NB Siskin

[Steve Goddard]

Andy arrives bright and early and ready to go. I've decided that the first thing to go up is the ceiling so we spend a little time in measuring the boards we have and deciding how to arrange the joints. The boards are actually long enough to do the complete ceiling in two pieces which is impressive. I can either align all the joints in a single line and put a beam over it which is probably the simplest way or I can stagger the joints long-long, short-long-short etc etc (if that makes any sense). Given that the battens are only 18mm birch having a single line of joints in the middle of the ceiling may cause some real problems in getting the joints to lay flay as fixing less than 9mm from the end of the timber will probably split it so the decision is made to go down the alternate route so that an end joint is supported by full boards either side of the joint.

Andy gets on and starts to cut the boards to length and I get a string line down the center of the boat. The boards give a 100mm cover and there are 13 required to cover the ceiling so that means that there will be a central board. Blow I've set the string line up dead on the center line so I need to move it 50mm to one side so that I can line it up down the side of the board. With that done we fix up the first run taking lots and lots of time to ensure that it is perfectly straight as all the other boards will line of this one. When that's done we can start on the next runs.

Now I've made some little wedges out of an offcut of 18mm ply. They're about 50mm wide, 120mm long with a compound angle cut across them. It's a pretty simple job to lift a board into place, hold it up with a couple of plasterboard jacks (courtesy of Aldi at £11.99 : ) and then screw the wedges to the battens. With a little tap of the hammer on the wedges and the boards are cramped up really tightly ready for nailing. I think both Andy and I are really impressed at how well they work. We're using 16g x 1 ¼" brads which seem to be just right and hold the boards really well. The only down side of the whole process is that it's really awkward bending over backwards to make certain that you're actually getting the nails in the battens and not missing them altogether (it wasn't me honest). Once we've got a couple of boards up and can get a decent sight line they look bloody straight. It's now just a case of repeat and repeat (just like a good curry really) working our way across the ceiling and come lunch time we're half way there which is great stuff.

During lunch Andy has a real problem holding his water (if you'll excuse the expression). First of all he decides his tea is to hot and will put some cold water in it. About 10 l I reckon and at least 5ml may have gone in the cup the rest going all over the floor. Then he decides that rather than place the cup to his mouth to drink that he'll attempt to throw the tea in from about a foot away. Very entertaining if not a little messy .

By the end of the day we have the ceiling up with the exception of the outside boards which will need cutting down a bit and as the days are getting shorter and I've still not rigged up lights inside Siskin we decide to call it a day and get the boat cleared up ready for a fresh start in the morning. The first "real" bit of fitting out is done and even if I say so myself it looks bloody good.

Next morning dawns and we're at it again. First thing is to get the last four boards cut down and fitted. The ones at the back are easy as they can just be ripped to width and fitted but the front two are a little more difficult as they need profiling. However they don't take that long to get sorted and up.

Next is to start on the sides. We decide to do the sheets under the gunwales first as these are the easiest. The sheets are 12mm birch ply and will have the 15mm bead and reed fixed directly to them. All we have to do is to rip the sheets to width and the job is almost done. When we put the knees in (all those months ago) they were set at 2′ centers so the sheets should fit at full 8′ length. As it turns out we need to trim a little bit off two of the sheets to get them to fit to the middle of the battens but the boards go up real easily. We've only held them in place with a couple of screws as I have to take them off to paint the backs etc but at least I can manage that on my own.

The sheets above the gunwales are another story all together. First of all the battens are not always in the right place as the verticals were put in where ever they were needed to ensure the sides were straight. This is not an issue if you are going to board the sides but causes some complications if you are going to sheet them (note to Simon put some extra verticals in for sheet ends if the cabin is being sheeted). It is also further complicated by the fact that I'm going to use some Rosewood faced ply as the final finish and I've only got six sheets which is one sheet to few to be comfortable. Andy and I spend some considerable time figuring out how to layout the sheets so that I have enough Rosewood ply to cover the areas which need doing and that we end up with the ends of sheets on battens. In the end we reckon that we've sorted a way to do it and get the 6mm birch ply cut. I'll get this all sorted then cut the Rosewood ply and glue it to the birch to give a final 12mm thick material. We have one joint which falls in between battens and we reckon we might be able to get away with it using a sort of butt strap arrangement but as you can see from the picture that's not really going to work too well so I'll trim the sheets back to the nearest batten and put a short piece in place. I still think I can get the Rosewood ply round it. At the end of the day we've got all the lining up and even have time to clean up afterwards. A really really good two days work and the inside of Siskin is really transformed.





I finished off all the sheeting underneath the gunwales today and it is now permenantly fixed in place never to come off in my lifetime anyway. The last couple of bits to go on were two small sheets which stop at the end of the tug deck. Pretty simple except that they needed a little relief to clear the last set of knees which are starting to pull in with the curve of the bow. Not a big problem just trench them out on the table saw. The problem however is getting the riving knife out of the way as it will not drop down far enough to clear the top of the blade (I guess it's a Health and Safety thing) so I end up having to take it off which is a real pain as my hands at too big to fit in the little hole around the blade. I spend more time sorting the riving knife out as I do trenching the sheets. Oh well

With the obligatory coat of cuprinol and paint the sheets are ready to go on but on the stbd. side I need to sort out a bit of conduit for the ULV cables where they go from the trunking under the gunwales to the space under the tug deck. It is held in place by the sheet and looks nice and tidy.I'll sort out what happens from here on when I start work under the tug deck.

