TandC

Question: If painting over existing external paint, using the same colour/brand, do I need to use udnercoat first or can I just sand to key and apply my fresh topcoats?? I'm about to embark on the big DIY paintjob. I'm going to surface blast the roof and gunnels back to metal as there are large flakes and rust spots breaking through. On the sides, there is no rust, the existing paint is adhered. I am going to simply re-do the International Fire Red colour with black coachlines, same colour and paint. On the roof, I'm planning on surface blast then: x2 coats International primer, x2 coats International undercoat (PreKote White), then x3 top coats (Toplac). On the sides, which are far better condition, should I sand down to 240gt, then apply undercoat - if so, one or two coats? - Then x3 top coats.... or is that just a waste of undercoat - I key the existing topcoat to 240gt, then get three top coats on without udnercoat? I don't mind spending the money/time if it is worth it, but seems like it could be wasteful. Thanks, Tim

We gave ours a coat of vactan (rust converter) after a wire brush and scrape to get the worst rust off, then a couple of coats of bitumin paint (Toolstation is cheap) - you still get condensation build up on the base-plate so its good to give it some protection.

Andy Malpass at Eynsham (Oxford Cruisers) is good - they don't have a heated paint shed but use a paint tent thing. Another option, which my neighbours went with, is to do the preparation and base coats yourself, and just have Andy do the top-coat and get the signwriter in - a cheaper option. Patrick - I'm going to rent the Refina Surface Blaster (search this forum for 'surface blaster' and you'll find a post by me about in from the past - I cant remember which tool hire shop it was that has it....) - its about £45 for the whole weekend and is a serious tool - basically 5 of those Terco discs on a mini-angle grinder, with the benefit of a guard and dust extraction port, giving the 'shotblasted back to metal' finish. Seen various good comments on the results from fellow DIY painters. If, like me, you have to strip the whole roof and gunnels, but are too tight to pay Andy M to do the shot-blasting (he quoted me £300ish, no need to come out the water), then it may be a good option - save your drill! Cheers, Tim

I bought a 250w Perlight mono panel brand new for £170, with some connectors and 10m of 4mm cable for an extra tenner or so. All from a local firm here in Oxford. Then I acquired an EP Tracer 20amp controller with remote from a Chinese eBay retailer - it cost £67 and arrived in 3 days. Very impressive, albeit there isn't likely to be much in the way of future customer service - so in that case, you pays your money etc etc... A strip fuse inline holder, plus some 16mm2 cable to connect to the batteries. Job done.

I run a bog-standard slimline 240v fridge/freezer compartment as our situation puts us on shoreline power for a large chunk of the year so that is a no-brainer. Our 1000w Stirling inverter is there to run in when out cruising, and yes, having an inverter is handy for all those other charging tasks when out and about. Hijack alert: If I were to install some fans to help kep my 240v fridge cool in the summer, would you simply use 12v computer fans from Maplins and install a couple in holes in the wooden floor, drawing the cool air out of the bilge and blowing it straight up into the air space aroudn the back of the fridge?

Trackman - of course... that makes sense now. Thanks.

The controller will be located less than 1m away from the battery bank as i the only place I have for it is is in the engine bay. I got 10m of 4mm2 solar panel cable for a fiver, so that;s what I shall use from the controller to the panel (its about 5 m run max). Once the controller arrives (eBay china job.... ...) I will see what I can get away with. Thanks, Tim

Thanks all. I think it looks/sounds as if the terminals on the controller will only take up to 6mm2 anyway. Something as thick as 35mm2 wouldnt be possible. Seeing as its designed like this, I guess its going to have to be okay with the 4mm2 I managed to get.

4mm2? As thin as that? I don't know why but I was assuming it needed to be a lot thicker.... and same for battery connctions (thanks for the advice on the fusing).

Just a quickie folks - I've recently acquired a 250w panel and have around 4-5m from the panel on the roof down to the engine bay area where the controller will be mounted. For that 5m run - is 25mm2 (10mm outside diameter) battery cable suitable - too much? too thin to avoid significant voltage drop? And importantly to those who own the Tracer 20amp controller, what is the size of those terminals - is it possible to easily fit such thicknss cable, they look quite small to me..... Grateful for any thoughts. Thanks, Tim

Further to Julynian's post re. bed slats from Ikea - you can buy just the Beech laminated bed slats which are curved and springy. I can't remember how much, but I know it was cheap enough for me to do that rather than make my own slats. This is what I did when we built our bed last year. I don't have time to find the link now, but look on the website for beds and mattresses and you'll find them easy enough. They come on a sort of roll, the ends sit in little rubber sockets which are then attatched to a length of fabric tape. You can just screw the rubber sockets down, but i took them out and built them into a frame by routing slots. Works well, great ventilation, support and comfortable, pre-varnished too.

