sparrowcycles

hanks bill, I will make a trip over there and see if i can find the owner.. much appreciated.. If anyone knows who the owner is id be much obliged if we could exchange contact details.. s

ahh the big question.. Id say my budget is 10k but im a handy guy and really like doing even the grim work myself so its a balance really between work already done and money id save in buying a knacker Is 1645 up for grabs? pretty sure she is out of my price range though i do want to fit a hydraulic drive and having read your blog I know you envisaged that possibility for her. s

I see they have already taken a deposit for her but I emailled anyway Also I am happy to take on literally a bare hull (or float one) though a floating cabined one wouldnt hurt at all for the right price.. s

Thankyou I certainly will.. s

hi foks, Im not sure whether to post on this thread or create a new one so will start here first. Im in the market for a full length BCN joey hull, ideally a bantock simply because I love the balance of shapelyness and ruggedness they generally seem to have. I used to own a harris brothers shortened bantock 'Kerbau' which I loved, (even with its ugly stern) but, wanting to be fully on the canal I now need something longer in which to fit my workshop and studio. sooo.. does anyone happen to know know of an un-cut joey hull going cheap? alongside this, I just happen to be moored by croxton flash on the T & M by Middlewich and I spotted (and kayaked out to) a sunk joey hull there, it has an odd stern made of plate the same thickness as the hull rather than the heavy duty and more pleasantly shaped ones i normally associate with hulls like this. does anyone know anything about it at all? I think Lawrence mentioned it in his very interesting sunken boats list. I shall try to get a shot, I didnt take the camera in case I fell out of the kayak! many thanks, and apologies if I should have started a new thread for this.. s

Many thanks, Ive messaged stephensuggs as he had a copy back then.. Thanks flyboy, I will PM him too.. s

Hello there folks, Ive been scouring the internet to find a copy of 'the importance of being albert' A BBC documentary about the restoration of wooden narrowboat albert in the 90s.. (the reason being that I keep having this annoying drive to attempt something similar and I could seriously do with a realitysanity/wallet check on the subject) But annoyingly I havent been able to find a copy anywhere, even to buy.. Does anyone here have a copy by any chance that i could access somehow? Thanks all for your time.. s

If anyone is interested in Pearls story http://www.canalandrivertyranny.co.uk/index.php/psblc though many of you may well know this already s

Ok thanks guys, its a real mystery to me too! All the posts are about pilot lights not coming on! I will look further

Hello folks, ive scoured the forums here and elsewhere for an answer to my problem and cant find anything like it so I have to bother you all again.. I have a morco D61b on the boat and it all works great, draws well and heats fine, all the flames clean now that I cleaned the spider webs from two burn tubes! But its always had this issue which im now hoping to fix. When I turn the dial back to the off position (little dot at the most clockwise position) the pilot light just keeps on going! Ive left it for ages in this state to see if its just burning off gas in the tube but im sure it should just stop when the valve is turned. Heres what ive found. At the rear of the gas valve assembly is the thermocouple, this works well (if i block the flame away with a piece of metal the thermocouple operates soon enough and cuts the gas) Ive had the main gas valve apart and found a tiny amount of white alloy corrosion in there whuch I have cleaned out and redressed the faces upon which the rubber o-rings sit. Ive even tried the gas valve inner assembly from another morco in there but all with no difference. Oddly the flame doesnt even change shape at all so it seems like no contact at all is being made to stop the gas in the off position.. Am I missing something silly? Any advice greatly appreciated!! S

Im thinking of trying either http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=331515168643&alt=web Or http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=151415625390&alt=web

hmmmm.. well i could do that.. then id only need to pay one license!! Im sure that would be an interesting chat with CRT.. but theyd still need to add up to full length.. It might seem silly but I would really like to take my business onto the cut and having split workshop/living plus the ability to swap the motor end round seems really useful to me. Paying two full licenses for two boats (one without an engine) would be crippling though.. ..s WOW!! thankyou peter!! i will contact him right now! he even does similar work to me !!

