Mike Jordan

The round counter and springer mustach plate may mean that this is a boat built at Silby Mill using folded sections and rolled plates bought from Springers. The springer steel keel and side plate was made from 3 sixteenth inch thick plate and should be well past its best by now. For that sort of price I think you could get a new sail able shell with a new engine and windows fitted, much better to do that than strip out a thirty year old third rate boat and find that you have paid more for much less boat. I am reliably informed that second hand boats are very easy to sell at the moment and have been over the last few months. Even boats regarded as virtually unsaleable in past years are finding customers. After waiting 7 years to realise a dream it would be a shame to not to get it right! Better to my mind to have a new very basic boat than a budget boat from thirty years ago. Like buying motor cars you need to be very wealthy to buy ready knackered ones rather than wearing them out yourself. Good luck with the search Mike.

One method of obtaining the shape you need is to make a perimeter template using off cuts of ply or solid material. This needs to be full size and suitably braced so that it stays the correct shape while you use it to mark out the sheet material.

Dyson- high priced plastic made abroad by cheap labour.

I have seen one made of glass fibre with a decent oak look finish. I thought it was from Caldwells. A hardwood one would cost at least four times as much as the one on the featured advert.

It's a great trip but even better if you have ten days to do it in.

The doors that I have seen appear to be in sapele as you say, it's not expensive to buy but like many of the "mahoganies" it can vary hugely in quality, colour, and ease of working. Sheet materials with sapele and other red hardwood veneer faces are also not as easily available in my area as in the past. In short it's not as popular as in the past, perhaps because overuse in your lining out gives a coffin like darkness which is no longer fashionable.

I've only had to do it a long time back after a gear box failure, you really need a steerer on board and a rope fastened about a third of the boat length back from the bow. A rope about equal to the boats length will allow the boat to stay in the centre of the canal and should allow it to pass moored boats and anglers with some care on the part of both. It's best if the rope is secured to the roof handrail so that you don't swipe everything off the roof of any moored boats. Much easier to wait for a tow from a competent skipper passing your way!

I've used flotex carpet over 18mm exterior plywood with the edges protected by ally angle screwed in place with stainless screws. The Flowtex is guaranteed for twenty years and seems to do a full term. You can wipe your feet on it before going inside and the next shower cleans it for you (well nearly)

I suggest that the finish on decent quality birch plywood is much better than that on the far eastern type and looks good with a couple of coats of matt emulsion, 6mm is the minimum thickness I would be happy to use on the ceiling of a narrowboat, 9mm is better but difficult to fit if the roof has an average amount of curve. A wide beam roof has less curve in the roof and 9mm is worth considering. MDF is very good for making templates, jigs, and similar temporary jobs and with a timber veneer on both sides it serves well for door panels etc where the raw edges are fitted into grooves and are never seen. I have no experience with the moisture resistant MDF but see it mentioned in the timber trade press frequently, the dust from standard MDF is rated as dangerous so adding anything to it as a water resisting aid seems to be increasing the risk. Most sheet materials move to some extent when exposed to moisture, thinner sheets tend to show distortion more than thicker ones. In the winter your shell will be at its smallest while the sheets are taking up atmospheric moisture and expanding a little, for this reason, I prefer to leave a gap between sheets of 3mm covered by the cloaking strips. I don't think that 4mm would be thick enough for any material for ceiling lining and would distort to easily. It's never easy to decide what standard of materials to use since you are normally trying to get best results while not overspending the budget, but top priority must be to get the best quality of boat at the end of all that work, any savings which are visibly that will detract from your investment and turn your pride and joy into a budget boat. I will freely admit to a prejudice against MDF when it's obvious in the finished boat, those builders who make furniture, porthole and window trims etc using veneered MDF with moulded and varnished edges are working to poor standards, you can go boating in the resulting product and enjoy it but it will always be a cheap and cheerful boat.

But is he still using the horse and cart?

My first move on seeing this was to check the date, no that's not due until next week.

In the days when coal merchants delivered door to door using hundredweight bags, every lorry or cart had a sign that stated - all open sacks on this vehicle contains stones, soil, mud, dust and some occasional lumps of coal. This was some sort of legal dodge to satisfy the weights and measures man. I don't recall any mention of the fact that bags and contents were wet through. This was probably to keep the dust down in fairness, but you can't fault the logic of finding a market for rainwater, and it's very clever keeping it in paper sacks!

It's warm rain in September! The last Australian I met on a boat holiday was not best pleased by the very hot brilliant weather we were having at the time. He was an expat who said that it was hot every day at home and he was hoping for some real weather for a change.

I prefer padlocked with an isolation tap and label on the outside of the locker. It's only a deterrent to the light fingered, a fireman will only be delayed by a padlock for a few seconds if access is needed to the cylinders.