Does anyone have any other good recommendations for LED lights - I have 20w halogens which run the vast majority of the time from our shorepower, so this is 13.7v off the charger. They are the level of brightness and warmth. I have tried bog-standard LED lights from eBay/China and they were immediately removed as they're hopeless. I now need to upgrade. Im trying to identify what LED bulb will create the same brightness and warmth as a 20w halogen - any thoughts?

Definately a circular saw - gives best results. If you don't own one, and can't afford one, do you know noone you could borrow one from? They're a pretty common tool for most poeple to have lurking in the shed/front lockers. Maybe your boat yard will lend you one... or you can buy perfectly useable tools very reasonably and if you really are likely to be doing much woodwork with plywood etc then it will pay for itself. I had a cheap Wickes one for my first boat fit out and it did the job (although it's long gone now!). As others have said - the flat sole/base plate of the saw has edges that are parallel to the saw blade, so you can use that as a reference. If you clamp something with a straight edge to the plywood you are trying to cut, the right distance away from the cut line, you then run the saw along keeping the left hand edge of the sole plate running along the straight edge - as long as you concentrate and keep it flat against the guiding edge you will get good results. The trick is to have the guiding wood clamped to the left of your cut line, and if possible, so that the 'waste' piece of wood is to the right of the line - so the bit that would drop off after being cut (although it's better to suport it) is to the right, the bit youre keeping is what the guide is clamped to and the saw runs along on. This matters, as it means the thickness of the saw kerf (the 'hole' that the blade leaves is in the waste wood, not in the bit you want to keep. A circular saw can leave a cut as wide as 3 or 4mm. If you don't have a long enough straight edge as a guide - spirit levels etc - then the cheapest way is to use a piece of plywood, mdf etc around 6mm thick - using the brand new factory-cut edge which is dead straight - don't use a bit of B+Q timber as it will be bowed. Guarenteed. How do you know the right distance to clamp your guide edge so you get the cut in the right place? Measure from the edge of the saw sole plate - the left hand edge - to the saw blade. With the saw UNPLUGGED, turn it upside down, hold back the safety guard and measure - a ruler whose graduations start from teh very end/tip is best to do this with rather than a floppy old tape measure.... you need to measure to the edge of one of the teeth tips, not the flat of the blade, as the tips will often be thicker than the blade body. Make sense? I know off the top of my head that the distance on my saw is 125mm, for instance. If youre struggling to measure it, just take some scrap, draw a pencil line, clamp your guide to that line, run the saw in and make a cut. You can then measure from the line (edge of the guide wood) to where the cut is made - measure from the line, to the left of the saw 'kerf' (the cut itself will be a few MM thick so you need to take that into account - my saw blade is 3mm thick, so can make a difference to accuracy if you forget that). And if you want to make yourself a reuseable and cheap guide rail which will fit your saw, then for the price of half a sheet of 9mm MDF, you can make one of these: http://on.aol.com/video/making-straight-cuts-with-a-homemade-jig-120809424 All the talk about hand-sawing - yeah, maybe you can, but I bet that's not actually true...! Depending on how thick the plywood is, and how long that cut is - I would hazard a guess that the vast majority (and I include myself, a regular woodworker) won't get as good quality, straight, 90degree cut with a handsaw in a long cut on a full sheet. A circular saw with a guide as per above will get the best results.. Beg, borrow or buy one... hope that helps, T

Thanks for the comments so far - it seems hard to gauge....! Julynian - thank's for all the data. I appreciate it is difficult to account for all the variables. It seems that perhaps 2 x 200w panels would be in the right ballpark to supply enough for our fridge/icebox freezer run through the inverter during the daytime when we are invariably out at work, plus some use of the water pump and a few hours of lighting in the evening. I have seen that someone on eBay is selling Perlight monocrystaline 200w panels and they are in Oxford so no postage charges - if i can get two panels for £200 then I think that may be what I do. Has anyone had good experiences with a sub-£100 mppt controller - again, i guess off eBay ? I dont think I can spend much more than that.... be grateful for any recommendations. Ideally, one with some sort of battery monitor state of charge display.