well i like opduwers! but that wasnt really what i was thinking for my 'i dont need winding hole' workshop boat.. Though if anyone watches the youtube vid, check out the teeny craft at around 38mins.. very cool. Id seen that overlapping boat on here somewhere before and thought, like you, what a massive cost it must have been to build as much as license and moor! Im developing this idea further, thinking that 20ft is too short for a decent workshop, and am wondering if anyone has had any experience of licensing a 40ft and a 30 ft boat mechanically fixed to make a solid 70ft in length (at least for licensing anyway) and what rules there may be regarding this. crucially here i am not trying to avoid any license fees, i am happy to pay for 70 ft of boat and would like to simply raise the efficiency and safety by splitting the work and living vessels. having recently seen the pusher and hopper im wondering how these are licensed? has anyone spoken with CRT about anything along these lines, i can imagine it being an interesting debate. ..s

Apologies for chipping in late on this post but I am interested in it in a slightly different way. I agree that the licensing 'saving' may be fractional, especially considering insurance, bss etc... Buuut..... if someone (me in the distant pipe dream future) was to go for a 50ft butty (living space) with a 20ft pusher motor (workshop) wouldnt that setup neatly avoid the need to find a winding hole? by cruising the workshop to the other end and ratcheting up tight one could change direction just like that.. I guess, in a roundabout way here I am asking for peoples opinions/ experiences of any setups of this variety, just today I passed a hopper and pusher that looked like they steered well enough.. oh, happy new year! ..s

Thankyou all! what speedy and varied replies already! Thanks ditchcrawler, id not thought of it in that way.. It makes great sense when spoken by another! I was worried by the size of the busbar on the distribution panel, it looked way too thin so i soldered a high strand wire along its length to add capacity as it were but it could still be insufficient.. The pump is indeed wired through the distribution panel, now i know that is not the norm i will break it out and connect straight to the switched side of the battery isolator! The pump is rated at 11a so im wondering what the best way to fit an inline fuse will be, would you recommend in a holder down by the pump itself? The 6mm connects to a thinner but higher strand cable for a few inches before the pump, a fuse could easily be fitted there. I will also check the voltage across the pump when actuated, if just to see some numbers regarding whats happening down there thanks NMEA.. i shall be using this formula for a lot of my rewiring from now on!! I picked up some 35mm battery flex for the new battery connections, im hoping that will make a difference too! Im down south for xmas/ new year but i will be on it as soon as im back in liverpool and will keep you all posted.. many thanks

Hi there and thanks to everyone that has helped me in the past (either through my posts or through gleaning much wisdom from others exploits).. I am slowly working through the long list of niggles in the interior re-fit of nb Kerbau which I live aboard in Liverpools albert dock, Im at the point of tackling the water system and have fitted a 3.5gpm shureflo pump with a 2 ltr accumulator tank right by the water tank. Now im certain that the batteries (2x 110ah) are not in the best state (two new ones are on the way) but even with the charger on i notice the lighting (all led) noticeably drop whenever the pump kicks in.. The pump is wired via a length of 6mm twin and earth fitted by the previous owner which is far beefier than the cable used for the pump on my last boat which had no such issue.. It seems like there is too great a voltage drop over the cable run and I am wondering if it is possible to fit the pump near the stern far closer to the batteries to reduce this factor. Before taking any rash steps though I thought i would ask you knowledgeable folk if theres any glaring reason why this cannot be pursued, with the boat always slightly bow up and the potential pump fitting spot literally on the base plate it should still be gravity fed to the pump which would be the only danger i can think of having the pump fitted so far away.. any advice greatefully received! merry christmas!

