X Alan W

When I was 8 or 9yrs old my Grandpa was the church warden for our local church,he was responsible for winding the church clock every week or ten days, there was a little tell tale weight on a wire to show if & when it required winding. As the access trapdoor was small & grandpa was quite a big fella, yours truly got roped in to do the job, the winding handle was almost if not identical even down to the brass knob that my grandpa fitted, the reason for the joint was that there was a part of the clocks mech that stopped you making a full rotation & rather than take the handle off every time you just folded it a little to get by the obstructing part IIRC it had a spring to return it to it's winding position after you had got passed the obstruction. But it was almost 70 years ago so I could by wrong

I can not comment on that particular boat but the original hulls were built at Norbury the early few by John Stothert assisted by myself( when not involved with engineering bits) & then Seamus Walsh was brought in to do the steelwork, at around the time I left SUC was sold to a Liverpool company A.E.Smith- Coggins in 1969/70 From then on I can not be of any help as to who built what or where.

Shropshire Union Cruises were the original builders of the Frobisher class of narrow boats. Steel hull, GRP superstructure, with a sliding centre section. i would assume that Dartline just carried on when they took over/bought out SUC., although it was after I left SUC so have no first hand knowledge. i understand that most if not all were originally Lister SR3 powered, I know the ones built during the time I worked at Norbury all were.

Definitely for stop planks I was asked by the fore man at Hartshill yard if I would drop of 2 new planks there to the BW gang working at the bridge, as I was going in that direction, 1966 IIRC,again IIRC; the stop groves are at the next bridge hole in the Fradley direction, or they were those years ago.

I think it was in 1961 or 2 that I boated straight through Dutton , i didn"t return for a couple of years & the gates were back, at the time I just thought they had removed the gates for repair & as the rise/fall was minimal they didn"t put a stoppage in place.

I think you will find most UK appliances are 28 mb for butane & 32mb for propane the German manufactured cooker in my Camping Car( French manufacture)is rated at 50mb but works perfectly well on 32 mb pressure as does the hot water heater & blown air heating running on GPL( auto gas, which I understand to be a mix of the two although I don"t know the % of each ) from a refillable tank. I was led to believe that Butane was the better calorific value ( but stand corrected if not so)

You would not be able to use the one, regulator for both types of gas, even if the pressure was the same ( which it isn"t ) as the propane bottle requires a male threaded end on the regulator( bottle end) LHT & the butane a female LHT

We still use a couple of 3120 Husky"s with 4ft bars for the big stuff, & Stihl 661"s & 441"s were it"s not possible /convenient to get the JD harvester in or starting out felling/falling on a new site. Our guys are not involved in any up tree work so can"t comment as regards that

The Stihl Wackers, Polesaws that run 4mix Don"t have a sump or have a supply of oil within the engine It"s more or less the same as a 2 stroke ie, the fuel mixed with a specified amount of oil, so it possible to tilt , run them on their sides etc they operate as a 2 stroke but with valves & only firing every other time instead of every time at or about TDC

Yes seen that & also the carbon insert bar, trouble is you need to be securely fixed to your bank manager to afford them, One of our guys was given a carbon insert bar to test, which he did, they were not to happy when it wore out before the Sugihara light bars that we have been running for the last couple of years I"m pretty sure the Tsumura bars we used before that would have outlasted it as well, Stihl kit is good but it"s not the be all end all that some people make it out to be; There are other brands of kit out there that that can equal or better it ( in a commercial earn a living from it set up )

Just had a visit from the Stihl Rep I asked him if they were marketing a 4 stroke chainsaw & also asked that the answer was straight, & not Stihl Sales blurb. His answer was that as long as they can meet the emissions regs with self adjust carbs, cat converter mufflers, etc.with a 2 stroke motor, they had no plans to market a 4 stroke saw in Europe, his closing words were we will think about that when we cannot comply with the emission regs So as far as I"m aware all the Stihl chainsaws n the market are 2 stroke motors ( But willing to be corrected if some one has different credible info )

