FED,
Another winner ! It sounds as if the perils of War were as nothing compared to the likelihood of electrocution in postwar China !
In the early days of married life, I bought a 9d booklet on some market stall about "Home Electical Ideas" (or some such). My imagination was fired by a suggested design for a DIY electric kettle, which was high on our wish-list, but which cost good money, and that was tight at the time.
The idea was based on a 9" flan tin, which you filled with fireclay cement, into which you embedded the spiral wire element of a 1kw electric fire (you could get these coils loose in those days). A thin "pie crust" of fireclay over the top was the final stage, smoothed level to form a base for the standard tin whistling kettle which completed the ensemble. All depended on adequate insulation from the (dried) fireclay. I think we were still on 2-pin plugs then. I connected up and hoped for the best.
It was not a success. Whether I had allowed sufficent time for the "filling" to dry out, or the coil had wriggled down to make contact with the flan tin, I know not, but I produced some truly spectacular flashes and blew every fuse in the house. After which I acceded to the despairing pleas of Mrs D, binned the lot, and we saved up our pennies for a Morphy-Richards.
D.
