Near catastrophy and some more lining removal!
Posted by casper ghost, Yesterday, 03:17 PM
My brother stayed on my boat while he put more ballast onto Sleepy Hollow. He found that I had left the kettle on the gas ring with the gas on low and alight 
. I had left it like this for 6 days and was extremely lucky the boat hadn't burnt down. Somehow although the kettle had obviously boiled dry it had suffered no damage and was just very hot..Wasted alot of gas though 
.
Here's a boring pic of said kettle, just lightly scortched..
Today I had great plane to do loads of work, but at 9am it was nippy in the boat and the bed was warm.. I looked to see what was happening in the canal world, which took up more time with some 'intellegent' conversation 
. I did manage to start work and ripped out , I mean carefully removed, the remaining lining from Casper's bedroom. I had left this bit on purpose as I hadn't realised that I needed it out to weld the engine supports to the hull side. I only spent about 40 minutes working.. Must try harder tomorrow 
.
Here's a boring pic of my bedroom...
Could be a slight change of plan..
Posted by casper ghost, Feb 5 2010, 08:17 PM
Well I had planned to remove the Sabb and fit the Ruston in the next couple of weeks. That would mean getting the engine fully ready by 19 March to chug to the dry dock. It will means making new diesel tanks, connecting up and doing water, fitting water pump, alternator etc etc. BUT, my Dad has pointed out that if I didn't manage to get engine all running fine I would have to be towed to the dry dock and it's about a 5 hour chug each way. So i've decided to wait until after the dry dock appointment to change the engine, unless the Sabb sells first..
I'll have to wait a bit longer and I was looking forward to doing all the hard work...
Ruston and Hornsby 2 vth.
Posted by casper ghost, Feb 5 2010, 02:57 PM
My Ruston which i'm going to fit into Casper. I sanded the engine today ready for painting. 
Is there no end to the fun I have 
Another exciting picture...
Posted by casper ghost, Feb 3 2010, 01:11 PM
Well, not really..
I've got to fit a prop shaft between my Ruston and the gearbox. I bought a Range Rover prop shaft for 99p. It came apart fairly easily. I then cut off one of the spline ends and fitted the 2 uj's together using the spline to ensure it was straight. I was very suprised how easy this all went, usually these things are very difficult to get apart. I've still got to tap a holw to hold the spline in place and then weld the 2 ends together.. PRM have confirmed that their gearboxes will handle the force exerted at the end of a prop shaft.
I'll try harder to post something more interesting in future, though i'm not sure that anyone even reads this except maybe my brother and he only takes an interest if it's about his boat
Next time; grinding out more steel bulkhead
Decking, ripping out more interior etc etc...
Posted by casper ghost, Jan 30 2010, 06:02 PM
Well, me and my brother went to the boats. He finished off the decking/pontoon for Sleepy Hollow and then did some ballast for it out of concrete blocks. I took out yet more lining from my bedroom, cut up the floor and cut out the 6mm steel bulkhead, which was really difficult..
It snowed quite a bit on and off on Friday..
The finished decking...
This was my bedroom.. I had to sleep here last night, it was very cold, about -6 outside, not sure it was much warmer inside either, plus lods of dripping condensation.. 
Now the little Sabb which i'm shortly removing is on full view.. For sale too if anyone wants it..
As we couldn't get the van anywhere near Sleepy Hollow due to it being really muddy. We unloaded some ballast onto the front of Casper, with the intention of chugging it over. It made Casper look a bit odd as the bow is now lower than the stern..
A couple of exciting photos...
Posted by casper ghost, Jan 26 2010, 02:02 PM
Here they are;
Well, ok, not that exciting...
Took me 3 hours to make these 2 bits. The top pic is of an adaptor and damper i've had to make for my little Queenie stove as it was only made for small flue and I want to adapt it to a normal size flue. Especially as BW are on about having a minimum flue diameter.. I cut the flue in half and fitted a damper, which I made from 6mm steel. You can't see in the picture but there is alot of work in this, at least alot of cutting and grinding which must have pleased the neighbours 
.
The bottom picture is fairly obviously an exhaust flange for my Ruston, not alot I can add about that, 6mm plate again. Cut in half first so I could use a grinder to cut the hole then weld back together.
Maybe the next post will be more interesting, but I doubt it
Further pontoon building...
Posted by casper ghost, Jan 23 2010, 07:13 PM
Me and my brother went, we got there early so we could do alot of work. It didn't start too well as my brother, note my brother and certainly not me, didn't charge the battery for the cordless drill; and after I reminded him only the other day . So out came the generator, which took some starting.
We continued with the pontoon for Sleepy Hollow. How we didn't fall I don't know, we were perched on the gunwale trying to use a sledge hammer..
We didn't have a tape measure so to keep the top level we were measuring up from the water using a length of wood which we had marked, only problem was when marking the one post I held the length of wood the wrong way up and marked the post wrong. We didn't notice until after and spent quite a while putting it right.
We were making sure we didn't drop the electric cable into the canal, as this wood not have been good.. While moving the cable, we, well I, flicked the hammer into the canal... Found using my magnet ..
The framing is finished, just got to use chain saw to cut the posts down to size and put the slats on the top to completely finish, but the sun was setting so we stopped..
Frost and fog...
Posted by casper ghost, Dec 11 2009, 05:53 PM
The 3 boats belonging to our family, all built by us..
Another nice day, so more welding...
Posted by casper ghost, Dec 10 2009, 03:38 PM
Finished the side doors, putting a rain deflector above the doors.
Welded down my WW1 steel box onto the front deck.
A while ago I blocked off my roof drin channels and put a hole in the roof with a pipe attached so the rain water would run down the pipe, which is inside the boat behind the lining in engine room, then back out by the gunwale. Worked ok but leaves kept blocking the hole. I did consider using larger hole and larger hose but instead today I removed the pipe, filled in teh hole and put the drain channels back the way most boats have them ..
Now my little Sabb engine has stopped and won't start. I left it runniing while I wlked to get some water. When I returned the engine had stopped. Diesel was sprayed in the engine room. I've bled the fuel but still won't start. Too dark now to look, hope it's the injector or the pipe. 
New engine room side doors for Casper.
Posted by casper ghost, Dec 9 2009, 07:23 PM
The sun shone all day today.. I borrowed my dad's electric start diesel genny and cut out the side doors and welded the hinges on. Made the internal door frame with left over 1 inch angle from Sleepy Hollow. I nicked another chaps idea and put the hinges on before I had totally cut out the doors which meant they fit well and no need to buy more steel. The total cost, if you had to buy the angle would still be about 12 pounds.. Not bad and it didn't take very long either. Hope for good weather again tomorrow so I can finish welding, as I still have to put the deflector above the doors and some other small welding jobs.
on The 10th Day, but not much work..