The pro logging company that I service & repair saws for, are also a Stihl main dealer, their 2015 sales paperwork list a 4 mix Weed Whacker, & a Pole Saw, but no listing for any chainsaw other than the 2 smoke jobs, they now seem to be equipped with all singing/dancing self adjust carbs, ignition etc. but you still have to have oil mixed in the fuel & the 4mix is the same, This is in SW France so it could be different in other parts of the world, but I doubt if a company like Stihl would miss an opportunity to not launch a radical step such as a 4 stroke saw, worldwide, Maybe it"s a bit like the Comet saw from Sweden some years back that was a Diesel, but you needed to be like superman to lift it + it rattled all your teeth fillings loose.Our guys keep thrashing on with the 2 smoke jobbies.

There was a firm near Alrewas that sold all manner of ex WD kit he had about 200 or more pontoons IIrc 20£ for 2 in the late 50"s also he had a stock of airborne lifeboats again 20£ & it came fitted with a marinised Austin 7 engine. My uncle built a pontoon conversion from 2 units, with a Ford 8 engine with gearbox & rear axle to which he fitted 2 separate stern paddle wheels, being rod brakes he rigged it with independent brake operation so it assisted the steering by slowing or locking one or the other paddles He & my aunt did many hundreds of miles over the 8 or so year he had it.

Not sure about the letters/numbers but SUC at Norbury sold a similar type in the late 60"s, the earlier type had 2 faults #1,the revolving handle used to pinch the skin of your hand between thumb & for finger as the revolving part was shorter & had a gap at each end "ugh". #2, the heads use to snap off, so the mk2 as it were came with non revolving handle & the webs on the head, as supplied the handle part resembled a newly gritted road " ugh#2" each batch i used to smooth the handle part, so it didn"t cause blisters. IIRC they were sourced for the hire fleet as the double sized heads =less windless"s to carry, as in those days BW repairs to paddle gear often resulted in different sized spindle"s at the same lock, they seemed to use what ever they could come up with.

1978 is quite a way on, in the pleasure/leisure boat building, i was involved in the building of steel hulls for leisure use at Shropsire Union Cruises, Norbury Jcn i started there in 1966, the first had wooden, then GRP, & in 1968 steel cabins.When I left to Hotel boat, Shamus Walsh was doing the steel work One of the first boats built was for Dr David Owen who wrote books & was generally into canal history etc It was named Rose of Sharon,although they had a wooden cruiser of the same name before that.

The wooden bottom strake & bottom were replaced in steel at Langley Mill dry dock in1988 the boat was owned at that time by Colin Pailin. IIRC the JP was the power unit at that time

This seems a bit confusing if the boat was built to the usual 6ft 10 & if the "normal " thickness plate was used to over plate = 6mm each side ; the 12mm converted to imperial would only add approx 1/2" so shouldn"t account for the 7ft1. Could it be they have left an extra wide protrusion when replating the bottom & this has been taken as the measurement for the 7ft 1, there are I"m sure lot of replated boats that happily cruise the system without jamming in all but the known pinch ones.

Looks to be one of the Perkins 4 10 range possibly a 107 or 108 usually pretty bomb proof & as far as i"m aware spares are relatively easy to obtain Of course a lot depends on what problems it has. But if it"s not seized & the bottom end is OK should not be to much of a problem to fix & get running

Possibly another contender, an early in his career effort by Jess Owen, my thinking behind this is, I bought 2 water cans that he decorated in 1964 or so, at the time we had the boat docked at Charity . I wanted a hand bowl as well but but he had non decorated, the next time we passed Charity, we were flagged down & handed a hand bowl that had been painted some time back by him & had a few battle scars, it turned out to have been a sample of his earlier work from his Braunston days, & is very similar in the design & style to the one in the photo,As Dave says it is in a style & some of the artist/painters work altered/evolved over time sometimes making it difficult to be sure who"s work it actually is.