people. Natural people. Non-greedy, non-pushing, non-insecure, non-driven. Accepting, happy, natural people.

Though condemned for accepting so much 'given' to them for free the fact is they've got virtually nothing, they endure severe constraints in many areas in an objective sense and subjectively this situation is exacerbated continually by the inevitable increasing disparity between the haves and have nots as our material culture constantly invents new things to have - which they can't have.

But they don't rise in revolt.

All over the world. Generally. I think they have, here and there, from time to time.

There are, I think, a number of nations that have experienced this phenomenon or something very like it. Malaya - with Chinese, Indians and Malays had the Malays the poor 'accepting' bottom class subject to the wealthy Chinese bankers and Indian businessmen. The Malays, I think (with my poor historical understanding) eventually had to rise up and remind everyone (including themselves?) that this was their country and take it back for themselves.

I think this has happened in a number of places. The indigenes are basically happy to be at home. The imports are driven by a need to prove themselves, to acquire wealth, status, position, security - to find their own way to 'be at home' - which sometimes they never reach. Instead remaining on their mad treadmill.

Well the same thing happens in a homogenous country, I think. It doesn't have to be a division amongst races, immigrants and indigenes. It can be a division between some kind of hereditary classes or even between recent, new, adopted attitudes or 'classes'.

However it happens the point is that it happens and it divides a society and it is obvious as the nose on your face that it is always assumed that the neurotic driven personality or paradigm is correct and the accepting, docile mob are lazy bludging no gooders.

But is is just not true. Rather, I think, the truth is the other way round.

Myself I always think of a litter of pigs. Ever seen one? Go look. The little buggers are so strong, incredibly strong little packets of meat from the word go. And they fight for the front tit. And the closer to the front the more milk and the bigger and stronger you get and the more milk you get and the bigger and stronger....

But we value politeness and sanity, calm and reason, orderly queuing, and stepping out of the way of the greedy pushing piglet and letting it into the front tit is more in my nature than otherwise. Mine and millions more, I think. And I would have it be universal if I could.

So I have stepped out of the way all my life. I do not compete that savagely. I have acquired. I have a degree. I have various skills/competences. I have worked in many fields, held many jobs and acquitted myself quite well in most of them. I am far from being a useless dole bludger. But I don't push and I'm not neurotically insecure and/or blind to the sheer pleasure of being alive in my country.

And during my time I have sometimes been lucky and I've gotten into a couple or so of lucky jobs, cushy jobs and I've seen how it is in there and who is in there, what kind of people, what they do and how they think. And I notice it is only moments before they accept their luck as their right and only yet a few more moments before they draw the corollary that those who don't have that luck don't have it because they have no right to it..... And so on...

And it is sad, isn't it? Because it is the masses who can offer the insecure the security they are hunting for (and which they daily grow more in need of as their fear of those masses gets awakened and nurtured by the growing critical state of the world and their own inability to understand it and fix it...) and it is those 'insecure' who can offer the masses the freedom from curtailment and constraint that they would wish for, need, desire, could well use... For, after all, they, the 'insecure', are the overlords in fact, on a daily basis (except for this idea that the masses are pushing all the programmes, all the ideas, of any government today) and it is they who are deciding how the world will be built, what will be built, etc.... they've got the steering wheel, haven't they?

Both sides should see the other side's point of view.

Meantime I can see 'whinging self centred ******* who expect everything for nothing' on both sides of the social divide, on both sides of politics.

The moderator's going to trash this for being off the point...

🙂

 

[justlead1]

Save your self a few bob. Use the cork out of the bottle of wine you drank whilst writing the above. Bon Voyage

 

[mcniven]

whats labour got to do with ure boat leakin in australlia! we cant blame them for everything!!

 

[PlumbBobBob]

no, but we can blame them for quite a lot!

 

[mcniven]

id say things r worse now steveb than ever, i know the old arguement regarding labour got us into it, but right now were being drowned with the rest of the world