Tony Brooks
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Posts posted by Tony Brooks
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56 minutes ago, Lee Brook said:
Will see if I can find a something to stick on the acrylic to protect from the sun ☀️
I don't think it will be worth the effort. The adhesive could mess the plastic up more and faster than the sun.
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1 hour ago, frangar said:
What happens if you hit something underwater??...thats why you stand in the hatch....mind you standing in the arc does sort the gene pool so please do so if you prefer......
As long as the boat is moving forwards the rudder is likely to align itself with the direction of travel, there is very little to try to force it to one side, apart from the balance which in most boats will not exert anything like the force hitting something when going backwards will. I would always endeavour to stand outside the arc when using reversing, but that is occasionally not possible in certain specific circumstance, mainly to do with looking p the side of the boat from in the hatch and the position of the control lever. Not everyone has an antisocial style boat.
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Probably designed for use inside a boy racers customised car and pushed into outside use on boats. My guess is that they use acrylic rather than polyester, that has better resistance to sun, on cost grounds.
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11 minutes ago, Lee Brook said:
the mystery is why did the glass break in the three gauges,
Because it is almost certainly not glass, but plastic that was degraded by sunlight, making it brittle so only a little bit of pressure or a random knock shatters it.
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I think that you will find that they do specify the A, B, C rating numbers that are required for a given boat size. I think that you need to check that the extinguishers you choose meets the requirements. Without looking it up I think the BSS only specify A & B ratings.
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56 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Touch wood - never had a leak yet.
So you must keep the little drain kinks in the metal cover free of debris. Under certain conditions the cover can fill up to the large holes and cause leaking. However, I never had an actual leak either, although in driving rain it would splash up and over the plastic lip.
1 hour ago, Kneewax said:Hi again everyone, I have another question that is on the NQTS list (no question too stupid).
The project boat I'm working on has a number of solar vents (picture) on the roof but the internal ceilings have nothing covering the corresponding hole in the ceiling under them. Presumably there is a normal or standard grill or clear cap that should cover the hole in the ceiling but I've been unable to find the answer by searching. What should I be searching for online or at my friendly chandlery?
Ideally I'd like a cover that keeps letting the light in....
I had soem brass ones with a very open mesh in them, but I found these at Foxs chandlery
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2 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:
We don’t really understand the width of replacement for the sacrificial edge either. Grit blasting in preparation could show the base is thicker or thinner.
From the OP's later post there may not be an actual sacrificial edge to the baseplate, but there probably is. The plates in question seem to form part of an actual angled chine so long thin plates, set at an angle, between cabin side and baseplate. I think Norway (Stagedamager) was built like this.
I really don't like the way the surveyor seems to have missed the relavance of the 3.9mm reading on the baseplate (or perhaps chine plate).
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36 minutes ago, rd9002 said:
Hi all, just to clarify, it does have a slightly non-standard construction in that the side plate meets a sloping chine plate between it and the base plate. It's a specific construction for the shallow canal it was based on such that the boat can get closer to the banks (ex-hire so this was more important for hirers). Also to mention its a semi-wide at 8"6 (its about the maximum width we would consider, so if comparing data or thoughts, best to compare against narrow boats).
So, at last, non-standard construction, non-standard beam, and significant hull wear. Also only usable on our wide canals and rivers so can not pass between the wide northern system and wide southern system.
Vastly overpriced in my view, walk away.
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I am confused by the rudder wear points.
The typical narrowboat rudder has an up stand to about 3" above the waterline at the back with a hole in it to accept a rope when needed. This is the only part that contact the boat hull, but it does it at wear points where there is typically a D shaped rubbing band around the boat at uxter plate level. So you have the thickness of the D section steel plus the thickness of the hull plating. It is not in an area where shallow canals are going to produce any wear.
Any wear would be very local and I would have thought a few beads of weld would be perfectly adequate rather than 6mm plate, but the plate area to remake the wear area would be so small, maybe 50mm x 50mm or less, I would not consider that over plating, but would be expected at very extended intervals, so that would be routine.
