36national

Or by way of variation. There's a bloke sat outside a pub in the rain holding a fishing rod with the line dangling into a puddle. A drunk staggers out the pub, looks at the fisherman and asks,"how many y caught ?" " You're the fifth," says the fisherman.

B'locks !. its teak, Utile as a treatment might be better than i know however after 30 years in science labs, and after seeing hundreds of meters of the stuff scraped by by subcontractors refurbishing science labs and replacing it with an ugly composite called TRESPA (who wont let you pinch a bit of the left over benchtop to make a garden table coz its contaminated waste) who ain't really selling it on anywhere nudge nudge wink wink, ITS TEAK

what job ? the link refers to varnish its up to you but varnish tends to age and crack. this means you gotta sand and re-coat. If you use oil or polish all you gotta do is re oil or re-polish.

Old school workbenches or even "old school" workbenches if used in science labs as opposed to woodworking shops were made of teak. This is because all the nasty chemicals you used to be able to use in chemistry lessons couldn't destroy the fu**er. To me (in the sanded photo) teak looks like what you got. I'm a chemist not a woodworker. I take it the indestructible element is good. Acetone will clean it but even though its an aggressive solvent it not attack it (hence the use in chemistry labs). I have used danish oil on teak (don't varnish, it looks nice but the wood is harder wearing than the varnish which defeats the object) but been told that Tung oil is better. oh yeah and you won't plane it, just try

wow i can feel a new toy coming on

Has anyone done the Ribble Link in in a boat with draft 2 feet six? Nicholsons suggests a 2 feet 3 max.

google "wigan flight crew"

the paddle gear was bent by the boat and wouldn't close. After the boat had sunk the paddle gear was straightened and the paddle closed so the boat could be refloated. The photo must have been taken after this.

if your original post means are you paying a premium to own a boat with a vintage diesel then i think probably not. Look at brokers websites, such boats tend to move slowly, coz not many people want them. The boats that sell quickly are the more modern, cruiser stern, ideally suited for a week out with the family type boats hence the old chestnut "something is only worth what someone else is prepared to pay for it." Peeps buy vintage diesels coz they love em, but the market is limited, knowing that it could ultimately be a cripplingly costly / ruinously expensive / ultimately impossible task to fix em if something goes badly wrong. Many people can't be bothered with that kinda grief. Swap my "suck, squeeze, bang, blow " for an izzzzzzuzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuu id rather die. When i was looking at boats i thought i just wanted a boat. Then I looked at a boat with a Lister JP2 and my parameters changed. If you want to watch some engine porn type "ecco narrowboat gardner engine" into youtube.

i used blackjack, pig of a job. I left it open for about a week to air before filling but a few days after the first fill i noticed a film on top of the water so i skimmed it off. did this before the next 2 or 3 fills before it completely went but there was no taste and i aint been ill so never mind eh

woo hoo congrats too is that stanley bridge manchester? in the interests of keeping away from your stern fender (ramming spike) i will stear clear of manchester from now on. Which lets face it was part o the plan anyway where you headed

lifes a bitch innit

Assuming a fully laden working boat can carry roughly 35 tonnes of cargo then its maximum carrying capacity would in the region of 60 000 pints of beer so I hope your not going for more than a week or so. The advice on beer and a spare supply of beer and stopping of for extra beer is good but have you considered an emergency supply of beer ? Best get a couple of bottles of sherry for the shelahs, (one for the front and one for the back coz everythings always at the wrong end of a boat) but please don't overdo it on the sherry coz you wouldn't have to start rushing the beer just to stay afloat. Get the beer right and you wont need to give a four X about anything else.

When i was looking for a boat I talked to an awful lot of people, many with an awful lot of experience of living on the waterways who knew shedloads about boats. Brokers, continuous cruisers, marina owners, surveyors, e bay sellers, one who had never not lived on a boat who answered the question "what are the questions I should be asking?" with astonishing succinctness and clarity. I eventually bought through a broker who seemed to know jack. In my opinion they would have been happy selling anything, motorhomes, package holidays or trips on a hot air balloon. They didn't know how to start the engine (it is rather old) wouldn't let me speak to the vendor (maybe the vendor wanted it that way), didnt let me see previous surveys (maybe they didn't know they were in existence) I remember a dangly brass lamp being pointed out as "worth at least a hundred quid" (yea that's great now tell me about the hull). They did do a very efficient job of organising the dry dock and handling the transfer of ownership and added an air of legitimacy to the sale. After all handing over tens of thousands to a bloke whose address is a couple o hundred yards down from lock 24 towpath side but I'm moving on Wednesday is a bit of a bottle job. Ultimately a broker had the boat I wanted but i did a lot of checking up myself and wasn't overawed by their expertise, and was prepared to walk away from my deposit if things got smelly coz I didn't think that they'd be much help.

I tend to agree with Peter's comments about the quality of your photo. A cracking picky of an all action lockie in industrial yet strangely tranquil and picturesque surroundings. I do think its rather a shame that you chose to airbrush the subject, ie the magnificent narrowboat entering the lock, out.

the motorway bridge is flat. I cant remember Lumb lane bridge but AMAZINGLY theres a photo of it on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Canal#/media/File:Ashtoncanal2.jpg and yes its flat

yes you almost certainly will, o course it depends upon the level in the pounds but i did that route about 3 months ago. I USED to have a little forward pointing light mounted on a stalk on the roof of my boat, it made it through Harecastle OK but one of the bridges on the Ashton bent it back to an angle of about 60 degrees. I remember thinking "if it dont go then it dont go but I aint gonna stop and mess about for that" Poor light. Anyway Im pretty sure that it was the motorway bridge No22 that did that coz it was just round a corner which did not allow for much decision making time (excuses) and the next bridge, Lumb Lane Bridge is mentioned by Nicholsons as the lowest. Just to be unhelpful, im unsure of my exact air draft but its not significantly above average. You thought about going back to the Trent and Mersey and doing the Bridgewater ?