As with many jobs, selecting to right tool makes a huge difference to the ease of operation and the quality of the results. Jigsaws tend to cut a slightly wriggly line but this can be almost eliminated if using a quality tool with the right type of blade. I can recommend the use of a Dewalt W331K fitted with Bosch T308 B blades. The saw has 700 Watts of power and the hollow ground blades are intended for making a clean splinter free cut. Hollow ground blades are not suited to cutting tight radius curves but will have no trouble with the roof curve of a boat. The saws cost about £130 but are well worth the outlay, it's not reasonable to expect a £30 DIY tool from the local shed to give good results.

The most efficient way of getting the full shape of the bulkhead is to make a full size template using pieces of scrap 9mm ply or MDF screwed together to make a margin template. Lay this on your material and cut to size. As already mentioned a ready lined out shell is more difficult, it will need to be trimmed round to hold it in place, difficult to do if the lining materials are thin and provide little fixing strength. If you look in my photo gallery you should find some pics of a timber edging material which can be used by fitting it to the sides before sliding your sheet material into the groove, this might solve some of the problems. Doorways can be much narrower than you suggest and are often 21" wide at gunwale level (bearing in mind to need to possibly get appliances and furniture through!) Best of luck with the project. Mike.

I look on the sealed rear bulkhead as one of today's stupid ideas. I seems like a good idea to stop any water in the engine space running forward, but experience shows that water will enter the "dry bilge" area from one or more of the reasons already given. The problem is much worse on live aboard boats because of condensation caused by cooking, washing or simply breathing! After experiencing the problem on my second boat I now use the system of cropping the corners of the rear bulkhead to allow any water to drain back into the engine space for pumping out. The engine space can be kept dry by catching any drips from the stern gear in a container or a welded in area. Any leakage from beneath the cabin is soon detectable. I have never tried ventilating the dry bilge into the cabin since I think that air from the living space contains moisture which will then condense on the keel plate and ballast etc making matters worse. The remarks above about the condensation on a water tank and bow thruster etc seem to give substance to this idea. Any cold areas in the boat will cause condensation to form in suprising quantities, the cold water supply pipe from tank to taps is one such example, I always cover it with a foam sleeve to solve the problem. Having said that I plead guilty to still preferring copper pipe rather than the plastic material which may be the answer to this one. Best of luck with the fit out. Mike.

The items are going to cost you more initially and any problems are very likely to result in the supplier blaming the builder and the builder blaming the supplier. When the builder supplies a complete boat he is responsible for warranty work and dealing with equipment suppliers. As a one off customer you are not in a good place with suppliers who are normally interested in future sales.

You can buy the crystals from the local chemists shop or from eBay My firm rule is to keep it in the original box with the warning signs on. In any other container it looks very much like sugar crystals.

Yes I haven used it with success to remove black water staining from oak which has been allowed to get wet in outdoor use over a period. As previously mentioned it bleaches the timber back to its original colour. If you look at - WWW construction chemicals.co.uk there is a useful demo video of its use and hazards. Mike.

Like many things in boat building it can be done well and be a great basis for a lasting finish or very sketchily to get an appearance that looks similar. As a DIY task grit blasting must be the worst job in the world! Everything gets covered in a black snow of grit and mill scale which all needs to be cleaned up to allow you to see the workpiece to check it. This is particularly grim inside the shell but quite easy on the outer surfaces. I only did it once and it's a very memorable job. This is probably the reason that some yards will settle for a swift peppering of the shell with grit to get an even texture rather than a proper job. On the last occasion I built a shell a specialist contractor blasted it it what he referred to as Swedish white, I don't know what this refers to but it meant a really good job to my eye. To do the job well the paint needs to be applied immediately to ensure that no moisture gets near the steel, even putting a sweaty hand on it should be avoided. If you are paying for it, inspect it before the paint goes on, is my suggestion. Mike.

Ref Blackrose & Condensation Ive made a good number of double glazed dog boxes for narrow boats and the larger versions as deck lights for dutch barges. The glazing is made up as - 4mm toughened X 6mm spacer bar X 6.4mm laminated clear, the glazing is set flush with the top surface of the opening lights. I have not to date recieved any reports of condensation on the undersides. In fairness the glazing of the Houdinis seems to be no problem, its the alloy surround that drips. It's possible to cut vent slots in the top lower edges of a dog box to give high level ventilation but I can only recall having done this on one customers boat. (photo is in the gallery). Mike.

My opposition to the use of Houdini hatches is based on the number of times I have seen them cause problems with condensation dripping from the alloy frames. One of my local live aboard friends became desperate enough to have a thick slab of polystyrene and a purpose made cover mounted on top of the hatch for the winter months in a largely futile attempt to cure the problem. If you are happy with yours then I am pleased to hear it. During the summer months they allow a nice big hole in the roof for ventilation but in winter some form of secondary glazing is needed for live aboard users. Mike.