Ah yes.... good point... 440amp/hrs....

Thinking ahead to the summer here as the floods have finally subsided.... We have a 240v fridge/freezer as for 6 months of the year we are mooring-bound, with shore power. We tend to cruise in the summer for a few days and then lay up for a week or so without moving, so we can still cycle to work. As a result, we don't run the engine a lot to recharge the batteries. We used to get by without the fridge, but that's a bit miserble.... so last year I fitted a 1000w inverter and when cruising, with the engine running, would run the inverter and fridge. But I'd then turn it off when we were static. This year, I wondered about fitting solar panels so we can run the fridge during the daytime, using the output from the panels. It's a bog-standard fridge, so when the compressor kicks in and the inverter is running it, I guess it probably draws aroudn 6amps. Sound about right? Roughly how many watts of solar panel output would I need to be able to run the fridge/inverter during the day?? Two 200w panels? Any advice much appreciated.

We suffered the same issue and it is a nightmare when you spend all the time and effort replacing only for it to go wrong again in just a year or so. I used high-quality panels - you can buy the cheaper sort which slot together, with about 200mm width each panel, and while the clip-together tongue and groove joint is supposed to be watertight, I decided that the most effective way was to reduce to the very minimum the number of joints. So the expensive sheets are 2m x 1m, thick and robust so do not flex which is critical to get a good seal, and mean that the only joints are at the corners, where you use plastic trims and silicone. Doing them in full panels does require you to actually have the room to maneuvere them into position though. There is also a special strip product called Sealux that the panels sit on and is then sealed to the shower tray - http://www.sealux.com/about_sealuxseals.html - its just a plastic molding with pre-applied 'masking tape' to help clean silicone beads - you fill the molding with a bed of sealant, 'glue' it down to the showertray, then apply the panels that sit in the molding on more silicone, then finish off with final beads as you would expect. Look on YouTube and there are lots of instructional videos. It's really important to prevent any flexing of the panels otherwise the seals can move and then you are scuppered. The most critical thing is to use the very best quality sealant - i've used DowCorning, the one with the maximum flex within it. It has a good mold inhibitor/fungicide. defo dont be tempted to use ScrewFix own or wotnot - you'll be pulling it out in a year. There are probably other industrial grade ones out there - but I know i've had good results with DC, as have others. What else? I spent ages using ethonol and clean kitchen roll to absolutely clean every surface before applying sealant to get the best fix. And last - being really disciplined about ventilation where possible - installing extraction, keeping the door open to allow drying air, etc. Invest in and use every time one of those squeeges to take off excess moisture, and I'm even anal enough to use clean toilet paper to dry off the silicone joins at the showertray after all that... of course, not every time, but I only have to think of the amount of pain and hassle it is to strip out the moldy sealant to motivate me to do it! hope that helps - it may not be the best or only way, but its working for us so far after a lot of leaks and a lot of moldy silicone.

Ditto above. We used PU coated acrylilc canvas to make our canopy. Good stuff to work with, but did stretch a bit more than expected. 5 years on it is still waterproof, but as we are moored under two big Ash trees we suffer from birds and leaf drop. There is quite signifcant lichen growth which expect will be a real bugger to clean off and will likely damage its waterproofing. I wish we'd used a smoother-finish material now, but that said, it's served us well so far. The company Acorn Canvas are incredibly helpful and great service - they sell all sorts of materials, window PVC, finishing tape, accessories etc - I'm not connected to them at all but my experience of their service has been great.

On my cruiser-stern the deck boards allow for additional air flow, on top of that from the louvered inlets, so I too did away with the canvas intake. The outlet was another canvas bag arrangement, so that too went in the bin and I replaced it with a couple of tumbledryer tubes to vent out the opposite louvre. It gets warm in the engine room, but its never overheated. The engine is blissfully simple, but having it thudding away underneath you is more expensive as it forces you to stop at waterside drinking holes more regularly for the peace and quiet!

Kae - that is fantastic, just what I was thinking of and at the right price. Thanks very much. As noted, they spend most of the time plugged into shore power so this is the ideal solution. Plus, we live under huge Ash trees so not much happening in the way of solar. Thanks for this - I shall pass it on.

