BEngo
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Posts posted by BEngo
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Allow yourself plenty of time. Rushing whilst single handed is high risk game.
Don't go on if you are tired.
Beware of 'helpful' people. They almost certainly won't do things in your routine's own way.
Always keep one eye on your boat.
Mind your head on the Northampton flight lift bridges.
Practice mooring up a few times between Whilton and Gayton. Most of the way its a good towpath edge and an ideal place to get the hang of it before you hit the river, which is not always so well edged.
If it goes dark and becomes very wet you have probably missed Gayton Junction and are in Blisworth Tunnel. You can turn round at the far end.🙂
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Might this have been the raw materials for some 'gunite' works?
Gunite is/was the trade name for the sprayed concrete stuff used to strengthen masonry bridges and avoid the need to re-point the masonry. Much has been removed, as at the bridge south of The Galleon in Wolverton. I think the bridge at Target Turn still has its layer of Gunite.
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If it is new paint on ( sound) old paint then you are relying on a mechanical bond. Once flatted off you need to ensure that the surface is grease free, clean and dry ( panel wipe) before painting.
If you're subsequently putting extra coats on then it's the same plus you need to be quick enough to get a chemical bond as well as a mechanical bond.
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4 hours ago, David J Smith said:
Can anyone advise me where I can buy those roller bearings, please?
Try Bearing Boys or Erik (was Fenner) online. There will also probably be a bearing stockist/supplier in one of your local industrial areas. Google will help.
Be aware that you get what you pay for in bearings. SKF and RHP are much dearer than generic far east stuff but will last a lot longer in highh load applications. For a sliding hatch the China made stuff will probably do.
If you want a particular size, bearings are defined by their outside diameter, inside diameter and thickness. Metric and Imperial sizes are available.
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On 15/05/2025 at 09:32, jonesthenuke said:
it's my understanding that the starter should not spin until engaged with the flywheel (the rotor moves axially and closes the main power contacts).
This is correct, as far as it goes, but a little more happens.
When the solenoid closes the initial contacts the magnetic field causes two things to happen :
the armature is drawn further into the stator, as it does so
the armature revolves slowly, in order to help engagement.
In the last stage of engagement the rotor mechanically closes the main contacts and the armature spins at full power.
If the armature does not get all the way forward, the contacts will not fully close, leading to low power and burning of the contacts.
There should be a gap of 9/64 in between the face of the pinion and the face of the ring gear, to allow all this to happen.
Somewhere I have the Workshop manual for the CAV BS5 and BS6 starters.
The pictured commutator could do with a good clean, ( rag and meths,fine sandpaper if you must; never emery or wet and dry) and it has a few ridges which would helpfully be skimmed off.
The brushes also need a looking at- they are under the hooked end of the curly spring near the long edge of the end casting.
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If it is a 28mb butane device, running it on 30mb French butane can be expected to make it fierce. Gas flow will be up by about 7% and the gas velocity througb the jet will also be increased, so the flame speed will have a lower margin to keep up with the gas. It may well tend to lift-off the burner.
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A (:UK) mains gas hob used on ( UK) lpg will not be happy. UK mains gas pressure is 20-23 mbar and UK propane gas is 37 mbar. The higher pressure of Propane will cause flame instability and lift-off, and often extinction, at normal settings, output to be too high at lowest.
There are also differences between the calorific values of Methane (mains gas) and Propane, and differences in the burn rate of the flame front.
IIRC you need less Methane to get the same amount of heat, but because of the lower pressure, mains jets are bigger.
Hence LPG jets are different!
I have no idea what EU LP gas pressures are but would expect them to be similar to UK.
Have a look at the appliance rating plate. That should tell you which gases it is designed for, and what pressure(s) they should be at.
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44 minutes ago, Jonny P said:
I took the post to mean that such locks wouldn’t routinely have weired through both ends working together as they do today because the gates would be left open by departing craft and therefore would weir at one end or the other. I don’t think it was intended to suggest the locks were normally left in an empty state with the bottom gates open.
As such the phenomenon of having a small head of water above the top gate would not have been so prevalent.
My intent was as Jonny suggests.
Provided the lock was reasonable frequently used, it would be left full about as much as it was left empty, which I would guess would be sufficient to keep the sammel damp.
In modern times, provided the bottom gates are closed after use, and the leakage rate is not terrible, the flow of water over the paddle culvert weirs should eventually fill the lock. Thus keeping the bottom gates and lock side-puddle damp and helping their longevity. A lock with a side weir will tend to leak toward empty, leaving drying bottom gates.
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8 hours ago, Jonny P said:
The sub-discussion in question was specifically about locks that weir through the ground paddle culverts and into the lock, and then over the bottom gates.This particular behaviour being a fairly modern thing. In commercial days the bottom gates of an empty lock would be left open and the weiring would only be at the top. Similarly, for a full lock , the top gates would be open and the weiring would be over the bottom gate(s).
