The Return of the Mysterious Xs in Johann Bessler's Apologia Poetica!

When I first wrote my biography of Johann Bessler (Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?) I mentioned the existence of what I termed X's throughout Apologia Poetica (AP),  at that time I had a suspicion that they weren't actually X's but something rather more mundane. - and it turned out that the character is actually a well-known abbreviation for Et Cetera. written not as we do etc, but as et   - meaning, and the rest, or so on and so forth. Modern German also uses an alternative which is "und so weiter" abbreviated to usw but in print in Bessler's day the fraktur type was used, and the abbreviation was et, which does not immediately resemble the two letters it represents.

If there had been just an occasional use of the abbreviation then nothing remarkable would be inferred, however in his Apologia Poetica it is used so many times that one can only conclude that either the author had no idea of its proper use - or he was attempting to transmit a secret message via the X's and hinted at by the over-abundance of this abbreviation.  In total he uses 684 so-called X's, in some places he uses two X's at the end of a line.  In others he has ten consecutive lines each with an X at the end; but then he can go for twenty pages without a single X.  On the other hand his other publications both before and after AP use no X's or etc's.

There was much discussion a while back on the Besslerwheel forum about the possible meaning of the X's and how to decipher them and the consensus was that the reason for the presence of so many could not be other than some kind of code.  Given the sheer numbers plus the use of two on a line at times, seems to imply the possibility that each X indicated a letter within the particular line.  I had already ruled out the possibility of each X meaning a word, because I went through the whole book looking for any kind of word within or near to any of the X'd lines which might be applied to the description of a wheel part - such as weight, lever, rotate, etc.  - but none appeared. 

One potential path worthy of investigation, I feel, are the passages which contain X's at the ends of several consecutive lines.  I have done some work in this area without any success, but the potential to discover a significant letter within the indicated line seems possible.  Given that Bessler would not have included this code unless he anticipated someone trying to break it, there has to be some kind of clue to aid someone in beginning to decipher it.  One way to look for such clues is to find the unusual occurances of the mysterious X.  So there are the passages with consecutive X's; the lines bearing two X's, presumably indicating the same letter twice; there is the presence of the X's even at the ends of some of Bible references which might seem the oddest place to put them.

What message might Bessler have hidden within the X's?  Given the numbers of  X's is 684, and assuming an average number of letters per word, as being five (taking into account one or two letters as well as longer ones) leaves us with about 135 words, which is actually quite a short message - about half the Gettysburg Address.    

Any suggestions what the message might say?

JC

Two countries divided by a common language? With thanks to Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw or possibly Winston Churchill.

I actually wrote this some time back but recent discussions on the besslerwheel forum prompted me to reread it, make a few changes and publish after all.

Recently I mentioned in passing the use of the word 'back-yard' in the USA referring to the land behind the house which we in England, call the 'garden'.  This is just one example of the many words we share which have different meanings for each country. According to Wikipedia, in England a back yard is a small space surrounded by walls at the back of a house, usually with a paved surface.  But in the USA it's a space at the back of a house, usually surrounded by a fence, and covered with grass which we call a garden.  There are too many examples to list but if the language we share has so many variations according to where you come from, how on earth can we understand what Bessler meant using an entirely different language in a different country and 300 years ago.

Not only that but we use idioms and according to wikipedia an idiom "is a combination of words that has a figurative meaning owing to its common usage. An idiom's figurative meaning is separate from the literal meaning. There are thousands of idioms and they occur frequently in all languages. There are estimated to be at least twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions in the English language."  So, to add to the difficulties we are already aware of, Bessler used idiomatic expressions familiar to people at the time but some maybe incomprehensible to us now.  We know of some of his examples.

As I reminded people recently, Bessler was taught by Christian Weise, a man who enjoyed encouraging his pupils to act out his plays using what was termed 'robust language' which included swearing, slang and idioms.  Bessler wrote Apologia in rhyming couplets and obviously some words had to be 'bent' to fit the rhyme, hence it can be assumed that in some instances the sense was blurred to his readers, even at the time, and the more so 300 years later.

