Bee

That's a damn fine boat!

Yep, same on mine, a Wasp filter / separator. Clean the gauze and put it back together, I fill the filter through the bleed hole with a tiny funnel to save faffing about and if I'm changing the proper filter I refill that with diesel too then give it a couple of strokes on the fuel pump manual thingy to bleed the little bit of air left in it and it generally starts and runs perfectly.

I did the exterior wheelhouse on Bee with Sikkens Cetol, it lasted well in the heat and sun but I got fed up with the dull finish. It goes from matt to just plain dull. So I tried Sadolin Extra (That 'extra' seems important) and it seems to last just as well but be a bit more attractive. It is still just as expensive though so no benefit there. As for the interior I just used gloss varnish on the 'mahogany' trim and it works OK with the white T&G in most of the boat.

There's not that many ways you can configure a boat really, essentially it is a bit of a corridor and that design is similar to many of the barges I have known. I would worry about those partitions and being trapped in case of fire plus they made me feel a bit claustrophobic but they might well have their uses somewhere. I used straightforward sliding doors on a narrowboat to avoid having a corridor full of opening doors and that worked well but making and fitting the things was awkward.

£1000 per knee!!!! Bl*ody Hell! I was going to mow the lawn tomorrow but I might be in the shed bashing lumps of scrap metal into some sort of bent things!

My thoughts are that HDPE might fall between accepted materials like GRP and steel in durability and strength but development might take a while longer. Boats look better with curves and my guess is that they sell better too (and unfortunately cost more to make) I think - as others do - that the shape of the stern might not be too successful and handling might not be great so a mark 2 version might be a better one - look at a fish and try to copy that, There is a place for boats that are tough, rotproof, rustproof and don't need to haul ten tons of concrete ballast around just to bury the prop - especially if they are electric. Maybe there is a way to cut out and weld up the panels for a boat shaped boat and then frame it up from the inside. That might bring out the best in HDPE.

Are the rads getting hot? if they aren't then water is not circulating or there is only a bit in there. Check the header tank, if the water is very low then you might be hearing bubbles or steam popping in the boiler, when the fire is out check the boiler is not leaking, this is quite important as boilers can build up pressure or water going into a very hot empty boiler can flash into steam

Bee is not a narrow boat, she is a replica harbour tug but I reckon her underwater area is much the same a 45` narrow boat and I did it bit by bit, grind a bit, paint a bit when I could no longer hold the grinder up. That took about a week or so and I stuck at it, I got 2 coats on it and as it is still out of the water I shall put a bit more paint on later this Spring. Safety glasses / helmet is essential.

Doing the base plate is a grim job, its worth getting a cheap crawler board to lie on. Did mine last year with an angle grinder and a large heap of coarse flap disc wheels thingys. It was reasonably quick and not too dear and did an acceptable job. Tercoo discs work very well but they are slow, I have never tried twist knotted wire brushes. I used Jotun 90. The manufacturers reccomended no undercoat or primer and to brush it on (Not roller) I did the sides with Tercoo discs in a drill and they are good but as I said, slow. I was not really removing old rust though, it was mostly barnacles and the fibrous parts of mussels, Bee was in brackish water for a couple of years and these things are really, really hard to get off and there were thousands of the little sods. Good luck.

My thoughts are that you haven't got much to lose. Its not as if you are selling a house to buy a boat and in a few years you will not be able to get back into a house because of the way prices have gone. Living on a boat has pressures though, you will quite probably not be able to get a secure mooring and that can be a pressure that wears you down over a period of time. It is more expensive than people think, licence, mooring (any mooring) can be costly, insurance surveys and legislation as well as all the things that break / wear out. No mains services - especially electric - is a nuisance, parking can be a problem and so on. We lived on boats for 12 years and it is not something I would want to do again but having said that we do live on our boat for about 3 months in the summer so that must say something. Winter is not great and mud can be a horror, especially with a big hairy hound When it's nice its very nice so good luck.

Looking like good work.

Not quite as straightforward as it seems. The purpose of the engine is to turn the prop, the prop is what gives the boat the shove it needs. Big old engines turned a big slow prop, modern higher speed engines turn a smaller prop a bit faster (roughly speaking) There are complex calculations for all of this and many, many variables that clever people have done but a correctly propped boat with a BMC 1.5 will be fine, basically if you see a boat you like have a run in it and if it gets along OK with a bit in reserve then it is OK (Oh and some boats are just slow because of their shape and will always be that way no matter what engine you put in it.)