Mild and grey here chez Casa Reynard, with evidence of it having rained early doors.
I slept a solid nine and a bit hours and I do feel better, if still rather tired. Because just about all the Christmas stuff has been done, I can spend this week chilling and puttering about in the kitchen. Things like cranberry sauce need to be done and stuff.
Did some reading this morning regarding the drawings project. I found another major article written by an eminent engineer that has stuff which doesn't match either the acknowledged book on the subject or the raw data from the IMechE archive (engine project numbers and engine compression ratios). This is just adding to the frustration of my trying to identify things - on the surface, these engines and cars are very well documented. But when you try to dig a bit deeper, there's more holes than a wheel of swiss cheese.
At this stage of the operation, I am trusting the contents of the IMechE archive more than the assorted other literature, purely on the basis that this is the actual raw data from the engine manufacturer in question. However, some sections of the archive are not digitized - in particular the Engine Register. I will need to have someone pull those records for me, because they will likely provide the definitive answers. I can, however, access drawings and photographs, and I've managed to find drawings in there that relate to the same engines I'm working with - or at least engines from the same batch number.
This whole exercise has the same smell about it that the stock car stuff that I researched earlier in the year did. That the information one needs sits in the raw data, but that no one has been idiotic enough to sift through it all with a fine-toothed comb before, and that people are taking assumptions for fact because either there's no way of corroborating the information, or they don't want to do the donkey work... My historian / bookseller friend who is also working on this project thinks that there's enough material for a new book on the subject. I dunno, I'm treating my own musings with scepticism until I can actually pin stuff down.
Anyways, this afternoon I shall be taking out that frustration on a load of firewood.
And on that note, it's time for luncheon.