The next big job is to start to laminate the rosewood faced ply onto the cabin sides. A job which I'm facing with some trepidation as there is absolutley no room for error and it's something I've never done before. The easy bit is to cut out a piece of rosewood ply the same size as the ply it's going to be stuck to (or at least this is the case for the first bit, some of the remaining pieces are much more complex). I'm using Titebond II to stick it down as it is water resistant, has a short clamp time of 30 mins and is pretty high strength. Rollering it on with a paint roller is a strangely satisfying experience. It's not like paint at all and has a sort of gloopy feel (I think I need to get out a bit more and mix with some real people ). It's then loaded into a BIG plastic bag and connected up to the compressor to suck all the air out.

Hang on suck the air out with a compressor, that can't be right . It is however, as a little venturi in the line maintains a credible .92 atm. of vacuum. The equivalent of 25 tons of weight on a full 8 x 4 sheet and more than enough to do a good job of holding the sheets firmly together. It's at this point, however, that I realise that there is a little fly in the ointment. In order to maintain the vacuum the compressor is running most of the time and as it is 3HP is draws nearly 13 amps and I can't put any other real load on without tripping the breaker . This includes the kettle so it is an unmitigated disaster. Because I'm a cautious person I also want to leave the ply clamped up for at least 1 ½ hrs. to allow the glue to really go off so it's down to doing anything that doesn't need power while the compressor keeps chugging away in the background. When I do take the sheet out it looks really good and certainly seems to have stuck well. There's even time to do a second piece which is a real bonus as I had only expected to be able to do one piece per day



Good News, Bad News, Very Bad News, Good News, Bad News, Bad News, Good News
Well… the sheets I've laminated up seem to have worked really well. As far as I can tell they have stuck like…. well you know what There's just a little bit of trimming to do round the edges where the Rosewood overlaps a bit. I bought a little Stanley block plane off ebay a while back for less than a tenner and spent some time fettling the body and sorting out the blade and it goes through the ply like a knife through butter. With the first sheet cleaned up I can't resist lifting it up to see what it's going to look like . It's going to look great. Good News

With the two sheets inside the boat I make a start on the next one which is the most complex of all of them as it spans both the galley and the bathroom, needs to be 2 ½" longer than a full sheet and has six separate pieces to be laminated I get all the bits cut out and decide to have a dry run before I glue up. Good job I did as the bag will only just take a full sheet and won't take my over-sized one. Bum bum bum that means I'll have to do the last bit with mechanical clamps. Bad News

I get the four bits that I can get to fit in the bag glued up and fire up the compressor. This is not good, it is really struggling to get up to pressure and hold it. It's too late to do anything about it now as the sheets all glued up so I leave it struggling away for 45 mins which I reckon is the shortest time I can be certain that the glue has had a chance to set. Visions of wrecked compressors keep springing to mind given the fact that it was running flat out for nearly four hours the day before . Somewhat dispirited I clear up and go home. Very bad news indeed

Saturday morning arrives and Good News Rob arrives with all the Bead and Reed for underneath the gunwales. It's all cut to length and primed what a star . Good news. The bad news is of course that without a compressor I can't fix it as I have no air for the nail guns .

I load it into the back of the car and head over to the boat armed with some compressor oil in the vain hope that that will sort the problem out. When I've got the timber into the boat I pop some oil into the compressor and fire it up. If anything it's even worse as it won't even close the unloader valve. There's nothing for it but to load it into the back of the car and get it back to the workshop and strip it down. Bad News

I get all the covers off the compressor and pull off the head and what do I find? One of the poppet valves has given up the ghost. This is actually good news indeed as a: it should not be too costly to fix b: it's pretty easy to fix. All I have to do now is to get a couple of new ones and bolt it back together again so at least the week ends on a high

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

Damn it’s over a week since the last post. Where has it gone. Well some of it was waiting for the spare to come for the compressor. There was no issue in getting a new valve at a very reasonable price of 99p. So reasonable that I got two and replaced them both . The fact that the postage was £2.60 seemed a little steep but the overall cost could have been a lot worse.

With two days out I managed to catch up a little on some of the other stuff that needs doing and finally got back to the boat on Wednesday. Exciting times as I’m putting up the first bit of finished woodwork which is the front bulkheads. If you remember these were made out of some solid rosewood that I “planked up” to get the width. There’s a little bit of cutting and fitting to do especially on the stbd. side where the light switches are going to be.

