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Sunday 18 October 2015

The Lavender Hill Mob

Last night, we watched an old classic, The Lavender Hill Mob. Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Alfie Bass, plus a special appearance of Audrey Hepburn.

The plot revolves around the stealing of a batch of gold, and melting it down and recasting it into Eiffel Towers, using the foundry where lead and pewter are usually cast.

There's two problems with this, though, one small, one large. The small problem is that gold is twice as heavy as lead, three times as heavy as pewter. This would surely be noticable?


The second problem is much bigger. The melting point of pewter is 200 degrees C; the melting point of lead is 327 degrees. I'm melted and recast lead over a domestic gas cooker. But the melting point of gold is 1064 degrees C. A furnace made for pewter and lead, wouldn't be able to melt gold.

It was quite a good film, though.

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