Matt Biss

Hi I have brought two guns, the first one was from Srewfix it was £10 and not much cop in the long term. the second was about £25/£30 (made by Fischer) and after a few years (insulating cabin by cabin!) is still working. The one now for sale by screwfix looks better than the £10 one I brought from them, I suspect they have given up on the cheaper types. I would also recomend getting some of the solvent/cleaner stuff and either leave the gun full of foam with the can attached or, if leaving for more than a few days (maybe a week), screw on the solvent and flush out the foam and leave it completely clean! One other thing worth a mention, not all of the foam is fire rated so it might be worth checking especially if you might need to do any welding near by! Good luck if you go for it Matt

Hi Stuart Have you thought about using spray foam, applied with a gun as opposed to the straw things that all diy places sell. Screwfix sell the gun and canisters that screw onto the gun, although you may be able to buy cheaper from a proper builders merchants. I used sheets of foam type insulation and glued them into place with the spray foam which I then used to fill the gaps and cover expossed ribs etc. Applied with a gun you have a lot more control over the rate of flow than with the single use type can. The trick seemed to be to run thin beads of the stuff rather than trying to lay it on too thick. This sort of illustrates it! I later covered the triangular plates with the foam

Hi You could try Cygnus Instruments who make thickness testers that look very simple to use and can "see" through paint I didnt use one in the end but Cygnus gave me the number of a company who will hire you one at, I am assured, a very reasonable rate. In the end I trusted the 2.5 pound hammer I had been hitting the boat with to remove the scale and rust! Matt

Hi All First post here. I made our porthole liners in 6 sections using a router (with a homemade jig set up so the router describes a circle) and a mates band saw, lots of work but very satisfying. I cut out most of the wood with the band saw and then finished off with the router. They are rediculously heavy duty, nearly 4" deep and when the plywood facing is put up there is another circle made up of 6 sections of iroko to frame the liner (so I dont have to be too carefull cutting out the ply!) Matt