I’ve been looking for the right sort of light switches for ages and had not been able to find anything that I liked. I was looking around Aber which is being fitted out at Debdale and there were the perfect switches . I asked Mike where he got them from and he said he had had them made specially but he had some spares so I’ve got a set. Woo hoo (all the holes will be filled with switches honest). With the switch in place and the first bulkhead up I’m a really happy camper . Do it all again on the other side get a coat of varnish on the timber and the first bits are in. I can’t help just sitting in a chair with a cup of coffee just looking at them (well any excuse to sit down and drink coffee )

While all this has been going on I’ve been gluing up more side sheets so I can then make a start on them. There pretty easy to put up if the truth is known at they were all cut and fitted before I laminated the rosewood ply onto them so it’s only a matter of drilling some holes for the fixing screws, cutting any holes for cables to come through and banging them up. It’s reasonably easy with the smaller sheets. Just lift them up onto the little tags screwed to the stringer. Hold them in place with my shoulder while I get the first screw in and then go round putting the other screws in. The only job left to do after that is to cut out the portholes. I’m doing this with a little ¼” router and a pierce and trim bit from Trend. It’s simply a job of putting the router somewhere over the middle of the porthole (best to measure this before you put the sheet up as I have found out to my cost), walking it out till the bit reaches the polo and then round you go.Simple job really Four screws to make certain the sheet is tight to the polo and the jobs a good ‘un. With the first couple of sheets up you can start to get an idea of how it’s going to work out and I’m pretty pleased about it. More varnish and that’s enough for the day

Day starts off much like yesterday sorting out the next sheet to go up. Just to show that you’ve never really finished with spray foam I need to cut some out to clear the box for the electrical socket that’s mounted above the work-surface. It’s not too big a job but yet again the boat is full of offcuts of foam oh well.

The next sheet to go up is a bit of an odd one. Originally I had got a joint between two sheets which did not fall on a batten. The intention was to put a butt joint in but when I looked at it it seemed a recipe for disaster so I cut both of the sheets back to the nearest batten and put short piece between the two battens so that everything was properly supported. The only issue with this is that now the rosewood joint falls on the short piece and I can’t laminate it up off the job so it’s going to be done when I fit the large sheet. With the sheet all sorted and glued up in the necessary places I can get it into place. A ceiling prop across the boat helps to hold the sheet down while the glue sets and a raft of short stainless nails around the edge make certain everything is nice and flat.

There are two more sheets to go on the port side. Now that this one is up I can measure the last one up and get it laminated and while that it sorting itself out I get the last but one sheet ready to go up. There has to be a slot cut for the light switch by the door from the bathroom to the engine hole so I measure it up and cut it out. You know what it’s like when you’re leaning back and congratulating yourself on what a good job you’ve done and all of a sudden you realise that you’ve cocked it up. I do now . For some inexplicable reason I cut a hole for a three switch plate not a two switch plate. Bugger. It’s not insurmountable but I would have preferred to do it right in the first place.

With this sheet up and the portholes cut out there is only one more sheet to go up and above the gunwales will be sheeted but will still need the panelling done. Another day will see the sheeting up and varnished and the we can move onto something else.



Ok had a day away from the boat today to try and sort out the design of the heating and water system. One of the things that I’m trying to do is to make the thing as energy efficient as I possibly can from the electric point of view. There’s a growing realisation in the domestic market now that the amount of electricity used by the circulating pump and the diverter valve is not insignificant given the amount of time that they are running. In the boat environment they may not be running as long ( unless you are a permenant live aboard) but of course energy is restricted so it does matter.

There are lots and lots of really efficient circulation pumps out there requiring less than 10w to run (some as low as 2w), however as they are designed for domestic systems they are not rated for high Glycol mixes. From talking to several manufacturers it’s not so much wether the pump will fall to bits using Glycol (it either will or won’t irrespective of concentration) but the fact that high Glycol mixes increase the viscosity of the fluid and degrade the performance of the pump. So much so that unless you get a pump which is specifically designed for high Glycol mixes i.e. rated for Solar heating nobody will even state that a pump will work. As it stands at the moment the only way I can be certain to get a pump that I KNOW will work with the 50% Glycol I’m running will be to buy a Solar rated one. The best I can find at the moment is a Lowara TLCSOL pump (http://www.lowara.co.uk/lowdata/doc/EN/tlcsol-ed-en.pdf which is rated for the correct glycol mix and draws 40w on the losest setting which is what I would hopefully need. If anybody has any suggestions PLEASE let me know.

A bit more luck with the diverter valve though. I wanted to use a Sunvic valve because of the MoMo head (http://www.sunvic.co.uk/motorised_valves.htm which basically means that the valve does not use any power at all until it changes state (a normal motorised valve has the motor running all the time at approx 6w). It does not have a failsafe position however if the head fails but there is a thumbwheel which allows you to change the state of the valve. Given that in a boat the valve will be readily accessible this will be no issue. A quick ring to Sunvic however put the kybosh on that because the body of the valve will not take any Glycol at all without messing up the innards . However the nice man there said not a problem and pointed me at a Danfoss valve which is rated up to 60% Glycol and to which I can fit a Sunvic head. RESULT

The last bit of the heating design is the rads. I’ve decided to try Thermaskirt (http://thermaskirt.com/default.aspx as I reckon there’s enough length to get sufficient heating and again it should simplify the plumbing a lot. A quick troll around and speaking to a nice lady at one of their distributors and a quote should be on it’s way.

Next big job now that I’ve sorted out what I’m using is to draw it all up and get materials ordered. Will post drawings when done.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Chalky]

Try an engine auxiliary coolant pump. I use one on my boat heating and it draws 2A @ 12V (less when I PWM it). It's designed to run with Gycol and the pump is magnetically isolated from the motor.