But there is more.  When I began to try to translate the German into English I had a relatively small German-English dictionary but subsequently acquired two ancient second hand dictionaries of huge size.  The reason was because some words did not appear or I could not recognise them in my small dictionary.  I also found that these early dictionaries had far more meanings for each sought word. Each book has over 600 pages and if I can't find a meaning that helps, in one of them, I can find it in the other. This suggests that there are far more meanings to these words than we might imagine, but I will give one example - the word Creuze (Kreuze nowadays) as used by Bessler; translated as cross-bar but actually my small dictionary gave the meaning as cross.  One large dictionary gives; cross; crucifix; crosier; cross-bar; small of the back; loins; rump; croup; club, as in cards; sharp, as in music; dagger; burden...etc etc.  That is just the single word, but once you add hiphenated words the list grows enormously, four columns in one book.  Then of course there are internet dictionaries some of which were compiled close to Bessler's time and offer other alternatives.

In the second dictionary I found, all the above plus ... peel, as in a to remove the skin of a fruit (definition corrected, thanks to the eagle eye of my good friend James); anchor -  and sword handle. I'm not suggesting that we should consider any of those examples because, as Mike Senior who did all the translating, said, you have to take into account the context of the sentence and despite the accusations many have thrown at the quality of his work he has done his best to provide the intended meaning and if people would stop pouring over each word as if it will give up a special meaning which will assist them in discovering Bessler's secret - and concentrated on the actual snippets of information he provided, then success may still crown the efforts of one or more of us who are happy to rely on Mike's work.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.        or to put it another way.

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Bessler's wheel & reciprocating mechanisms - some more musings.

I should think everyone's heard of reciprocating engines, but put simply, each employs a means of converting rotary motion into linear motion or the reverse - using pistons and cranks for instance.  Although they achieved their pinnacle of achievment in the steam engines a couple of hundred years ago, they are used extensively today - and were also used by the Romans;  an early known example of rotary to reciprocating motion can be found in a number of Roman saw mills dating to the 3rd to 6th century AD, in which a crank and connecting rod mechanism converted the rotary motion of the waterwheel into the linear movement of the saw blades.  So it seems to me that we are seeking to convert the fall of a weight, linear motion, to make a wheel rotate, rotary motion.  Perhaps there are clues to be found by studying these ancient techniques and combining them with parametric oscillation, swinging or Kiiking, to achieve the impossible!

Reciprocating motion, is a repetitive up-and-down or back-and-forth linear motion. It is found in a wide range of mechanisms, including reciprocating engines, rack and pinion steering gear and pumps.  A crank can be used to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion, or conversely turn reciprocating motion into circular motion.

For example, inside an internal combustion engine the expansion of burning fuel in the cylinders periodically pushes the piston down, which, through the connecting rod, turns the crankshaft. The continuing rotation of the crankshaft drives the piston back up, ready for the next cycle. The piston moves in a reciprocating motion, which is converted into circular motion of the crankshaft, which ultimately propels the vehicle or does other useful work. The vibrations felt when the engine is running are a side effect of the reciprocating motion of the pistons.

I just included a couple of images, (see above) but there are many more but all include linear  and rotary motion.

So in place of the piston and its up and down movement, we need the weight to move up and down.  We have the down-movement powered by gravity, but we also seek to raise it through gravity, - that's not so easy.  One might think that the flywheel effect might contribute to the rotation but it doesn't because the force of gravity which provided the initial force to turn it has been used up.  In a combustion engine the force is continuous and more than enough to get the flywheel spinning faster and faster. However in Bessler's wheel the force is provided by weights working in pairs and perhaps one of them falls into an outer position thus overbalancing the wheel, and subsequently the second weight falls into a neutral position therefore having no effect on the balance of the wheel, but in doing so moves the first weight back to its starting position?

We know that in all seriousness we cannot expect the single second weight to lift the first weight upwards more than a fraction of its fall, but we can imagine it being able to just tip the first weight over sufficiently to begin the process again - can't we?  Picture a bicycle wheel spinning.  To keep it going requires a light flick of your finger on the top of it to accelerate it or just keep it spinning.  Or a hoop and stick; you just keep tapping it forward and it rolls along  All we need to do is get the second weight to push the first weight over that small hill which represents the loss due to friction/work between start and finish of each rotation.