I still don't understand the term "chine plate" because most narrowboats do not have chines in the conventional sense, which in NB terms would, in my view, imply a sloping section between hull side and baseplate. As far as I am concerned there is normally no chine plate as such, just the hull side welded to the baseplate in not far off a right angle, rather than an extra plate between the two. This is why I asked for photos.
I would be concerned about the baseplate thickness (if that is what the figures mean) at 5m from the stern because for fully comprehensive insurance many companies want to see a hull thickness of at least 4mm. Based on that this boat may only be insurable 3rd party, so more overplating than originally envisaged may be required.
Even though you like the boat, I think that I am in the walkaway camp - until this chine plate thing is clarified. On the basis of those figures you could try a £40 or £50 offer so you can pay for any over plating and have a bit of leeway to ask a cheaper price when you come to sell.
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4 minutes ago, IanD said:
Where are you? I've got (in London) a set of large RAL colour swatches you could borrow if you want to see what the nearest RAL match is?
If the OP is near Reading then I have the common RAL, and the two BS colour ranges swatches that he can also borrow.
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2 minutes ago, blackrose said:
And what's the best paint to use? I'd probably want to keep it the same blue colour so any parts I can't reach don't look odd.
Engine or machinery paint which does not need which in my experience does not need as much prep as ordinary enamel. On the fleet we used to scrape any flaking areas, apply degreaser, brush well in and the wash off. Scrape any flaking areas off and then paint.
We just painted the injectors, pumps, pipes, and ancillaries. I can see why you may not want to paint the wiring
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1 hour ago, Ewan123 said:
Why should the seller be entitled to free access to something that someone else has spent a few hundred quid on?
and as he was given the relevant parts why should he need or want to see the rest?
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Just now, Phoenix_V said:
The only reason for doing that would be in order to commit fraud which would be easily provable
Which has happened in the past. I would not want the OP to be coerced into be an unknowing party to it. I question why the vendor wants to see the whole survey rather than just the part the OP has given him.
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7 minutes ago, Graham and Jo said:
I had read about the grease issue, I am a reasonably competent engineer but I do worry about gas. Aren't you supposed to be qualified to take these things apart nowadays.
The only stipulation is that you are "competent" as long no money changes hands. The Gas Safe qualifications seem to be deemed to imply competence. One finds out if a person is competent after an event, but as far as gas taps of a taper variety are concerned I feel any engineer with hands-on experience of dismantling and reassembling things could do it perfectly safely as long as they checked for leaks from the barrel of the tap when turned on and off, and possibly the injector when it is turned off if you were super safety critical.
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I have lapped gas taps with a taper I thought looked a bit rough with Brasso before reassembling them with new grease.
I think City Plumbing have branches all over, but plenty of gas grease on Amazon and Ebay.
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10 minutes ago, blackrose said:
Not that the same thing couldn't happen if the OP sold him the survey, the two things are separate issues.
But it could if the OP let him take it out of his sight, photo it on a phone or copy it then use an OCR to produce the text that is then doctored. Either letting the survey out of the OP's sight or selling the survey to the vendor gives scope for such doctoring. I suggest one could lead to the potential for the other so they are related issues.
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58 minutes ago, Graham and Jo said:
I don't trust it to keep the gas in the pipe and not in the boat at this point.
I bow to our gas engineers, but that sounds like an expansion problem. If the tap is of the conventional taper variety then as long as the chap cleans and regreases it using the proper gas grease I very much doubt it would leak for many, many years. If it were mine that is what I would do, but take care to test the tap where the spindle comes out for leaking with gas test fluid.
Edited to add this further thought. Our gas cooker at home has a fan in the back of the grill cavity and as the previous one of the same make and very close model did not I must assume it is for cooling the taps and useless timer buzzer/clock. If yours has/had a fan is it still spinning and if not could it be gooed up with fat. The previous one insisted that you kept the grill door open when using the grill, the present one does not.
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33 minutes ago, cuthound said:
Won't the original and matching RAL touched up areas fade at different rates, so soon looking bad again?
