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nb Innisfree

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Posts posted by nb Innisfree

  1. How about a two part connection twixt anti cavitation plate and lid, large dia short section of tube welded to AC plate and same with lid, tube would have a shoulder so that both sections would fit together, large dia would ensure stable and secure position- 

    Unscrew lid bolt, and remove top plate, lift out AC plate. 

    All this assumes that there is enough vertical clearance to insert/remove two short sections. 

     

    Tubes wouldn't even need welding provided they can be securely positioned before replacing lid and lid has proper sealing round the edge. 

  2. Just for the record I designed Innisfree's heating so that the Mikuni heated the rads & calorifier via a two pipe system, it could also be run from the engine coolant via a diverter valve + engine could be preheated by Mikuni (handy in cold weather) 

    Engine could easily run CH using its inbuilt coolant pump. DHW was provided by engine or Mikuni or immersion heater, stove didn't have a back boiler as it would have been too complex to integrate it into the CH circuit and provide a gravity system to protect against stove runaway.

    All this necessitated the system should be unpressurised, it ran like that with no issues. 

    Quite a simple system in the end which involved a lot of complicated planning & novel ideas! 

  3. FWIW I designed &  installed a locking mechanism for Innisfree's engine cover to be operated from inside the engine bay, so I cut a 5" square hole in the steel bulkhead to reach in from inside the back cabin, lined it with plywood & fitted a sliding hatch, it doubled up as a fire port so I had a co2 extinguisher handy. 

  4. Once Innisfree was rotating in the early stages of a turn (full blast of power to  initiate rotation with prob about 3 to 40 deg of rudder if memory serves correctly) then applying full reverse would almost stop the boat but rotation would remain the same thereby tightening the turn considerably. 

  5. With Innisfree prop walk wasn't very noticeable when in reverse unless near piling when it seemed to go in the opposite direction most of the time, I eventually came to the conclusion that the prop helix when in reverse would bounce back off the piling and hit the swim and push it away...but sometimes it could go either way or neither, it seemed to depend on water depth and shape of canal bed near the pilings.

    I could never reliably guess which way it would go, so just adjusted to behaviour at each occasion. Very complex. 

     

    ETA: It also depended on which side the piling was on, if on the stb side prop walk would often be conventional, but then again depth of water and canal  bed blurred the results. 

     

    Witchcraft

  6. I designed my own wheel steering on Innisfree (60' nb) direct mechanical linkage, 2.5 ish turns lock to lock, in practice afloat it was spot on.

    Only thing I changed was to fit a knob to the wheel, positioned at 12 o'clock when straight ahead + drilling another hole in the rudder plate to give a different radius and alter the wheel loading.

    Placed the steerer out of the way and gave more room for passengers, great in rain or hot sun as the steerer could stay under the pram hood.

     

    ETA: Just remembered, I eventually ditched the wheel and replaced it with a simple crank and knob knocked up from a piece of ply decking, even better. 

  7. Innisfree (60' narrowboat) 1st engine was 33bhp, enough for rivers but if batteries were in bulk charge the 100amp 24v alternator took enough power to bring max rpm (theoretical 2k rpm) down to about 1750rpm from 1950rpm. 2nd engine was 40 bhp @ 3k rpm (reworked prop)  and had a few bhp spare at full alt output so was ok, we only ever used max rpm for emergency stops (narrow bridges & oncoming boats!) 

  8. 12 hours ago, LadyG said:

    It's only relatively recently that smoke alarms have been widely used in domestic situations

     

    Bought our first one in '84/'85 after attending a grim fire scene, very unusual to have one in a house then & not seen for sale to general public. When they became cheaper some time later and I decided to fit one in each bedroom (TV in each) my colleagues thought that was over the top, and that was from firefighters, funny how attitudes are fixed by convention. 

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