JC

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or to put it another way.

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Update - the evacuation of the foxes - and my scrambled priorities!

I have got somewhat behind in my updates and there is a good reason.  Very little has been achieved over the last few weeks, not because I have failed in my attempt to use my theory to replicate Bessler's wheel but because other things keep intefering with my plans.  Those of you who are married, or have been married, may well appreciate the difficulties involved in persuing what is sometimes scathingly referred to as my hobby!  

My garden (backyard to our North American cousins), has been a centre for social networking for a number of foxes over the last few years and although the idea may seem attractive, the reality isn't!  At some point I attached eight foot high wire netting to the side fences because the fox can jump at least six feet - and also laid gravel along the foot of the fences because they can dig a hole of no more than 4 inches in height and six in width through which they worm their way.  The reason for their close proximity was revealed a few weeks ago when our neighbour, whom we had lived next to for some 16 years, sold up and moved out.  The new people discovered that their garden housed several abandoned kitchen units which, over a number of years, become steadily covered by leaves, conifer needles, grass-clippings etc, to become invisible to the casual observer - and so they proceeded to dig them up. Below ground lever the old kitchen cupboards were dry warm and provided a perfect lair for the foxes, invisible to the eye!

So now that the foxes have been chucked out, my ugly wire-netting fence is no longer required - not that it did any good any way, the foxes used it as kind of spring board  - so I have been requested nicely to remove it and replace the old knackered fence with a nice shiny new one!  Curiously, the departure of the foxes appears to have been welcomed by various local cats with the result that there are now a number of corpses of small birds caught by the cats and littering the garden which have replaced  the equally numerous corpses of pigeons which the foxes seem to have preferred.  Anyway I digress, all this fencing takes time, but the point to which I am intending to get to is this........

I have in my head, the complete design for the replication of Bessler's wheel, which could, if I was allowed to continue, solve the earth's energy needs, earn us a bit of money with which I can assist my family, and make a name for myself....at last!  But it seems this is a minor priority because no one believes me!  So I waste my time and money putting up a superb fence when I could be building my version of Bessler's wheel, saving the planet and making my fortune!

So, to date I have two mechanisms to complete and link in a certain way, and test to see if what I am certain will happen...will.  Then I shall proceed to step two which requires five such mechanisms.  During many nights of quiet contempletion I have created a concept I call the Bessler-Collins Principle.  It follows on from the secret I discovered that permits the wheel to makes use of gravity without requiring any fundamental changes to the laws of physics and which consists of some interesting geometry which has some surprising (to me) ramifications.  Nothing that may necessarily prove useful but which I feel certain no one has discovered before and yet is very simple - and I am in the process of writing a document for a video, describing the finds and which show that they are unarguably correct and simple to understand.

JC

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or to put it another way.

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Perpetual Motion vs Perpetual Emotion

One of the traits observable among people such as I, who have spent an inordinate amount of time chasing the shadowy mystery of Bessler's wheel and trying to find the solution, is the frequency with which we exclaim to the world that we have found the solution and it is only a matter of time before we are able to reveal the secret.  At which point we await with barely concealed excitement the moment when we can bathe in the adulation and excitement which will surround us in our moment of triumph. 

These revelations usually appear in the middle of the night and if they survive the cold light of dawn - which most don't - the lucky recipient goes on to work out the detail before launching a prototype to test the theory.  But the excitement generated by such revelations often refuses to allow us to be silent about our discovery and we cannot resist making public statements such as 'the wheel is only days away', or 'my wheel is getting ready to run'.  These premature announcements can create a certain amount of excitement among those who have had fewer revelations, and are thus ill-equipped to deal with such sensational proclamations, however the majority of old-timers such as myself, are all too familiar with the midnight manifestations which always, in the end, appear to fall foul of classical physics, with the wheels remaining steadfastly stationary.

It is all the more remarkable to me, that despite these continuing setbacks, optimism remains high and time and time again another new configuration occurs to disturb our sleep, launching us into yet another round of gleeful anticipation and premature declarations.  It is something of an emotional roller-coaster that we ride, extreme highs and corresponding lows ; one might almost call the subject Perpetual Emotion!