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The normal set up ( as on the Grand Junction and other Rennie canals) is that nominal weir level is set by the paddle culverts. Water flowing down weirs at the top of the ground paddle culvetts and flows behind the paddle into the lock. If more water is coming down than the paddle culverts can handle, the excess goes over the top gate beam. This is usually a little above culvert weir level. If the top beam of the lower gate is below the top beam of the upper gate there is a water level difference across the top gate and it is hard or impossible to get open.
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Typically, an injection bend will be part of a marinisation kit, designed and cast/fabricated by the mariniser.
The Sabb GG is a purpose built marine engine so the original injection bend was probably a Sabb part or maybe a bought in item from a mariniser. Good luck finding another one🙂 Fortunately they tend to be simple items so fairly easy to fab a functional teplacement.
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Nice week's trip. Do go to Welford, at least one way.. The pub on the wharf at Welford was good last time we were there.
Good pubs in Crick, Welford, Foxton. Market H is nice but a bit of a downhill walk from the moorings.
Avoid being at the top of Watford overnight! ( under the M1)
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1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:
In other cases the top level of the bottom gate is marginally lower than the top and so a normal state of overflow. I have also read that some locks relied (and still do) on the inevitable leakage around gate posts.
I think you will find it should be the other way round- the bottom gates top beams are slightly higher than the top gate upper beam. That means the water can flow freely over the top gate which is then easily opened.
Lock 12 on the Aylesbury Arm is the way you describe and if there is water running it can be a real so and so to get open, especially travelling down hill. The somewhat counter intuitive answer is to lift all the paddles and run the upper pound off until the water level is below both sets of lock gate. That of course does not do much for the situation at Red House, the next lock below.
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Coppaslip or any MS2 containing grease.
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56 minutes ago, Francis Herne said:
What is the offside vertical post of a single gate called? On twin gates it would be the mitre post, but a single gate isn't mitred!
I have heard it described by BW employees as the breast post.
Perhaps the folks to ask would be the guys at Bradley workshop- one for the next BCN Explorer visit?
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Easy to weld or braze 9one up using malleable iron fittings which are available from plumb centre an other plumbers merchants.
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When out, do not forget the rudder tube. More often neglected than even the bow thruster tube it is a real PITA if it rusts through.
Look after it.
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Useless fact of the day:
Cutting fluid is a really odd emulsion.
Emulsions are an oil and water mixture. In most emulsions the tiny drops of oil are surrounded by the watery substance. In cutting oil it is the other way around. Tiny drops of water ( and corrosion inhibitors and other stuff) are surrounded by the oil.
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1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:
With that steel bar above the paving slabs, I don't know how you would get them out without breaking them up.
Well, they went in somehow.
I suspect the steel bar is angle, and sliding the slabs sideways will enable them to be lifted.
If so I would do this, check the bilge below, dry, clean and paint as needed and then replace the slabs on floor tile spacers.
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Glass against the frame with a circular cross section seal on the inner side was quite common in the 80's and early 90's.
Any leakage from outside past the glass should emerge from the frame drain hole shown in your pic.
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I went with the Mrs, an accountant friend and his wife. All of us found it to be an interesting visit, well worth the hack down the M4. The head honcho, Paul, was most helpful and started the Sulzer, even though it was not on the day's running list.
Thoroughly recommended .
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The generator Proteus is pretty impressive, but my favourite is the single cylinder blast injection Sulzer. (25 hp?)
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The supplier names that come up commonly for decent service are Tayna, and Shield Batteries. Both have a range of qualities and types. Very little is UK made, but many brands sell the same far eastern products, albeit with a variety of wrappings and claimed capacities dependent on how the vendor choses to measure it.
The advent of auto-stop/start motoring has made AGM batteries more common. As ever with Lead based batteries mass is a good guide to what you will get.
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Airless paint spraying
in Boat Building & Maintenance
Posted
There are a few professional painters who spray- The operation at Hillmorton is/was one of them. They tend to use two-pack paints, so are hard to compare with brush/roller alkyd paintwork.
Either way, to get a good and lasting finish a controllable environment is important. Air temperature, steel temperature, humidity and dew point are all important. Moisture you cannot see will give problems later.
There have been a good number of boats through the wet dock at Circus Field over the last 10 years . I would guess that start to finish for a back to metal repaint is going to be 6 + weeks. After the initial labour of preparation, most of the rest of the time is spent watching paint dry! The professionals try to have more than one boat on the go, at different stages, so as not to have idle time. To a one boat at once ammerchewer the difference in time between a spray coat and a brush coat is going to have very little impact on the overall time.
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