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I've used it on cars Alan. I was trying to say, as gently as possible, that it won't restore dull narrowboat paintwork which has usually faded or become chalky through UV and loss of oils as you know. In truth, I think the use of a clay bar overkill for even the shiniest of shiny boats.

Go to a Beta agent? Tamworth/Rugby/Market Harborough Go to a Kubota agent? Further away. Local hire shop might have one on a kubota mini digger. Any plant hire firm will probably have a few. Borrow one off someone else as previously suggested would probably be easiset - they are all the same KX2 key as fitted to a wide range of plant.

When I needed a new flue I happened to have some offcuts of 1 mm stainless welded tube going spare and made it out of that just to see how long it would last, that was 3 years ago and its still the same thickness, and as soon as I got the stove back working I noticed a huge difference in that the thin flue was radiating tons of heat into the cabin instead of wasting it out of the chimney, it also largely cleans itself as it expands and contracts all the crud flakes off inside. I wouldn't fit a heavy mild steel flue again .

Oh, and now insults! Thank you for your kind words. You have copied and pasted a large chunk of what I’ve already read and I repeat, at no point does it mention the ‘power’ of an anode as you did in a previous post. It explains in baby language that the PD of an anode-hull circuit must be impressed if it cannot be achieved simply by selection of the anode type, depending on the circumstances of the boat wrt the electrolyte it’s sitting in. Obviously, the resultant circuit will use power as does any circuit but an anode does not itself possess power as you suggested earlier in this thread, it merely forms part of a circuit, either galvanic or impressed, which will result in energy being expended.

Or there's the cheap ''stand up bath'' method. Don a very loose fitting, very oversize wet suit. Heat a kettle of water to bath temperature. Pour into wet suit at the neck, squirt in some washing up liquid. Jump about and up and down for ten minutes to mix the liquid and water, to wash you thoroughly. Either lever apart a wet suit ankle or stand on head for five mins to drain. Remove wet suit, towel, talc and relax.

The thermoelectric generator puts out 100w of which 35w pumps the coolant and 60w powers a blower to cool the coolant radiator, which leaves 5w for you.?

I'd still order one tonight from anyone who claims next day delivery though ... and then try and find a local one tomorrow.

Poor Steve can't afford £4,400 p.a. rent for a mooring, apparently only rich people can afford that. Perhaps he should investigate how much the average family pays for rent of a small house in Bristol or in Bath. 'Rich' presumably means thrifty and allocating available funds for essentials like rent, but it seems he lives in a parallel universe. I pity his kids, 'cos they will grow up with a totally skewed sense of values.

Looks like we SHALL go to the ball after all.. ???

I hate that word ‘might’...

why not a steel bath with gas ring underneath?

That’s like saying a piece of lead is ‘powerful’ because if you put it into some H2SO4 with a piece of lead dioxide it’ll power a motor.

Just thought I'd share my experiences on pulling my JP liners which I successfully did yesterday! Many thanks to all on this forum who's advice was a great help! I had the following plates laser profiled from 20 mm steel plate, and machined a register on the one which would locate on the underneath of the liners (I didn't want it slipping) I was then extremely fortunate to be able to borrow a 60 tonne hollow jack which sat on top, using some M30 studding to tie it all together. I was quite nervous about putting this much force across an old casting, however it ended up being quite anti-climatic - both liners came out with only 6 tons of force, with no bangs or alarming noises - just drifted out smoothly. I'm going to create a new post offering the three plates for anyone to borrow if they wish to use them themselves.

how the hell were we supposed to know that?

Yes. The first made from synthetic components. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite It even had its own museum - a fascinating place in an 18th century Somerset watermill, but the collection is currently homeless. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite_Museum

whoever gets up first makes their own breakfast and has bacon and an egg. that'll learn you to stay in bed in the morning.

That sort of pattern (or even more hours per day) tends to be what '1 week hire boaters' do to maximise the distance travelled and the experiences of locks etc. In reality you will want to cruise from A-B (could be 4 hours or it could be 10 hours) then stay for a day or two investigating the castles, churches, pubs, museums, history etc etc. Then move again for a few hours, then maybe stopping in a nice quiet scenic area in the 'middle of nowhere' for a few days, then move on replenish food water etc and ……….. There is no-rush to get somewhere and by whizzing past places and not stopping you miss much of what is best about boating.

They would do fine too, if a nice high power one is selected. The OP however, wants to "think outside the box", meaning he rejects all the obvious, practical and efficient methods in favour of difficult, awkward and less effective ways.