It seems not to occur to these self-publicists that practically every other perpetual motionist on the planet is also on the verge of success, needing just one small adjustment before success finally arrives.  I'm not blaming people for proclaiming their beliefs from the roof tops - been there done it myself and more often than I care to recall - but please understand that we all want success and just because we say nothing about current builds does not mean we are no longer building, designing, planning and still full of hope.

JC

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or to put it another way.

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Belief is not knowledge. Belief is only what you accept as true.

I was taught that Perpetual Motion machines were a violation of nature's laws and therefore impossible. Later I discovered there were various interpretations of what a perpetual motion machine is, but I understood that the one I was interested in, was a machine that used no additional energy beyond that needed to start it. This was described as a closed system with no access to any energy other than that with which it was started. I was told to imagine a flywheel which was spun up to a high speed after which it just ran and ran - until friction, or work, slowed it down to a stop - why? ... because it had used up all of the bit of energy used to start it and there was no more available. Then I thought, friction or making it do work was like applying the brakes on car that was coasting down hill without the engine on, to bring it to a stop. I considered that the car was made to coast down hill by the force of gravity.

But surely I thought, the energy provided by gravity was constant, continuous (and perpetual as far as we are concerned), and although you could say that it was external to the car, it wasn't just external to the car, it was all around it and in and through it, but however you vieweds it, it was not part of a closed system, and therefore it was available as an enerfy source- so why was it impossible for gravity to drive a wheel ...continuously?

To the title of this blog, I would add, Belief is not knowledge. Belief is only what you accept as true, until you find evidence that it isn't true.  Gravity-driven wheels are impossible, or so I was taught to believe, but then I found evidence that that wasn't true.

It's a strange thing, belief.  There are so many beliefs that appear to conflict with each other, that one must conclude that a lot of them are just plain wrong.  The problem seems to lie in the establishment of a theory which seems to answer the question at the the time.  Assumptions that the theory is right, lead to additional speculations which appear proven when based on the originating theory.  But suppose the original theory is right but doesn't encompass all possibilities, or the originator simply did not consider suffiently other potential effects?  This in my opinion is the case with the gravity-wheel.  There is a way in which no law is violated and no dramatic reconsideration of the laws of physics necessary, that allows Bessler's wheel to operate quite legitimately without recourse to such theatrical conclusions.  It's another case for occam's razor, it's the simplest exlanation.

I believe this is so and that it is the only way to explain Bessler's wheel in a way that satifies the scientific experts as well as those of us who know beyond a shadow of doubt that Johann Bessler's claims were genuine.

JC

 

Bessler's dilemma.

While I was writing the "Look Before You Leap" blog, I paused occasionally to ponder upon Bessler's dilemma, i.e., how to get paid for his secret without giving it away.

I remember professor Hal Puthoff suggesting to me once, that he had a number of interested parties who would like to have a chance of investing in the wheel, should someone finally succeed.  This was several years ago now, but at that time, it got me thinking about what I would do in that situation.  Advice I received was that the buyer could not be allowed to examine the wheel to verify my claims for it, because no one could be certain that he would not just walk away and replicate it, leaving me with nothing but egg on my face and empty pockets! This advice was not intended to cast any doubts on Hal's integrity and I completely trusted him then, as now, but I could see what they meant - how could someone be found who had sufficient knowledge to know if I was trying to fool him and at the same time, how could I know if he was planning to steal the design for himself or to sell on?.

It was suggested that any money agreed for the sale should be held in escrow by a disinterested third party pending verification of the claims and only once they had been substantiated, only then would the money be released. Coincidentally this is exactly what Daniel Schumacher proposed to Bessler on behalf of the Russian Czar, Peter the Great, who was intending to buy the wheel.  Bessler rejected the suggestion outright because the same problem applied then, the verifier might be no safer than the buyer.  He said there was only one way forward; the buyer must put a bag containing all the cash agreed, on the table next to the wheel; and the two parties could then go their separate ways, Bessler with his payment and the other with the wheel.