Hi orakal.. I tried in vain just like yourself, The drain plug didnt let the water out at all but strangely i think it was connected to the hydraulic gearbox as, once flushed with diesel a few times to remove the sludge, it just let out the hydraulic oil from there.. to remove the water from the flywheel casing just start the engine.. it will all shoot out of the air outlet grill (and probably clean out the cooling fins too!).. in fact pouring warm soapy water into the inlet grill with the engine just started at high revs has been suggested to me as a bona fide method of clearing the cooling fins without removing all the covers.. id do it with the engine barely warn though as once the engine is well hot the temperature change could crack a cylinder.. perhaps hope this helps

I have seen that from the photos posted but with the steel roof adding a lot of weight she is now quite top heavy, rolly and sits much lower in the water than seen in the photos from alan_fincher, Its my hope to save weight with the aluminium panels and replacement of the front section covering the well deck with a cratch cover. It might be possible to set them flush, i just feel that the joint would need filling and any flex in the shell would just crack that out straight away.. a hard choice.

Thanks again! I will be using those images as the basis for these recessed panels I will be putting in next week! I will post some shots for sure..

Alan-fincher, thanks again for your advice, I had thought there would be definite requirements for the histiric license discount but i might as well try anyway! I will see if I can post some better pictures of kerbau soon before I cut a few more hatches in the side along the places you originally had windows as well as opening the well deck and recessing some aluminum panels in the engine room. Lawrence Hogg, many thanks for your info, I shall certainly get down to chilling ton as soon as possible to see the basin! Another thing I am wondering is whether there was a standard font for the names on these interchange hulls or any associated vehicles (would it have been a GWR font?).. its really just because I'm thinking of etching kerbau's name, number and maybe a few more bits into the recessed engine room panels and whilst I know this is never going to be a traditional restoration I would like my details to reflect the hulls history.. All The best

Hello all and thanks so much for your replies! Apologies for the lateness of mine, I have just been able to charge my phone and get the internet! Alan-fincher, thanks so much for the pictures you posted! The beautiful oak and pine is still fully intact inside and indeed one of the things that attracted me to kerbau so much! If you are close to Cheshire or liverpool any time soon please come to see her! Also if you have any further stories or photos I would love to see/ hear them! Lawrence Hogg, thanks for your information regarding the make and use of her original hull, I have seen other bantock hulls that looked the same but I haven't the experience to tell for sure! Do you know what freight was carried on the GWR interchange traffic? Finally, I am thinking of trying to see if kerbau could be registered as an historic boat, is there any advice or concerns you wise folk might be able to voice on this hope? I'm not sure if she will qualify but I thought if anyone would know it would be you all!!.. Many many thanks.. Steve

Hello there everyone, I have just become the new owner of narrowboat Kerbau, recently returned from 6 years in Ireland.. I have seen her mentioned on these forums before (I had a little search when I became interested in her) and it seems that at least one member has owned her previously. Well im doing that thing many of us like to do, as in scrape around for any history regarding our new (but aged) aquisitions.. So I thought I would put this post up to see if any of you fine folk have and knowledge about Kerbau's history, stories of her or even photographs perhaps? I am hoping to get to know her better (although the journey solo from sharpness to Liverpool is doing that pretty well too!).. Here is what I know from the previous owner (mark).. originaly built around 1900 (maybe 1898) and in the 1950s was chopped into a 40ft (kerbau) and a 30 ft (enigma) in the 50s (by who i would love to know, the harris brothers was suggested to me the other day) with a wooden roof, oak beams and pine boards with masonite on top.. mark bought it in 1987, re plated the bottom and reskinned the top plus canvas and paint. 5mm steel top added in 2002 i think, which now makes it very top heavy and rolly.. then a new beta marine engine a few years ago. Mark himself was cruising the uk system for 20 years so im sure there are some stories there but, again, if anyone knows anything of her history please give me a shout, id love to put it all together.. thanks!! here she is now.. im heading up the shropshire union and then the bridgewater.. to liverpool

That is very useful info, many many thanks!! I will PM you closer to the time.. many thanks.. s