kevinw

That would be a Morris 8. My father had one and he used to start it with a set of U2 batteries (D cells, in today's parlance, I think) between the SW connection on the coil and the positive (earth) of the battery and then turn the engine over on the starting handle. Very hit and miss. Kevin

I bought some bits from them just last week. I found them on the web - can;t find the paperwork just now, but had no problems. Kevin

Can certainly vouch for the quality and style of Graham Edgson's boats. We looked long and hard at shell builders when we had Jasmine built and really wanted one of Graham's shells, but couldn't get the logisicts of when he could build us a shell, when the engine would be ready (reconditioned Russel Newbery DM2) and the fit out to work together. So rather reluctantly, we had a shell built elsewhere that incorporated may of our requirements - which it turned out - were typical of a Norton Canes shell and why we liked Graham's boats so much. Net result four and a bit years ago, the boat came out at something like £2200 per foot, but is everything we could ever dream of having. And entirely agree about these dreadful "designer" boats that keep appearing! Kevin

This is going back four and a bit years to when we had 'Jasmine' built. It's a 70 ft trad and the Amtico is all the way through, apart from the engine room, which has a painted floor. Supply and fit was in the region of £1000 - £1200. The boat was fitted out at Bluehaven in Hillmorton and we used their usual carpet fitter to lay it. Looking at Google and searching for Amtico comes up with many suppliers. I've been looking for a picture of the boat, but all the internal pictures I have are before the floor was laid. We've been very pleased with it and would thoroughly recommend - in fact, we've been thinking of replacing some laminate floor in our house with it. Kevin

We have our boat fitted out with Amtico on the floor. This is a very hard wearing artificial wood - some form of industrial plastic. It's the sort of stuff that is used in shops and offices and so should be very hard wearing. Ours is in Cherry with narrow black "caulking" strips that gives a very good effect. Also has the advantage that it is warmer to the feet than wooden laminate and isn't affected by temperature or damp. Usual disclaimer. Kevin

Luckily, it seems, it is on the side nearest the oven, so a long way from anything that is likely to catch fire. The rear cabin around the range is lined in what I think is called "Masonite" - the board stuff that looks like it contains asbestos (but hopefully isn't) Sounds like a bit of fire cement to stick it back together. Thanks, again Kevin

I've just re-read my original post. I should have said that the crack has extended to an extent that I can remove a complete section of firebrick. It is temporarily fixed in place by judicious wedging and a bit of high temperature silcone (which is nowhere near adequately rated, I know). Kevin

I've obviously built the fire up too quickly at some point. We've got a Premier stove / range in our back cabin, used to keep my legs warm this time of year and baking potatos (sp?) in the oven. The middle firebrick has had a crack in it for a while and has moved very slightly forward of the steel edge of the firebox, allowing ash, etc to get down behind it. My feeling is that it is probably better to replace the brick(s), rather than a repair - am I right in thinking this, or is a repair with fire cement going to be OK? I can't fathom out how to get the bricks out - does anyone around here know how much of the stove I am going to have to dismantle? We generally burn small smokeless boiler nuts on it, so it doesn't really get that hot and the firebox isn't big enough to keep the fire "in" overnight, so it enerally only burns for periods of about 12 - 16 hours at a time. Thanks in advance.... Kevin

Hi - I'm new around here (but been boating for years and years), so please be gentle with me! This is my first post. When we had Jasmine built, we were advised against a washer dryer as the driers are generally condensing driers (you wouldn't want all the steam / water vapour inside a boat) and fresh cold water is used to cool the condensor. We really wanted the traditional Candy Studio model as these are by repute boat proof, having little or no electronics inside them. We couldn't get one of these as they were seemingly out of production at the time (but now available, I think) and so we fitted a Zanussi studio compact. Low power, fairly quick and almost silent in operation. It is, like most, cold fill only and in EXTREMELY fussy on electical supply. We've got a Mastervolt 3.5kVA genny and digital controller and found that this needs to be set up to perfection for the washing machine to work, otherwise the electronics in the wahser resets itslef, or the genny digital control goes into panic mode and shuts down. It will, however, run very happily on our 2500 W invertor (also Mastervolt, pure sinewave) and, obviously, on a land line. As its preferable for us to run it on the genny, we have found that with the genny set up exactly per the Mastervolt manual, we can get the required 230v 50Hz that the washer needs, provided we have no other inductive loads being powered by the genny at the same time. Kevin