That sounds highly mercenary and harsh and yet what other way was there open to him, given the lack of a patent process.  He was not prepared to let anyone see the inside of the wheel unless the cash was literally on the table.  Since he trusted no one and no one trusted him - impasse!

Of course this need not happen today, any more than it need not have happened in Bessler's day.  All he had to do was give it away, but for what? Kudos? Kudos was not sufficient for his needs nor for his ambitions.

Today one could give the secret away and perhaps it might provide sufficient finances for future needs, and that is probably the best way, but poor old Bessler was in an impossible situation and that is why he sought out Princes and other rulers who had the wealth and power to satisfy his demands, if only he could find one he could actually trust.  Karl the Landgrave of Hesse could have been that man but he had his own requirements and Bessler's wheel did not satisfy them.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

The Six Drawings which hold the Key to Bessler's Wheel.

I mentioned in a recent blog, that I had the solution to Bessler's wheel and that I had obtained the actual design of the mechanism from some of Johann Bessler's drawings.  This provoked the inevitable question, "which particular drawings were they?"  

I responded by suggesting that I would publish that information soon in one of my blogs. At that time. a few days ago, I was secure in the knowledge that I had the actual principle upon which the solution was based, and that without knowledge of it, the drawings, or I should say, illustrations, could not be of much help in trying to putting it all together to arrive at a meaningful solution.  Well of course now that I am persuaded to put my money where my mouth is, I am fearful that cleverer minds than mine may well deduce the answer with greater ease than my  lifetime's study has!  Yes it has taken most of the thirty or so years of building models which resolutely refused to move before I was able to apply the correct principle and move towards what I believe will be a successful conclusion.

The path that most have followed seems to be indicated by Bessler with these words on the front of the document we call Maschinen Tractate (MT):-

"N.B. 1st May, 1733.  Due to the arrest, I burned or hid all the woodcuts that prove the possibility.  However, I have left all demonstrations and experiments since it would be difficult for anybody to see or learn anything about a perpetual motion from them or to decide whether there was any truth in them because no illustration by itself contains a description of the motion; however, taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind, it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and, finally to find one in them'. "

I have embolden the critical words.  Firstly you need more than one drawing, and secondly, as Bessler says it will be possible to find a movement.  For movement you could also mean action as in the path taken, or the way something is moved or how, or the configuration that does what you want it to do.  I am now attempting to use this movement or action and make it relate to the principle I discovered and thereby get a working model.

Now the words quoted above are alway associated with the MT because of their close proximity to the drawings and because he states that some of them, presumably in MT,  have been destroyed or hidden.  He appears to be referring to the MT drawings, but this note was written in 1733, and even 32 years later they had not been published, and we have no knowledge about when they were drawn, maybe before 1733 or maybe later.  Perhaps they did not exist in their entirety in 1733. and one should therefore consider any other drawing to which he might have been alluding.  The only others which the public had access to then, are the ones in Grundlicher Bericht, Das Triumphens and Apologia Poetica.  I would say that without any doubt the answers you seek are to be found in those illustrations and I do include all of them.

I would point out that the binding together of all those documents appears to have been carried out after Bessler's death, judging by the page numbering in a handwriting not similar to Bessler's.  It should be noted that many of the pages are of different sizes and shapes and were reported by one recent witness to have been found in a loose stack and we don't know if all of them should have been included or only some.  The point is that in 1733 they were probably not complete and therefore, for Bessler to suggest to someone who might come across them perhaps subsequent to his arrest, that they held the secret to his wheel, he would surely not be indicating the document that we call Maschinen Tractate, but rather his already published ones.

One of the topics which has engendered discussion is the presence of pendulums in some illustrations.  They seem never to have been present in the actual machines which were examined so closely, otherwise some one would have mentioned them

The reason for the pendulum's presence has always seemed to me to have only one purpose, given that there is no record of anyone ever having actually seen them, other than on paper, -  they were part of a system of clues designed to provide everything needed to reconstruct a wheel. I used to suggest that the clues were there to provide dated evidence that he had discovered the secret before anyone else, giving him priority, but that argument does not stand up because, if some else did make a similar discovery after Bessler, he would sell his machine and thus Bessler's secret would be revealed and even if he was able show that he had discovered the secret before the later claim, proving priority would not earn him a penny in fortune or favour. So the real reason was the one he hinted at in Apologia Poetica, a posthumous recognition would be preferable to just giving the secret away during his life and thus being unable to fulfill his aim of founding a new type of school for trade apprentices.