Some cars use motorised valves in their heating systems, they might be what you need.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Chalky

[Steve Goddard]

Thursday and Andy is over for the day to help me manhandle some of the bigger sheets that need to be fitted under the tug deck. A quick look at what ply I’ve got left and it’s Plan B time . I was certain that I had ordered enough 6mm ply to be able to do the sides under the tug deck in two 6mm sheets as they are curved and I thought that it would be easier to form. Unfortunately I don’t have enough but I do have surplus 12mm. With a bit of trepidation I decide to try and do the sides in one hit. In theory this should not be an issue as we set the battens out so that the side only ever curved in one plane and I think it should be possible to bend the ply. We used a scrap bit of the thin protective ply that was in with the rosewood to make a template and with a bit of faffing around get it to fit really well. What is even more impressive is that it fits the otherside perfectly as well without any modification . With one of the sheets cut we offer it up and see how easy it is to get it to shape. It’s not really too bad and I think that it will go in with a little bit of persuasion.

While I’m sorting out getting the back cuprinoled and painted Andy measures up and cuts out the rear bulkhead which just about comes out of a single sheet of ply. Magic. However the magic soon dies as we try to get it into the boat. The front hatch was designed to enable a full width sheet to be fed into the boat but with the ceiling in place there is simply no way we are going to get the bulkhead in. There is a moderate period of time while Andy and I explore varous scatological old english phrases but it’s no good the bloody thing still wont go in the hole . There really isn’t anything else to do but to cut it in half and then it does fit grrrr!!

At the end of the day we’ve got all the sides for under the tug deck done, the deck sheets sorted, the bilges cleaned out under the tug deck and everything is ready to put together. on top of this we’ve got the rear bulkhead nearly sorted. A good day

Sunday. I’m having a day trying to clear the study. It looks a lot worse that the workshop and a hell of a lot worse than the inside of Siskin. Like a lot of these things it’s not too bad a job once I get started. I’m surprised how quickly I get things sorted so as a treat to myself I decide to sort out the boat electrics . It’s a bit like Christmas as I get some of the Mastervolt stuff unpacked and set up on a network. The power for the setup comes from a little 12v powersupply rated at 500mA. I reckon I might need a bit more grunt for the real thing.

I’m pretty impressed by the way it all works. As I plug a component into the bus and it pops up on the screen. it’s pretty easy to set everything up, give stuff sensible names, set parameter such as fuse size and how circuit works and then to link bits together to get the thing to do what it’s supposed to. I need to sort out some dummy loads so that I can do some proper testing but it all seems pretty straightforward and I should be able to build in some nice little touches.

Hopefully I can get some time back on Siskin next week so that I can get the sheets fully fitted. We’ll see.


Right have decided today that I’ve got to get the lining finished above the gunwales as the very minimum. Should be doable as there is only two pieces of sheet to go up, cut a porthole and then get some varnish on. The first sheet fits a treat, just needing a little tickle at one end with the plane and it’s in/ It’s another one of those sheets which have an overhang which needs glueing up and fixing but I’m getting to be an old hand at this now and it’s a doddle. As an aside I’ve used a gallon of glue glueing up the sheets, it’s amazing how much it actually takes. In fact I’m constantly amazed by how much of things like screws and pins I’m using. I need to get a lot better at estimating thats for certain.

I’ve just about go the two sheets up and it’s time for a short break as Siskin is being moved up the yard a bit as Mike is planning to put a new workshop and a couple of covered workbays where the containers are. This will give him a shot blasting booth and a paint booth. Should be done in time to get Siskin in there for painting .

When all the moving about is done I decide that it’s too damp to varnish as I’m afraid that it may bloom so I decide to get some of the bead and reed (B&R)on underneath the gunwales. First little job is to screw a cover to the bottom of the stringer. Not only does this cover the gap and trunking underneath the gunwales but it also give me a top line for the B&R. With the first board set square to the floor and nailed onto the sheet it’s then just a matter of fitting all the rest I’m using the little wedges I made for the ceiling to cramp the boards up and they work a real treat getting everything nice and tight.

There’s a bit of head scratching when I get to the cut out for the socket. First thing that is obvious is that the original cut out won’t do the job as it does not line up with the B&R and will look dreadful. Some messing about with a mounting box and some planks and eventually I have a plan on how to mount the boxes so the line up with the B&R boards. With the hole in the plywood elongated it’s a pretty simple job to cutout the boards for the box. When I’ve got it mounted realisation dawns. Yes the box is directly in the MIDDLE of a board but No that does not mean it’s symetrical to the bead and reed as it’s 5mm out (half the width of the bead). Bugger it’s too late to change it now so that’s how it’s going to end up on them all. The plus point is that it’s not glaringly obvious so hopefully nobody will notice (except of course the people who read the blog )

After this it’s just a case of carrying on down the boat. It’s at time like this when you realise that having the boards made with a 70mm cover was perhaps not the smartest thing to do. They look fabulous but you have to put an awful lot of them on to cover a linear meter . I reckon it will take me three days to sort it all out.

Hopefullky the weather tomorrow will be dry enough to get the top sheets varnished and the I can get some more B&R on.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

Well it was the first frost of the winter when I got out this morning. Not a really heavy one but enough to make you wait for the windows on the car to thaw. I looked back at the blog for this time last year and there was 1″ of ice on the cut and we were talking of -7.5°c at mid day so I shouldn’t complain. At least I’m working inside Siskin now and putting a little heater on for a few mins soon gets the inside to a decent working temperature.

