alan_fincher

It's hard to know what advice is appropriate I think when we don't know the details, (including what stove, how hot current tiles are getting, and particularly what is behind them). Whilst tiling over will, as you suggest, only reduce the separation from the stove by a small amount, the quoted 2" at the nearest point already sounds far to little for most normal circumstances. I reiterate my fear that if you change from a white preselective tile to something dark, far more heat may well be transmitted into whatever is behind them. Certainly when we changed white tiles on a previous boat to a "terracotta" type of shade the tiles were far far hotter to the touch when the stovew as being run than they previously had been.

That in itself would worry me, but I suppose it depends o the stove, how hot it runs, and exactly which part of it is that close. I very much hope it is well insulated behind the tiles. Having taken down tiling on a previous boat that was morethan double that distance from the stove at any point, and found fairly charred plywood behind it, the kind of proximity you are quoting is worrying. How hot does the surface of the tiling get? Think carefully about changing to a darker colour, as the darker you go the less heat is likely to be reflected, and the hotter the tiling islikely to get, putting what is behind it at risk, unless there is very good insulation there. This is never something to be gung-ho about, not that I am suggesing you are!), but people have died because they or their boat fitters have made bad decisions when installing soves.

Can you explain exactly what you have? It can't just be a standard SmartGauge, surely, as these just connect directly to the battery bank with a quite thin gauge 2 core cable, and would normally have just a single low value fuse in line. Where (exactly!) is the 20A fuse connected to in this set up.

Kendorr's advice seems good. Things to consider: You couldn't anyway buy a "fancy mountain bike" for £500. With a few exceptions that is about the starting price, and anything less isn't a mountain bike. About the best around, and one of the few at sub-£500 is the Calibre Rake. http://calibrebicycles.com/bike/rake/ However I think this is unique to Go Outdoors, and as buying bikes seems to be a thing at the moment I'm not surprised it shows as out of stock. But as Kendorr says a hybrid is probably the best compromise though what is most suitable for roads will not be equally suitable on a rough tow-path, where a mountain bike is often a more comfortable ride. However unless you are somewhere where the tow-paths are very quiet and no moored boats, you will find yourself fairly unpopular if you ride on them much at all. Our local tow-paths have all been signed by CRT to discourage people using them for exercise.

Perhaps more worryingly "a small displacement in the tunnlel's concrete lining" wiuld imply that the feature being investigated is in the pert of the tunnel fully rebuilt in the 1980s. That doesn't sound totally impressive - hopefully it will not materialise into anything worse.

"Small number of woirking boats that still live on the canals"? There are several hundred surviving, not that small a number, surely? As for "carrying coal from London to the Midlands", wasn't that a bit counter-productive, as the norm was the reverse of that? ?

Ah - didn't realise that picture was from that article! For what it is worth then, NarrowBoat Magazine has also said it is Ted Ward when captioning that photo. The picture immediately below it in that article clearly shows the same person, and also says it is Ted Ward.

Well there is a picture of the same chap on page 1 of NarrowBoat magazine Spring 2009. He is wearing an identical shirt, the same cap, and the same ungarees, and is also on the "Badsey" which is the correct boat for Ted Ward at this time. It is captioned as Ted Ward, and looks like Ted Ward. So whilst I feel cheeky arguing with a member of the family, I still think it is Ted Ward in that pictured. What I can't immediately work out is which lock it is. Does anybody recognise it, please?

Top picture(Left to right): George Ward (Snr) Ted Ward (son of George) Johnny Best "Uncle" Ted Ward (brother to George) Linda (nee Ward) (daughter of George) (Linda Treadwell at the time of her death a few years back). Bottom Picture Ted Ward No that's definitely Ted Ward

The (aluminium) alloy windlasses I have seen break have all snapped where the head attaches to the handle, and all have visibly had imperfections in the metal that could only be seen once they were broken. We have had the heads break off two of the long handled "Walsh" alloy windlasses, but so far we have never broken a short throw one. Can't now find a picture, but the metal had an impure "crystaline" structure in the middle of the breaks Whilst it is great to have something that is light to carry, I can't help feeling that aluminium alloys are not really up to the task - or at least not if the quality control is no better that it sometimes seems to be. "Back in the day" when Southern GU locks still had the big 1 1/4" spindles I did use to use one of those cast bronze offerings on a regular basis. Whether I was lucky of not, I don't know but mine neither bent nor snapped. I still have it somewhere, (although I'm not currently sure where that "somewhere" is!).~ ~

Wrong thread, possibly?

I have seen the head snap off a Dunton Double when being subjected to not particularly hard use, so although I own one, I'm now less enthusiastic about using it on a regular basis. (I'm even less enthusiastic when I look at possible replacement costs should it end up in the cut!) That doesn't look like the usual standard offering for those things. The ones I'm generally familiar with were clearly cast in exactly the same moulds as were used to mass produce cast iron single eyed windlasses in the period around the 1970s - the kind that were almost ubiquitous to hire boat fleets. The one pictured isn't the same. I'm not suggesting it is any better - just different.

Same boat, same licence, but with tenfold increase over 10 years? Really? Please tell us what the boat is, what you are paying now, and what you reckon you were paying 10 years ago! I think you will find you are wrong, (by quite a lot!).

Well actually, being pedantic, it depends how one chooses to post such details. Whilst posts being visible to just "friends", or maybe "friends plus friends of friends" may be more usual, it is equally possible to make posts "public" so anybody can see them, whether "friends" or not. As it happens I can see Jim Shead's posts and photos, but I'm not a Facebook "friend" of Jim Shead, so he has actually made many of his posts public, (whether that be intentional, or by accident). Thanks for starting this thread, because it has caused me to find a rather nice photo of a working boat pair taken in 1968 at Hillmorton, where there is a reasonable chance that the Willow Wren motor boat in use s our "Flamingo". It's not a picture I have seen before, and it to me a lot more interesting than what Jim may or may not have eaten recently (!)

He is definitely on Facebook as obviously him - narrow boat features as his page header. He was being sent birthday wishes by many people last August, so it seems likely he is still very much about.

It may well be that those with the small spindle size are really too small to fit many of the modern spindles. I have certainly had old cast windlasses where that applies. I think you will find the "small" eye of most modern two eyed windlasses is generally somewhat larger. Without some kind of reducer in them any old large eyed cast windlasses are not much use in many places other than on the Ham Baker gear unique to the GU Birmingham main line, and are otherwise really only an exhibit piece.

Update from my friend who now has the necessary Bluetooth equpment to allow him to check system settings. He reports it was indeed thinking it was a 24 volt system, so he has now reset it to a 12 volt system. Charging now at a much more reasonable 14.1 volts. It is not clear how it got it wrong in the first place, and I have advised hm to keep an eye on it. Thanks to all who contributed ideas.

Blimey, I did wonder, but didn't realise it had lost its shine. Thanks Pete! Well spotted - I missed that!

This was spotted by a friend heading East from Devizes on the K&A. I was asked if I know what it is, and I don't. Can anybody help, please?

That is surely not correct? I'm sure I have done it in the past, and thee seem to be plenty of available articles that suggest you can go from Vista to 10 in one go. Whether the hardware will be good enough for 10 is another matter, though!

I admit that might just have happened once or twice in the distant past. But I'm much wiser than that now, and it ain't going to happen again! (Possibly ?!? ?)

The problem here is that you are making this sound like a FUN thing. The BCN Challenge, if done properly, shouldn't be fun!

Particularly if you do choose a surveyor, get a favourable report and then end up having to replace the whole bottom and quite a bit of the sides! Not that anybody would be that unlucky! ?