To sum up, the pendulums are part of the answer but by no means all of it, but each drawing contains more  than one clue giving vital information that must be included in the final successful configuration. Not only must you find the correct configuration from within those six illustrations, , but you will need to put it all together so that it uses the principle of which I have spoken, but be warned, there are endless configurations to be extracted from them and they will lead you up many a blind alley - and I should know!

Finally, you will see that I have apparently discarded the whole of MT, but in fact I haven't, there are some clues there, particularly in the 'Toys' page which coincide with those suggested within the published illustrations.  There are also apparently random links which also have an echo within the same illustrations. There is strong evidence of another kind of coded information within MT and the other publications but I do not have sufficient information about them other than to say that I believe Oystein has made some good progress in identifying these.
.

JC

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Look Before You Leap!

It's been a while since I mentioned this subject and I wonder how, or if, people's thoughts have changed.  I know from discussions I have had, that everyone taking part in this field of research, i.e. trying to discover how Bessler made his wheel work and then produce one too, has considered what they would do in the event of success.  What would you do if you succeeded?

There are a number of options and mine are simple but there are still snags and pitfalls along the way for the unwary. I think most people are aware that I wouldn't patent the device, for several reasons that I have discussed elsewhere, and don't wish to rehash here again.  I have the option of publishing my book, and there are other potential income sources so for me the way is clear, and yet there are still things to plan for in the event of success.

Picture the scene - you have just finished the first successful continuously spinning gravity driven wheel for 300 years! Do you rush out and broadcast the news?  (I'm assuming there are no thoughts of patents here.)
Publishing your success should be reserved for later because you don't know who might be planning to copy your device or steal it.  Is that paranoia or just common sense?  There are many desperate people who would love to own your invention so the first thing you should do is photograph it, video it, describe it in writing with drawings - and above all dismantle it, hide it and then arrange to have those backups legally registered with the appropriate persons or systems as applicable. This, so that you have a legal document setting the date of register in stone and thus proving your priority if necessary.  This registering can be achieved without revealing the contents of the package - and it costs a minuscule fraction of the patenting process in both time and money.

Some may say that it doesn't matter how much patenting will cost, as all costs will be repaid a thousand-fold eventually, but I say it does matter and the whole patenting process is fraught with expense, and delay and questions and also the distinct possibility of it being  grabbed by the government and taken out of your hands altogether.

So when do you tell the world about your discovery?  Not until you are ready.  I don't have all the answers but restraining your enthusiasm to spill the beans before you have everything settled, and are confident that you will get some remuneration for all your work seems like a sensible precaution.  If you know of someone who is a creditable scientist, teacher or some other respected member of the community and whom you trust to vet the written description and video evidence before you submit it to the world, that could be useful backup too..  Of course it might be difficult to find someone who will not object to subsequent press harassment.

Many of us sometimes believe we are almost there and have the complete design in our heads and we succumb to the temptation to publicise our conviction that we have the solution ( been there. done that!) but advertising that the wheel is almost complete is like saying that someone is almost pregnant; it is either complete and it works or it doesn't.

Suppose that you broadcast your good news immediately you have success, hold a press conference and tell the world; what do you think will happen?  They will want pictures of the device; videos; detailed descriptions of how it works.  Without these they will simply bring in 'expert's to discuss your ideas and shoot them down and unless you are prepared to reveal everything about the wheel it would be best to remain silent until you are ready.

One more thing - I personally would be unwilling to expose my new baby in its present state - rough and ready is the best I could say of it.  I would make a new version of it in a much more presentable image with nice colours and shiny metal; the original can be kept back for future nostalgic consideration..

Anyone who writes regularly on the besslerwheel forum or has a blog, must continue to post their thoughts , even if they have found the solution, otherwise they might be suspected of hiding the fact that they were just biding their time before revealing their success!  I haven't found it yet - honestly!

Ah well - its good to dream!!  Good luck.

JC

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