Today is a repeat of yesterday putting on more B&R under the port gunwale. I don’t seem to stop and it feels as if I’m getting the boards on really quickly but when you stand back and look there doesn’t appear to be a lot of progress. On top of this the compressor starts to play up again. This time it’s not starting properly (bit like an old A series engine on a cold damp day ). I reckon it’s the condenser. I replaced it about 12 months ago and I wasn’t keen to pay the £25+ that Clarkes wanted so I bought one of the Internet for £4 so perhaps I got what I paid for. I work on the B&R until lunch and then decide that the weather is OK to do some varnishing so all the top sheets get finished off.

It’s then a toss up whether to continue on with more B&R or to give the inside of Siskin a really good tidy up and clean and the tidy up wins. it’s surprising a: how long it takes even though you thought it wasn’t to bad and b: how much better it looks after you’ve done it.

If the compressor hold out tomorrow I’ll do it all again


Well here we go again lots and lots of time between posts. Big issue this time has been that the compressor finally packed in. I ordered some spares from Clarke (a new pressure switch and capacitor) but when they came the cap was wrong. Unfortunately Clarke did not have the right one in stock so by the time I had found the right one, got it delivered and fitted I’d lost a complete week .

Eventually with the compressor sort of fixed (I reckon the motor needs an over haul to finish the job) it was time to get back to sorting out the B&R. Gawd this is even worse than doing the rivets on the outside, it never seems to end. Eventually however I’ve got the port side sorted and it really does make a difference to the look of the cabin.

Now the more observant of you will notice that I’ve B&R’ed the whole side even behind the galley cabinets. Now this is either very farsighted in allowing me maximum flexibility to change the layout to get it perfect or very shortsighted in the fact that I’ve not finalised the design so I’ve wasted material. I take the long view that at some time in the far far future somebody may want to re-layout the cabin and when they do there will be no need to reline below the gunwales. That’s my story anyway .

An so it goes on, and on and on. More B&R on the stbd. side. After what seems like an age I’ve only got down to the hatch, still the front of the cabin now looks the biz.

Another day and Andy’s back to give me a hand to get the lining up under the tug deck. First of all I’ve got to make some little changes to the cabling to tank sender. Originally I had the power going straight to the sender but now that I’ve actually got the interface it seems that I can route the power to the sender through the interface and only switch it on when I want to take a level reading. Not a lot of power saving but every little helps. Next little job is to sort out the floor as the sheets are still loose laid. There are two sheets under the tug deck but i need to have the front 2/3 rds liftable and the back 1/3 permanently fixed as it will be under the finished floor. We get the sheets cut and so lifting holes cut in the front sheets with the holes saw and everything screwed down. With the floor done and cabling in some flexible conduit for support and then we’re ready to get the first side up.

Andy and I had sorted the side the last time he was over. Since then I’ve painted the backs of them and constructed the little box which will house the tank level interface and digital switch input, done the cutout for the 240v socket and the holes for switches and reading lights etc. We decide to do a trial run before we glue everything up. Good job we did because although the template fitted really well it was only 3mm thick and the actual side is 12mm thick and won’t go in so we need to trim the ceiling battens back a bit to get it to go in. With that done and some construction adhesive down the battens and the good old Aldi props pushing the sheet into place it’s down to getting lots and lots of screws to hold the sheet in place. I’d run short of stainless screws so I got some more from Screwfix. Wow these things are amazing I’ve never known screws to go in so easily with no and I repeat no stripping. Another plus is that the’re reasonably priced as well bonus

With the first side up we start on the second one. As I thread the wire through for the reading light I have a sudden horrible thought, there seems to be a pair of wires missing, shoot. A quick check shows I’ve got them coming into the interface box rather than coming through the reading light hole on the first side so a bit of quick jiggery pokery and it’s sorted .

The second side is a repeat of the first but is a lot easier as there are less wires and we’ve got the experience. We’re done by lunch, not a bad mornings work.

After lunch we’re going to make a start on the ceiling but as it’s pissing down with rain and we need to work outside to markup and cut the sheet we decide to carry on fixing the floor down. As soon as it stops raining we nip out and get the first sheet measured up and cut. A little bit of fettling to get it to fit properly and we’re ready to put it up. Except……

We need to cut a 67mm hole for one of the lights in the ceiling but we can’t find the hole saw that we used in the morning. We spend half an hour playing “hunt the hole saw”. We checked every box and bag and even lifted the floor boards but we simply could not find it. A long time in the future when Siskin is scrapped somebody is going to find a 25mm hole saw and wonder how on earth that got left in the boat. With the first part of the ceiling finally up theres just enough time to tidy up (still no hole saw) and get the tools back under the tug deck. I’m really pleased with the way that the sheets have worked. They have a really nice sweeping form and didn’t need much persuasion to fit so should be nice and stable. Another step forward.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

Well it’s taken a long time to get there but I’ve finally finished the bead and reed under the gunwales. I swear that this has been a worse job than putting the rivets on the hull . It took me the better part of a day to get back to the end of the bathroom and there was just enough time to start the couple of little runs up to the front bulkhead (I had started the sides on the first straight board so I could be certain I’d got them right). it didn’t take too long to get the five runs up on the port side so I grabbed five more boards to shorten for the run on the stbd. side. As I put the first one on the saw to shorten it I noticed that the moulding on the bead was duff and I remembered that Rob has said there were a few spares that he had put in that were rough but he though that I might be able to use them.

I looked at the ones I had just fitted and sure enough they were duff as well. Damn I’ll have to take them off and replace them but that’s a job for another day.

