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What's new: Fri Oct 25 (2002) From Bangui to Senegal and back
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From Bangui to Senegal and back

I plan to go to Bangui from the 15th of December for a month stay. My Senegalese friend Ives Faye asks me if I could make a return trip from Bangui to Dakar to prepare for the irrigation of his Keur Moussa farm project. Looking at the globe I discover these two towns are not that far apart comparing to the distance from Holland. He tells me the climate is fine around Christmas, cool, no mosquitos!
Today we practised cutting a ring out from a car tire. Cutting rubber is easy if only you use a sharp knive and force the sides of the cut into the rubber apart. If this is done well, rubber cuts like butter. But it takes practice to do it well.

Step 1 is making a knive out of a broken hacksaw blade. Sharpen the tip and wind a strip of inner tire around the rest of the blade as a handle.

Step 2 is pushing sticks inside the car tire that spread the flanges as much as they allow.

Step 3 is making a circular cut at the right place for the pulley. A circular line indicates where the side of the car tire fits against the flange of the steel wheel. The right place for the cut is just the width of a saw blade away from this mark.

Step 4 is dividing the ring into two equal halves. Measuring is done with a straight stick and a straw.

Step 5 is cutting the rings loose from the rest of the tire. Be aware very little force was needed. While one's hand is cutting one way, make sure your other hand is safely doing something helpful in the other direction.
Never your fingers should be in front of the knive.

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What's new: From Bangui to Senegal and back
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