Yes, I agreed with your statement, and then added the bit about using a colour chip fan to find a colour close enough to what his is now so he may only need a good clean down, abrade, and one or two top coats. If that is all that is needed than I feel he has a couple of weeks when he could still do it outside. Prep one day, the next leather the dew off and allow to dry. Start painting by (say) 10am, finish 12 ish then 5 or six hours before dew hits it again. I know that once masked up and prepped it took me less than an hour to paint one cabin side of a 54 footer.
Of course not a lot of use if he has to go back to bare metal in places
Edited to add, even if dew did make the paint go mat, it would only need a clean and rub down in the late spring to put on another coat.
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14 minutes ago, cuthound said:
Blues and reds fade quickly, so touching up with the same paint will be really noticeable if your paint is 15 years old.
A better strategy would be to repaint it, rather yourself or professionally although it is now too late in the year to do it unless you have access to a heated dock.
This ^^^^^^^
I may help find the original colour (but not what it now is) if you can beg or borrow a set of paint colour chips or colour fan. If you can get an RAL set it should get you close enough to not need undercoat.
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44 minutes ago, David Mack said:
Assuming no skin tank in the way.
Even if there is, there is no fire risk from the welding. It may require a small amount of re-welding the new plater to the skin tank sides from inside the boat.
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1 hour ago, IanD said:
That's true, but it's difficult to see how you'd get wear on the sides of the (tapered) rear swim -- the parallel hull sides above the swim/uxter plate are much more likely, maybe this is where the wear is?
I agree, we need more than just words
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52 minutes ago, rd9002 said:
Sorry folks, we're not 100% clear ourselves as the surveyor hasn't quite given the full extent of the details just yet. We'll absolutely come back to this once we're in possession of the full survey report.
So far, however, this has been a really useful conversation as it has clarified in our minds what is least concerning and what would be more of a red line, which is exactly the information we need to guide a decision going forward, so thank you all.
If the thin plates are on the sides of the rear swim, and if it is a cruiser stern or semi-trad, then a better way of avoiding over plating may be to cut the thin sections out and weld new pieces in. There is unlikely to be anything flammable on the inside of that area, only air, so an easier job than when there is insulation and the cabin lining on the other side of the hull sides. This may cost more than over plating but would not be over plating and as this applies to both sides I don't see how any future purchaser could be sure the boat was not built in that way.
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32 minutes ago, ForestDweller said:
I've just had a pre-purchase survey done on a narrowboat I was looking to buy from a private seller which has shown the hull to be in an unexpectedly bad condition and needing overplating, and so I'm not going ahead with the purchase. The seller has asked to see the full survey report, but I think it would only be fair to ask for a payment contribution from them towards the cost of the survey before sharing the full report. Is this fair or am I being unreasonable? (I have shared screenshots of the summary and relevant points about the hull)
As long as not showing it is not going to stop you getting any deposit back then I think it is fair to ask for a contribution to the cots, but if it might affect you getting any deposit back then you might as well let them see it, but I would never let them take it out of my sight. They might be copying it with a view to altering it to hide the defects.
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3 minutes ago, blackrose said:
But according to the OPs, replacement of the sacrificial overhang of the baseplate is not what's being proposed by the surveyor. They're talking about a 1 foot high plate on the sides and overplating of the baseplate at the stern.
I'm just going by what the OPs have told us Tony. They haven't seen the survey either, nobody has, yet apparently it's ok for some to conclude that this is just routine maintenance?
Both paragraphs now suggests to me that this may well be suggested over plating the sides rather than reinstating the wear edge on the baseplate, so probably will affect any future resale value, but as marine mortgages are now rare I can't see it affecting any future potential finance - as others have explained.
Webasto installation & solar upgrade - Derby
in Boat Building & Maintenance
Posted
@Yossi, If you do this you may find that the solar does not need upgrading because, unlike lead acid batteries, Lithium LFP batteries will take the full output of any charge source until they are full. After a vert short time lead acid batteries start to reduce the charge they will accept, so take many, many hours to fully charge. This means that from any given charge source LFP batteries will recharge far faster than LA ones and do not suffer sulphation that kills many LA batteries while having a far, far greater cyclic life. You can also use more of their stored energy without affecting their life, so less capacity is usually needed.
However, I don't think you should consider this a DIY job and is likely to cost four figures.