Bee

Might be back to basics time. I'm not familiar with Nationals but with an injector out when does it squirt diesel? where is the piston? just a tad before top dead centre? or is it quite a long way before or even a bit after? . My bet is on the pump somehow not doing what it's supposed to when it should. Good luck with it anyway, nothing more depressing than a ton of stone cold engine that just sits there refusing to start.

Inside the HP sauce factory at Aston(?) B'ham, Quite a nice smell but it really 'took your breath away' till you got used to it. On the other hand there was a factory up on the moors not far from Halifax where there were skips full of dead animals, think it was a fellmongers/renderers, used to drive past round about lunchtime, had to wait until I had driven at least 20 miles past it before I could face food. How the hell can anybody work in those places?

The contract just looks like a flat rental agreement transposed to a boat. Not sure how much of it is at all relevant but no doubt most of it covers the owner and not much helps the OP if things go wrong. Just in case the OP is not aware of the history of boats in London and much else besides there are many boats in and around London, few of them have any legal residential status, many of them are rented out and the occupants have no security at all. Most are supposed to move every couple of weeks, most don't. If this is a bona fide houseboat then probably not so much to worry about but if its a narrowboat tied on the towpath then its really got much the same status as someone renting out an old van with windows and a bed in it parked up in a street in (for example) Bristol.

Well that's as clear as mud. At least it shows that there is some awareness of the potential disaster that brexit can cause to the whole industry as well as individuals who are now caught up in a mess not of their making. I wrote to my MP about this exact problem but received a totally unsatisfactory reply - no surprise there. As with all things Brexit we are no longer in control of our own affairs and we just have to hope that our own government attaches some importance to the issue and we also have to hope that the EU sees some advantage in maintaining the current arrangements. Thanks for posting this by the way Phoenix V

Dunno but we'll see how it copes with dogs piddling on the railings in a year or two, it takes ages to haul my dog over the bridge, it simply has to stop at every b****** railing for a sniff.

The Iron bridge here is being grit blasted and they are using Sherwin Williams coatings so that must be some sort of recommendation, I'll see if I can get a close look at the tins to see what variety they are using. Jotun Jotumastic 87 two pack is supposed to be surface tolerant - I hope it is cos that's what I'm slapping on this year.

Lots of flux & solder? I think its possible to solder steel and brass, might be a special flux. My soldering skills are abysmal.

Go on, I dare you!

I've already posted my tale of woe with diesel but it might bear repeating, I have a large fuel tank amidships with awkward access, the tank has a disc cut out of it to take various pipes, its about 6" dia but I cut it by drilling a ring of holes, to put your arm inside is like tickling the tonsils of a crocodile. When the engine stopped a couple of years ago I did the filter and watertrap to no avail, the fuel smelt wrong so eventually undid the ring of bolts and looked into the tank. Horrible orange mess, suspect the deck filler had leaked but the only way to clean it was to buy two plastic barrels, put a bilge pump in the tank and empty the lot. The mess that was left had to be cleaned with rags and nappies (careful with those, they disintegrate and the gel comes out), it took days to do it properly, my arm was shredded from the inspection hole and the far corners of the tank took ages to clean with rags and sponges on sticks. Having done all that I am absolutely sure that sucking the bottom layer out would simply not have worked, the slimy mess all over the bottom would have not been touched. The 'fuel' that came out was all scrap. If I had another boat I would specify a proper inspection plate be fitted. I now remove the plate every year and check it. I would recommend poking a little camera into the tank if you can't get decent access especially if you venture onto rivers. Water in fuel is a real sod.

I'd be surprised if the calorifier needs replacing, its really just a big tin can with a coil in it.

Yeah but isn't it nice to say that you have been internationally recognised as being competent - various people now think I am competent in putting Ikea furniture together, minor surgery (splinters etc) trumping daft arguments in pubs and much more.

No, but there are plenty of pics on You Tube etc of boats in trouble, Osney bridge on the Thames and others. Making a boat go exactly where you want it to go and stopping it exactly where you want it to stop is 90% skill and 10% luck when there is a bit of wind and current, when there is a lot of wind and current it gets more like 50 / 50, when the boards are red and you are belting downstream running out of ideas its more like 90% luck and 10% skill. I have a dent in the side of the boat where I clouted that horrible swing bridge on the K&A (Wool something or other) It made no difference what my skilful use of wheel and throttle did, I might as well have been sat in a dinghy with no oars.

Desperation? Sorry, that's unfair, I love old wooden boats but I've just spent all morning replacing rotten wooden fence posts, that's quite enough soggy wood for me.

60 bids for Orion, that's a lot for a wooden boat. Its the sort of thing I would like to work on but without the bills. Think I'll stick to steel boats.

Couldn't be a crafty way of getting more tax could it? Surely not.