My new project

[Kendorr]

Had nice weather yesterday so decided to put some ballast back in. Used some engineering bricks for the first 3 bays, the old broken up paving slabs will fill the rest, but that will wait for another day.

 

Somebody mentioned using the garden netting to create the air space and it appears to be a good call.

[Kendorr]

Ballast back in, foil insulation on top and reclaimed 25mm marine ply loose fitted.

 

[David Mack]

5 minutes ago, Kendorr said:

Ballast back in, foil insulation on top and reclaimed 25mm marine ply loose fitted.

Where do you find reclaimed marine ply?

[jonathanA]

your doing such a lovely job.

 

I'm sure you have thought about how you can add/remove ballast once you are fitting out and maybe adding weight  (e.g stove) on one side.

 

good luck and keep putting up the pictures/progress. 🙂

[truckcab79]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Where do you find reclaimed marine ply?

Somebody could have had all of mine. All removed and 95% of it was totally rot-free. Tried to offer it on the Marina WhatsApp but no takers so it went to the skip unfortunately. Guaranteed 5 minutes later someone wants it. Not cheap these days either.  . 

[Kendorr]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Where do you find reclaimed marine ply?

Facebook market place, at £10 for a 5*4 sheet of 25mm and £10 delivery, 6 sheets were a no brainer.

 

49 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

I'm sure you have thought about how you can add/remove ballast once you are fitting out and maybe adding weight  (e.g stove) on one side

I've removed quite a lot of weight, boat used to sit at 27", with what I've put back in she should sit nicely at 24". There will be a stove going in and I've got a few metal weights to be used in and around to trim the float balance.

[Kendorr]

Cladding from above the gunwales all taken down and disposed of. A little bit of surface rust here and there, but we are looking in very good condition for the age of the boat ( 35+ years old ).

[truckcab79]

Nice. Nothing a bit of Vactan won’t sort. 👍

[magnetman]

Looks like a lot of fun. Not my bag but know people get a lot of pleasure from doing this. 

 

I once had a Boat which had a carpet over a plywood floor. I removed the carpet to put down finger parquet. There was blood everywhere in the plywood. 

 

I still wonder what had happened there. No bodies were discovered. 

 

Undoing other peoples work is always quite interesting. The Ship I currently own has a lot of concrete ballast in it. I sometimes wonder if the blokes wife is in there. 

 

 

[Mad Harold]

On 15/10/2023 at 18:58, magnetman said:

 

 

I'm sorry if you are taking the interior out - thats exactly how I would want a small narrow boat to be inside ! 

Me too! It looks very rustic and varnished wood looks nautical as well.If it was mine

I would leave it as it is.

[magnetman]

13 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

Me too! It looks very rustic and varnished wood looks nautical as well.If it was mine

I would leave it as it is.

 I secretly rather like nautical confinements with a bit of varnished wood about. 

 

This is my current punishment in that regard. Solitary confinement has its advantages ! 

 

 

 

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Kendorr said:

Cladding from above the gunwales all taken down and disposed of. A little bit of surface rust here and there, but we are looking in very good condition for the age of the boat ( 35+ years old ).

When I stripped out Belfast's mid-1990s back cabin the inside looked much the same - a single coat of primer mostly intact and only light rusting, despite the insulation between the t+g lining and the shell being nothing more than a few haphazardly placed bits of 1" expanded polystyrene. It would have been fine to clean up and repaint, except the reason for stripping the lining was because the cabin was completely the wrong shape for a Big Woolwich, and was to be replaced. More expense...

[truckcab79]

50 minutes ago, David Mack said:

When I stripped out Belfast's mid-1990s back cabin the inside looked much the same - a single coat of primer mostly intact and only light rusting, despite the insulation between the t+g lining and the shell being nothing more than a few haphazardly placed bits of 1" expanded polystyrene. It would have been fine to clean up and repaint, except the reason for stripping the lining was because the cabin was completely the wrong shape for a Big Woolwich, and was to be replaced. More expense...

Stripping our Springer walls currently. Looks like it was painted yesterday. All the red oxide intact. Faintest hint of rust spots here and there even in the shower. Toilet area had a corroded skin-fitting and even where water had run down the toilet walls for years only the slightest rust pitting. Been amazed how good it is.  Found a couple of mouse nests mind. 😂

[Mad Harold]

2 hours ago, magnetman said:

 I secretly rather like nautical confinements with a bit of varnished wood about. 

 

This is my current punishment in that regard. Solitary confinement has its advantages ! 

 

 

 

That's not a narrowboat!

It looks like the living room in my house with a decorative steering wheel nailed to the wall. 😝

[Kendorr]

Basic wiring loom installed, upper walls insulated, upper wall panels all cut to size and the 2 bulkheads prepared and temporarily fitted in place.

[blackrose]

On 08/02/2024 at 08:45, Kendorr said:

Somebody mentioned using the garden netting to create the air space and it appears to be a good call.

 

 

I'm not sure. As well as providing an air gap the idea of putting spacers between the baseplate and ballast is also to allow any water to run to the stern so it can be removed. Once it's flattened under the weight of the ballast wouldn't garden netting create separate cells that would prevent water flow? 

 

Having a sealed air gap is better than nothing I suppose, but how's water supposed to evaporate - where can it go?

 

On my boat the ballast sits directly on the bitumen soaked cloth stuck to the baseplate which is just about the worst way to do it.

Edited 22 hours ago by blackrose

[Francis Herne]

28 minutes ago, blackrose said:

On my boat the ballast sits directly on the bitumen soaked cloth stuck to the baseplate which is just about the worst way to do it.

I'm not sure about that, if it's keeping the bitumen squashed onto the hull.

On BCNS' workboat Phoenix, the open hold was floored with oak planks bedded very firmly onto a layer of tar on the baseplate. When we prised one up (not easy) to have a look, there was no sign of internal corrosion at all after 25 years despite the hold usually sitting with an inch or two of rainwater in it.

 

[unfortunately the external corrosion and wear was quite bad so a lot of work was needed anyway...]

Edited 22 hours ago by Francis Herne