My boat is out of the water at a DIY yard for a bit of blacking and other maintenance. In the water by my trolley is a new looking boat that the owner has been visiting doing a few bits and pieces inside. I had a chat with him briefly, about his "new boat" and he told me that he bought the shell 3 years ago, eventually painted it, and is just getting round to finishing it off.... maybe. He's a joiner by trade and said he thought it would be a straightforward and simple, (for him), thing to do. I got the impression that, with hindsight, he wishes he had bought a secondhand turnkey boat. To the OP: Whatever the shell might cost you in China, I dont think £30k is going to come close to what it will cost you to buy and import the shell, store it for a few years, and fit it out. Nor does it seem to make sense as an investment or for retirement, (in 30+ years or so?).

If running costs is an issue, then I think that solar thermal would provide an abundance of piping hot water. The downside is that this option is only viable from April to Sept!! We have solar thermal at home and it is fantastic. Many, many deep baths provided courtesy of the sunshine. Cheap to install evacuated tubes and pumping station - just need a coil to run it through a storage cylinder to heat the water. Simples.

Where are all these second hand lithium batteries coming from? Perhaps a lot of EV's are being crashed (why), or are people ripping out the electric motors and batteries and surreptitiously slipping diesels into them? ?

Lots of hirers assume they will do 4mph so your 3mph estimate was not too bad. I reckon on 2.5 mph most of the time but we are big and deep. The K&A from Bradford to Bath is very slow, maybe 1.5mph much of the way, and getting stuck behind a widebeam is a real possibility. Its not a good canal for widebeams but there are a lot down there. I think the hire companies should take some of the blame as you may well have enjoyed it a lot more if you had been given more realistic expectations. Arriving in Bath and finding nowhere to moor is also always a realistic possibility. I also wish some of the locals would keep their boats a bit smarter with a bit less roof clutter, but then last week we shared a few locks with a boat with spectacular clutter and it was an enjoyable day with a pleasant and competent boater, and some of the roof clutter was actually quite interesting, in fact many of the Western Enders are creative and entertaining people and a canal boat holiday should be a chance to get away from the drabness of 9 to 5 life.. .............Dave

Enforcement on the K&A is pretty strict and as far as I am aware almost all of the boats are moving at least every 14 days. There are quite a few long term moorings down that way but otherwise I am not sure how you can "clearly" see that most have not moved for months or years. There are a small number that are not moving but these will already be in the enforcement process or granted an exception. .............Dave

It's an old topic, but think it's worthwhile sharing my experience. I have just fitted secondary 4mm acrylic DG using self adhesive magnetic strip 19mm. I have no association with the companies mentioned. I bought the mag tape from https://www.first4magnets.com/tape-strip-c85/magflex-19mm-wide-flexible-magnetic-tape-premium-self-adhesive-p3526#ab_1-16|ps_2-1789 and the pre-cut acrylic from https://www.livsupplies.co.uk/product_list_poly.php?id=20. My windows are inward hoppers and as such i had to trim the stay so that it didn't protrude beyond the rectangular wooden frame. I found that the easiest way to do this was to saw through the angled bit and then heavily score the flat part. Then using two pairs of pliers the aluminium can be fatigued along the score line by bending back and forth until breakage occurred the finally smoothed with file. The next step was to fit the mag strip all round the edge of the acrylic . On the first unit I did, I mitred the corners but on subsequent units I left the joints square - easier to get a closer join. Once the mag tape had been stuck to the acrylic, I cut duplicate pieces and magnetically attached them to the strips previously stuck to the acrylic. NB the tape I used was self-mating and will only match if the tapes are in the correct polarity - if you use mitred corners, make sure it's the correct way round, if cutting square then it doesn't matter as you can simply reverse it. Now i I made my first mistake doh. I attached the pre-cut duplicates to the window frame - big mistake. The problem is that with sel-mating tape the two pieces have to match perfectly for the magnets to stick together. Even a couple of millimetres out and the magnets won't stick, as I discovered. Luckily, I hadn't stuck the tape to the frame firmly and pulled the bottom and side strips off without losing too much of their adhesion. I then replaced the removed pieces onto the acrylic. I then positioned the sheet such that the top strips mated correctly and then simply pushed the sheet firmly round the edges into place. On subsequent units, I left the tapes on the acrylic, removed the glue protection on the top tape, positioned the sheet and pressed the top tape onto the frame and then removed the glue protection from the side and bottom tape and pushed all the perimeter firmly onto the frame. Perfect. Total cost for 6 Windows around £150. I have labelled the units so that they can go back onto the same window, although it shouldn't really matter if all the tapes have been fitted perfectly in the first place. Another point to note is to ensure your frames are clean and smooth before finally pressing the units in place. Hope me this helps others to not repeat my mistakes.