Well another day has come and so the first job is to pull off the boards that I put on yesterday and replace them with proper ones . It’s a bit of a struggle getting the old boards off at the brads I’ve been using are very effective but a little bit of brute force does the job . With the proper boards in place I decide to cut and fit the little panel below the door. I’ve already glued the timber up so it’s only a matter of cutting it to length and putting the profile on. With that in place and a quick coat of varnish on the front bulkhead is pretty much done and looks a lot better.

There’s just enough time to have a go at the rear bulkhead. Before I can start however I need to sort out the floor in the bathroom. I want some liftable panels so I can get into the bilges to move ballast around so I need to cut all three of the boards which is a faff. With the boards sorted I can make a start on the rear bulkhead. Andy had roughed it out but it needs a bit of fettling to get it to fit properly. The bottom half is a couple of inches short (it needs to be 4’2″ typical) so I’ll put a filler piece in there when I finally get it up. With the bulkhead fitting properly I decide to call it a day I’ll pull it off tomorrow and get the pocket holes drilled and the back painted then it can go up properly.




First day back at the boat after new year and I’m waiting for the delivery of the flooring. I’ve finally ordered some Jarrah and it is promised for delivery sometime during the morning.

While I’m waiting I first of all have a really good clear out and clean up in the container. I’m terrible at not throwing bits of scrap timber away. I always think that I’ll need a bit for something or other when the reality is that it would be more useful for kindling . At least with all the crap out of the way I’ve got somewhere to stack the flooring when it arrives.

After sorting out the container I give Wayne a ring to find out where he is with the floor and he tells me he won’t arrive till about 1:30 so I decide to make a quick trip to B&Q to a: replace the hole saw and arbour which has still not turned up and b: get some squirty foam so I can bed the main water tank in. It’s a little bit cold for using the foam but needs must so a liberal dose filling the gap between the tank and the hull side gives that added support to prevent the tank from moving.

I’d actually made the front bulkhead before Christmas along with the mounting battens which I cut out of a bit of Iroko left over from making the prism surrounds and I have to say it fits pretty well. I put the two pieces of bead and reed in before I cut the bulkhead so that if the worst comes to the worst I can get the whole bulkhead out without demolishing the lining. Hope I’ll never need to do it .

With no sign of Wayne or the floorboards and not wanting to start any big jobs I faff around tidying up and sorting out those little things that never get done when they should. The first job is to run the network cable for the Masterbus from the engine room to the midships point which is a nice simple take off the capping under the gunwales put in the cable and replace the capping, sorted. Next is to run a bit of trunking for the LV feed to the stbd. outlets which tidies that up and gets it compliant with the standards.

Still no sign of Wayne and whats even more concerning I can’t get hold of him on his mobile either. I’ve had some issues from day one trying to get this flooring organised and to be honest if I could have found some Jarrah elsewhere I would have gone there even if it was more expensive. I’m now starting to get worried

Multiple calls and texts later and I get a response saying that his son will be delivering the timber and he should be with me by 6:30 . Given how difficult Debdale can be to find in the daylight I’m not encouraged .

They do say that some things are worth waiting for and the Jarrah is one of those things. Lee turned up just after 6:00 and we unloaded the timber. The first look is really good. The timber is superb, just what I wanted and although there are some bits which have flaws in (unavoidable with reclaimed timber) there are not that many and it should be very easy to hide the duff bits under cupboards etc.

Next big job then is to clear the inside of Siskin and get laying the floor

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[soldthehouse]

Go man go, taking shape, Ive run out of steam with my boat with things that lifes thrown at us, you are doing well keep it up

 

Stuart

[Steve Goddard]

Well missed again on the New Years Resolution as I’m a way behind on the post

Arrived back at the boat to find that the spray foam had gone berserk and it looked like the old B movies blob . That’s the problem when the temp is cold as it’s difficult to know how much to spray in. Still a few mins work with the Fein had it all cut back nice and neat and the front bulkhead back in place.

I also got the floor boards fitted down properly. Ever since I fitted them they have just been loose on the floor bearers while I agonised over replacing them (or not as it turned out). It’s surprising how much difference it makes walking around without the boards creaking and shifting.

Next job is to sort out the timber that has been delivered. I sort it into three grades: grade 1 which can be used with just the ends trimmed, grade 2 which is mainly good but may have a blemish in the middle of the board which needs removing and grade 3 which is only any good for putting where it wont be seen i.e. under cupboards etc. I end up with four piles which are approximately equal quantities with the pile of short boards all grade 1 so I’ve got about 25% which I need to hide which should be doable . The only complication is that there are two distinct colours in the timber. The first is a dark rich reddie brown (which I really wanted) and the second is a much lighter almost pink. Adny who’s over to give me a hand and I take a considerable amount of time trying to sort out how to arrange the timber, we quickly rule out a mix it up approach as they are far to different and so decide that the bathroom will be in the lighter timber, the saloon in the dark and the galley in whatever works



We have one really dodgy board which is really only good for firewood so Andy chops it up into small lengths and we try it across the boat to get a better idea of how it will all fit. 13 boards fit perfectly and are not too far out to manage the lift up sections as well. Result

With all the planning done there’s nothing left but to get on with it. We make a start on the stbd. side in the bathroom as there is a full run up that side of the boat (except in the cupboard on the engine room bulkhead) so it gives us a great foundation for working into the more difficult bits where there are lift up panels.

