12AT7 reverb tube for Deluxe AB763 circuit

[Chuck H]

AAhhh... Portland cement (insert slap forehead guy thingy). Heard it plenty. Never called it that. Isn't it the same stuff everyone uses as plain "concrete" anymore? I know once upon a time it was special product for wet stuff and that painting it can be a bitch because it's alkali for a long time.

Thanks Leo

[Leo_Gnardo]

AAhhh... Portland cement (insert slap forehead guy thingy). Heard it plenty. Never called it that. Isn't it the same stuff everyone uses as plain "concrete" anymore? I know once upon a time it was special product for wet stuff and that painting it can be a bitch because it's alkali for a long time.

Thanks Leo

Not to go into a long and detailed history of concrete, I'm sure you can look it up, "portland" is the sort of magical ingredient that has made modern concrete into the miracle product it is. Not to neglect that some lucky/smart masons of yore managed to stir up some pretty tough stuff that has lasted 2000 years and beyond. I've seen it myself in Italy. Back then, it was a lucky stroke to add clay type materials to sand & lime. The only way you could predict it would work better was if generations had been using clay from the same source, and you followed the same formula. Well it's all been worked out now for a good 150 years or so, which clays work best, how to treat them before mixing the mortar & also how to treat the concrete afterwards, as in slow drying if you want extra tough concrete for roads and like that. Read up some more on Wiki, especially if you're having a hard time falling asleep.

[Dave H]

Modern (Portland) concrete is good but Roman concrete is better.

why-roman-concrete-still-stands-strong-while-modern-version-decays

[bob p]

When I called him a vandal, I said that tongue-in-cheek. No offense intended.

Being a property owner who has had to break-up a concrete floor to fix a problem with floor drains -- a job that I wouldn't wish on anybody -- I'd be really upset if I was trying to rod-out a drain trap and found that someone had intentionally plugged it with concrete. I could see where that could lead someone to have a "postal moment."

The amount of damage that concrete in a drain would cause would be tremendously expensive to repair; the only reason that I took on the floor-drain job myself was because a plumber wanted to charge several thousand dollars to have his crew bust up my floor. I couldn't see paying his crew of home-depot pickup day-laborers to dig a hole, while the plumber billed as if he were actually digging it, so I did it myself. The cost of paying a plumbing crew would have been so expensive that it would end up costing many times what landlords collect as a damage deposit. If a landlord found out that a tenant had poured concrete into a drain, their damage deposit wouldn't cover the damages, and they'd likely end up getting sued. I wouldn't go there.

I like Leo's idea a lot better. Use a non-evaporating liquid. I'd probably use RV type antifreeze, I think that is propylene glycol, and doesn't represent the environmental hazard that comes with ethylene glycol types of antifreeze. AFAIK it's OK to pour RV antifreeze into a drain. I had thought about using cooking oil, but mineral oil would probably be better. Cooking oil is a food stuff that might attract bugs.

Chuck, I think that RV antifreeze might be the answer for you. It's cheap, and because it doesn't evaporate you'd only have to do it once. With water you'd have to keep refilling the drain as it evaporates.

[mikepukmel]

Vandal!

don't they make a non-destructive product to pour into drains that don't get used so the trap won't run dry?

Oh man, I would never vandalize anything. I'm a fixer, even if not a good one. It was a joke, badly worded. What I did was go down to the hardware store and get one of those conical shaped rubber plugs that has a circular metal plate on top and bottom. There's probably a technical name for it, can't remember. Heffenflagle plug. Nope that's not it. Anyway, its got a bolt and you tighten the bolt and it expands the rubber and seals the pipe Can't tighten it too much or the pipe breaks. Out of my own pocket, bot solved the problem. *** One room would not rent so I spent a few late nights steaming off wall paper and painted the room, so the rest of us wouldn't get stuck with the extra rent. Fixed a ground on the stove, broken locks, faucet dripping, etc, etc.

THis is the thing: Expansion Plugs - Protect Pool Pipes From Freezing During Winter

[loudthud]

Portland Cement actually cures when you spray water on it. I used to be in a band named Portland Cement.

[Enzo]

A solid, hard rock band?

[loudthud]

A solid, hard rock band?

Something like that, it was the early 70's.

Edit: Now that I think about it we were more of a Blues Band. Female singer at first, our best song was "Nobody Knows You When Your Down and Out". Clapton covered it on "Unplugged".

[g1]

our best song was "Nobody Knows You When Your Down and Out".

Thanks for that, search showed quite a few have covered it.
A couple years ago I heard a Bobby Womack song on the radio. The DJ did not mention the song title and I could never find what it was (he got a lot of songs ).
Turns out that was it!

[bob p]

I'm not a big Clapton fan, but I still think this is required listening for anyone who doesn't have the album already:

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs


Trivia: there are 2 songs that have almost identical titles: the older one by Jimmy Cox and a newer one by John Lennon:
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)
I can't help but think that Lennon did everything he could to steal the title without actually stealing it.