Hello all, My neighbour currently has no other means of supplying 12v when he is moored alongside other than using his batteries, which every couple of weeks or so (they only come up at the weekend) they charge using a bog-standard battery charger for a few hours. Not suprisingly, his batteries are knackered. He's now realised this isn't ideal and wants to buy a simple and cheap battery charger which also provides a power supply mode. They spend a lot of time hooked up to 240v, (theyre in their 80s so don't do a lot of cruising, but do come up most weekends). I have a Sterling Pro Digital, but at around £250 that's a bit over the top for their needs. Is there another good, simple, cheaper way of providing charging which then flicks into power supply mode when fully charged? Any suggestions gratefully received. TandC

Well, progress was slow, but has been made of sorts.... I bought one of Screwfix's £30 multi-tool saws and using the cranked blade was going to cut out the wall linings which were covered in old tile grout - but I found that if used to cut up behind the old grout, the heat of the blade friction actually partially melted the old grout and it peeled away - it took a few hours but it meant that I cleaned off all the old grout leaving a much much smoother ply substrate onto which the PVC cladding can be glued, so that has helped already in preventing any flex in the shower walls. I am not going to use Aquapanel any more as I would lose too much space if i did all the walls, and to be honest, there wasn't a hint of moisture on them before so I think the PVC cladding has been working well, its just the seal at the bottom that needs to be cracked. Ive built a much more substantial wooden platform and frame into which the showertray fits with almost all horizontal surface, particularly the 'flange' and where it meets the wall, firmly supported. As a result there is now no movement in the showertray. It maybe a bit drastic, but I've then used fibre glass/epoxy to seal all around the edge, joining the showertray flange to the wall permanently. This has hopefully created a permanent watertight bond between showertray and walls in case the silicone sealant fails. I can still access the plumbing fittings from underneath. The next stage is to install 'Cladseal' - this sits over the top of the join between shower tray and wall - thereby hiding the fibreglassing, - it is a pvc trim which is screwed to the walls and a deep bead of (good quality Dow Corning) silicone inside the trim is used to bond it to the shower tray - enough that it will be flexible. http://www.pvc-cladding.com/proddetail.php?prod=Clad_Seal shows what it does. I think the benefit is that as the sealant is INSIDE the plastic trim, it means that it doesnt sit in the wet, preventing it going mouldy. I may be wrong on that one. I could add a final very thin bead of silicone on top of the cladseal, and this can be the 'sacrificial' layer - able to be removed every few years and re applied. The PVC cladding is then cut and fitted over the top of the cladseal trim. I am hoping that this will work, and that it will also provide a far easier way of carrying out maintenance in the future. Time will tell....

Thanks Pete - I' ordered a few tubes of that only yesterday so that's reassuring. I've decided to cut out the piece of ply lining which is covered in tile grout as there's just no way I can fix anything over the top which is going to be level. There are so many ridges that i'm pretty sure Aquapanel will just snap if fixed with any firmness. I'm going to cut out the ply using one of those multi-tool saws and refix a new section to the battens behind, giving me a smooth surface to work off. I'm not sure I really understand the expansion joint - isnt the point of an permanent upstand at 90degress on the edge of the showertray to prevent water running out?

Thanks BB. The PVC cladding is all sorted - I used clip together stuff last time which was fine - looks good, cleans well etc - only issue is the lines between panels inevitably allow a place for mould. This time I have splashed out (groan...) and bought the full size panels 1m x 2,4m which mean no joins other than in the corners. If there is a good bath edging strip that works with this stuff then that I should research more....

Ahh ha! Further research shows that there are 6mm backer boards available, specifically for tiling onto..... I don't want to tile onto it, but the benefit of this stuff is that it is supposed to be stable in damp conditions and would provide a solid substrate to glue the cladding too, smoothing out the bumps of the old grout. I could just about get away with losing 6mm from the back wall.... http://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod3919/Hardiebacker-250-Cement-Board-6mm.html Does this stuff just snap though if screwed against a wall where there is an obvious high point, or does it have any degree of flexibility? Thanks for the reply OldGoldy - in just not sure that silicone is man enough, it seems to fail after a few years. Is the MarineFlex silicone sealant also mould resistant? As that is another problem....