There’s a short run of”pink” up to the bathroom bulkhead then a run of thirds under the galley cupboards. All of the boards get a good soaking of Cuprinol on the reverse side before they go down. Probably not necessary given the properties of Jarrah but it’s not a lot of additional effort and I’ve got the Cuprinol so why not. Most of the boards go down reasonably well and cramp up using some larger wedges I’ve made. I’m “secret nailing” them using 30mm stainless brads and they seem to be fixing OK. As with any reclaimed timber some of them need some fettling and there is the inevitable gap that you simply can’t get rid off but fortunately the’re pretty good where you can see them. With that done we can move onto the saloon. I’ve decided to run short lengths as that will be more economical on timber than trying to use long lengths which I don’t really have enough off so we start off with all the short lengths and the seconds which we trim to make good. I keep switching from “oh gawd I’m not going to have enough” to “there’s plenty here I’ll have some left” as we go along. I still don’t know what the answer will be but I’ve over ordered by about 25% so common sense says I should have enough (watch this space). With the first four runs down the complete stbd. side we can start to think about how we are going to do the lift out panels. I’ve got three planned. A complete 8′ length down the center of the saloon, a 4′ length down the center of the galley/bathroom and a 4′ length on the port side of the bathroom on the port side next to the engine room bulkhead so I can trim for the calorifier and generator.

A little bit of thought later and we have a plan. Basically we’ll split one board longitudinally roughly down the middle which will leave a couple of inches from the board edge to the lift out panel. I’ll put a 1″ trim piece around (either in rosdewood or kwila depending on what I have available). This will leave a 1″ overlap on the lift out boards over the fixed sub-floor (I hope that all makes sense) which should work a treat. With this all sorted it’s not a big job to get stbd. side sorted and the run of short boards across the top. This is now starting to look suspiciously like a proper floor . Unfortunately it looks as if I’m going to need to give it a quick sand before I oil it as the boards are not all flush but that’s not a big issue, I can probably get away with using an orbital sander rather than a floor sander. I think that by the time it’s finished it’s going to look quite tasty .



Blimey it was difficult to get going this morning. There was a real heavy frost and the temptation was to stay in a nice warm house with a pot of coffee and a good book . However when needs must. I suppose I’ve just got use to the really mild weather. First problem was actually getting into Siskin as the slides were well and truly frozen shut. Scrambling through the engine room hatch (must build an engine room ladder ) I at least managed to get the back cabin doors open so although it was a bit of a contortion I could get in and out of the boat safely. With the little heater on in the cabin at least I could warm my hands up when I could no longer feel them but it only took 30 mins or so to get the inside of Siskin to a decent working temperature.

I really didn’t know where to go next with the floor. I’m really worried that I may not have enough flooring despite over ordering by 25%. When you really get down to looking at the timber I’ve got there is an awful lot of waste that simply can’t be used . In the end I decide to tackle the remaining bathroom floor. I know that this is using the lighter colored wood and at least when I’ve finished I can get a good idea if I’ve enough light wood to do all/part of the kitchen. There’s a lot of fiddling around as there are two lift out panels plus the area in the cupboard which may not have a floor at all as I’m looking at the possibility of mounting the calorifier direct to the base plate. After a bit of head scratching and playing around with the little bits if board Andy has cut I come up with a plan B for dealing with the intersection of the two lift out panels. By making the rear one about 4″ narrower it really simplifies the whole affair. With the new plan sorted it’s down to picking the best boards to ensure that I have the lowest waste. The two boards either side of the central lift out panel need to be split down the middle part way and the one on the port side for the rear panel needs part of the tongue removing so there’s a little bit of fiddling to do to get them right. With all the bits cut to size and trimmed where necessary it’s time to nail them down which is where the fun starts. The compressor really is having a bad day and it’s a real struggle to get it going. Halfway through the job it packs in completely bugger. I struggle on and at least get the boards I have cut nailed down. I guess that when I was gluing up the sheets was what did for the motor as it was working flat out for about five days. A quick ring to Clarkes confirms that I can buy a new stator for the motor which will fix it BUT it’s £199 + VAT. That’s ridiculous as I can actually buy a new compressor for less, And we wonder why we live in a throwaway society. Rather than rush out and do something I might regret later I decide to pack in early and go see if I can hire a compressor for a week just to get the floor finished and I can then decide what to do in a more leisurely way. Good news is that I can get a little compressor for a week for 15 quid so that gets us out of the clag and tomorrow I can start on the front floor.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Chalky]

Would a stator re-wind be cheaper?

[Steve Goddard]

Thought of that. Took motor to rewind shop man reckoned about six hours work at 30 quid an hour + vat. Same difference really. Have borrowed a little compressor from my mate Graham at mo to keep me going

[Bob18]

Small motor re-winds are expensive because they are so fiddly to do - even worse if they've been impregnated, when they become something close to impossible to strip down, and the impregnation process adds a good few quid to both materials and labour.

[Steve Goddard]

Late start this morning as I had top go pick up the compressor from the hire shop. At least it’s a smaller one and I can hoick it into the boat so I don’t have to have the hatch open and can keep a bit warmer. I started off trying to figure out the next best step. I’m still worried that I still may not have enough boards to finish off so I decided to finish the saloon off first so that all the timber on that floor matches. It will be a bit easier to hide a mismatch in the galley.

