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Onewheeler

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Posts posted by Onewheeler

  1. Well, it's feasible to get from Brentford to Lechlade in under a week but it would take out a lot of the pleasure. My favourite spots would be Cookham (visit the Stanley Spencer gallery), Wallingford, Abingdon and Oxford, all with free moorings (not necessarily "official" ones). It's very pretty above Oxford but not many moorings near nice pubs once you're past Wolvercote - mostly Greene King tourist "destinations" until you get to Lechlade. I prefer the lower river. Kelmscott is worth the visit if you can stop on a day when the William Morris house is open (and it has a nice pub about ten minutes from the river). 

  2. On 23/04/2022 at 14:49, Onewheeler said:

    I've done the crossing to Lydney. Go out from Sharpness about 30 minutes before high water, the tide will take you upstream a bit but the Lydney side reverses early and you'll have a gentle ride down to the harbour entrance. Coming back leave a bit before high water and go straight across. Don't do it on a very high tide or in a high wind.

     

    Don't forget to book the harbour gates at Lydney! Check that someone is there before setting off. You'd feel a right plonker if you arrived and found them shut. Only alternative then would be to go down to Portishead. VHF marine is useful to maintain contact with Sharpness (or other places in an emergency). And, basically, don't even think about going up the river to Gloucester. It might be an idea to call SARA and see if they fancy launching one of their boats to accompany you as a training exercise. At least you could hand them your camera for a photo!

  3. I've done the crossing to Lydney. Go out from Sharpness about 30 minutes before high water, the tide will take you upstream a bit but the Lydney side reverses early and you'll have a gentle ride down to the harbour entrance. Coming back leave a bit before high water and go straight across. Don't do it on a very high tide or in a high wind.

     

  4. On 03/04/2022 at 12:04, bizzard said:

    Excellent stuff is self amalgamating tape, and really for a permanent job. It needs to be applied with continuous gentle stretch for it to self amalgamate properly. On the odd occasion that I've had to open it up I gently slice it longways with a craft knife.

    Also worth remembering that self-amalgamating tape breaks up after longs exposure to UV. It's good practice to overwrap it with a good quality insulating tape.

    • Greenie 1
  5. On 03/04/2022 at 12:04, bizzard said:

    Excellent stuff is self amalgamating tape, and really for a permanent job. It needs to be applied with continuous gentle stretch for it to self amalgamate properly. On the odd occasion that I've had to open it up I gently slice it longways with a craft knife.

    Even better if then covered with Denso tape, but you'll never want to remove it!

  6. 1 minute ago, callumboater said:

     

    Sounds like it could just be needing new batteries then. I will go get details of batteries currently have, and have a look at power output from them. 

     

    Trouble is we are only moving one day every two weeks, and a away most of the day, so often no chance to run the engine.

     

    The wabesto has always needed engine running to work. Or at least to start up. the engine on its own doesn't heat the water. 

     

    You may have an automotive Webasto which needs more volts to start than the marine version. Ours is reluctant to start after a couple of days moored off shore power (but plenty of charge left), and needs a bit of a boost from the engine to get it going. (And before anyone chirps up, the connections are fine!)

  7. 4 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

     

    I have no idea what you are describing. The springy metal makes it sound like a relay to me, not the solenoid. The solenoids have a literal bar of copper that is in no way springy. The solenoid armature pushes this bar against the heads or the two copper "bolts" that form the two main connection terminals.

     

    I think the end/contact cover on an axial starter is held on with just  two screws so can just be taken off but the small BMCs never fitted such starters.

    It's the part that makes contact for the high current to the starter motor. Very crude when it was dismantled. Yes, a relay.

  8. 18 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

     

    I have never seen a per-engage starter solenoid that had mechanical fixings for the solenoid coil wires, all were soldered to the energize terminal on the cap and a metal plate under the link terminal to the motor itself.  Yes to the two screws.

     

    I can't work out any other way of doing it without much expense and the likelihood of greater unreliability.

    I can't remember the ins and outs, but undoing the two or three screws on the end cap enabled access to the big bit of springy copper or brass which could have the contact points filed clean. I think the big bit of springy metal came out with the end cap, but it was twenty years ago...

  9. 1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

    Only any good if:

    A. the solenoid cap is secured by screws and no swaged.

    B. the OP has the equipment and knows how to de-solder the relay coil connection son the cap, can re-solder them, and takes great care to refit the cap correctly.

    It depends on the model. On my long dead BMC the contacts could be removed with the end of the casing with a couple of screws once the big cables have been disconnected. Can't remember the details but no soldering needed.

  10. On 01/04/2022 at 14:29, magnetman said:

    Tidal river with a long foreshore. 

     

    Best option would be dredge out and pile a proper dock but maybe not allowed and probably rather expensive. 

     

    Ore deliver the throngs of football hooligans by landing craft. 

     

    I was dragged up within 100 m of Fulham FC. In those days the site of the luxury flats immediately upstream was used by lighters which tied up on a well-dredged wharf. (The warehouses burned down in around 1972, always wondered what started the fire).  Indeed, the whole stretch upstream almost to Hammersmith Bridge was used as wharves.

  11. 2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

     

    Low-background steel is any steel produced prior to the detonation of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s. With the Trinity test and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and then subsequent nuclear weapons testing during the early years of the Cold War, background radiation levels increased across the world. Modern steel is contaminated with radionuclides because its production uses atmospheric air. Low-background steel is so-called because it does not suffer from such nuclear contamination. This steel is used in devices that require the highest sensitivity for detecting radionuclides.

    One source of low-background steel is ships constructed before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German World War I warships in Scapa Flow. Old freight cars are another source.

    Since the cessation of atmospheric nuclear testing, background radiation has decreased to very near natural levels, making special low-background steel no longer necessary for most radiation-sensitive applications, as brand-new steel now has a low enough radioactive signature that it can generally be used in such applications.

    Yes, I used to have a couple of tons of it in my lab that had been recovered from Scapa Flow. Underneath we found a very well pressed copy of "Top Busters", which may not be relevant here. 😮

  12. Chances are high that she'll need some overplating and welding, but that's normal for a boat of that age and needs to be factored in to your budget. Our barge is a similar age and there's always some hull work needed at docking. The engine at 44 kW might be a bit low powered but unless you're planning on taking it up the Rhine it should cope with the Thames (looks like the Thames from the pictures, but can't place where near Oxford unless it's an assortment of places - some of the pictures look like Oxford Cruisers at Eynsham).

  13. On 09/02/2018 at 21:04, David Mack said:

    Don't know if it's still about, but I believe the steam plant was replaced with a diesel engine some years ago.

    Just found this resurrected thread. Firefly was converted to run on an air-cooled Lister about twenty-five years ago. We viewed her when she was up for sale in around 1997 (Wilton marina?), a clean but very basic fit-out at what seemed a reasonable price (around £25k if I recall right). 

  14. 2 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

     

    Can't advise on a new machine but can say with a degree of confidence that this might just be a blocked filter or a pump jammed with something like a paperclip.

     

    Our domestic washer was jammed with a piece of curved steel about the size of one of the wife's undertits. Buggered the pump completely.

     

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