The first thing is to get the lift out hatch set out and to do that I needed to get the short run at the back of the hatch down. The first board went over the join of the good boards in the saloon and the thirds under the galley cupboards. Problem is that they don’t line up by at least 2mm. Whilst the join under the range will never be seen I need to sort it out or it will throw all subsequent boards out and I’ll get in real trouble later on. What I need to do is to cut one of the boards back on the tongue and what I really need to do that easily is a rebate bull nose plane which I don’t have so I spend the next hour cutting a new tongue with a chisel . The boards line up but it’s not the best job i’ve ever done. I can probably improve it when I sand the floor down and before I hardwax it.

With the outside of the lift out sorted it’s down to sifting through the boards I’ve got left to try and find the most economical way of using the timber. The first couple of runs are easy enough to do using the wedges but the last two need to be laid together in order to get the boards in. This makes getting the boards nice and tight quite difficult and I end up using wedges against the lining, screwdrivers and anything else I can to push the boards together. The end result is not bad but the Jarrah is so hard that you don’t get the bend and crush that you can get with a softer timber such as pine even when you can really cramp it tight. I think for the remainder I’ll remove the bottom of the groove on the last board so that it will just drop in. It will mean more nails in the top of the board but perhaps it will work better. We’ll see

With the boards down it’s obvious that I’m going to have to sand them to get some of the discrepancies in thickness out. I was hoping that I would not have to do this but as I’ve gone on I’ve started to realise that the boards are really not brilliant. The good boards are great but there’s an awful lot that are, to put it succinctly, crap . Oh well I can get a good floor out of them but it’s going to take a lot more work.

I reckon I can hide the big hole in the middle of the floor with a thick rug .



I managed to get to the boat for the first time in ages yesterday. I just don’t know where the time has gone. The last time Andy was over we cracked on getting the floor finished. As we got more and more of the floor down it became obvious that the way we were doing it was going to leave us JUST short of boards (about 3m worth of the dark timber) After a lot of thought we decided that there was enough good striped timber under the port cupboards to make up the shortfall if they were replaced with the left overs. At the end I decided to use this in the center of the lift up hatch in the saloon (a bit like a keelson). We laid it out and it didn’t look half bad so we went for it. By the time we had cut all the boards we had a bit of board about 18″ long left over. Far far too close for comfort.

What have I learnt from laying the floor.

Well 25% over when ordering boards is only just enough. It’s really important to go and see the boards before you buy them. The boards that I got were fine on the top surface but the bottom surfaces were rubbish. This makes it very hard to get all the boards hard down on the sub-floor as they are different thicknesses. This means that the floor is creaky in places (add to the character ) The boards I got as well were three very different colours, this made it very difficult to use them in the most efficient way as I wasn’t prepared to mix and match the colours. I suppose the single biggest thing is go and look before you buy .

Anyway back to yesterday. Just a quick visit to the boat to cut the edging for the lift up hatches. I’ve made it out of some rosewood to give it a bit of contrast (the fact that this was the only plank I had which was long enough had nothing to do with it ). I’ve also sorted out how I’m going to fix them down. I’ve got some threaded brass inserts which I will fix into the floor bearers and I’ve turned up some little brass cup washers to protect the floor boards so when it’s all down it will be nice and neat and firmly fixed.

With the edging cut I nip back to the workshop to pop it through the sander to tidy it up so with a bit of luck tomorrow I’ll be able to get the floor ready for sanding and waxing

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

I don't know whats happening at the moment. I just can't seem to get moving quickly on Siskin. I don't know if it's the weather, me or what but everything seems to be taking more and more time. Oh well….

The first thing to do was to finish off the lift up hatches. I took the edging back to thew workshop and ran it through the sander and they came up really well. Back at the boat I got the first one ready to fit, glued up, wedged into place and screwed down. The good news is that it fits really well, the bad news is it's so -ing cold that the glue freezes and goes nasty (see the white grunge in the picture). Clearly I have to wait until the temperature gets a bit higher before I can do any more gluing. In fairness the glue does say that the temp needs to be a min of 40f before use and the timber in Siskin is way colder than that. Theres the first delay. There's nothing that I can do about the edging I've put down so I might as well get the boards fixed to the lift out panel. It's a repeat of putting all the other boards down, fix the first one, lay the next one, fix the wedges, tighten it up, nail it down and start all over again until you run out of spaces to put the wedges in . The last but one board needs some little wedges to be made but they work really well and the boards are nice and tight even if there are some gaps because the machining is not brilliant. The last board is a more difficult prospect but in the end lifting the panel up and three sash cramps get everything nice and tight. As an extra precaution I get some screws in from the underside to hold the edge boards and the ends of the boards down onto the plywood. To get the hatch out I've put a couple of 6mm T nuts underneath (one at each end) and I'll make up a couple of lifting handles when I get the time. Trouble is now I can't finish the other hatches until the temperature rises. I've looked all over for a decent wood glue that will work in low temperatures but no luck. I suppose that that's the good thing about doing steelwork in the middle of winter, you can still weld .

I get all the boards cut for the other two hatches so as soon as it warms up (no sign in the near future I'll be able to get on.

Next day over at Siskin and there's no power . Seems that there is a fault on the main meter and one phase is down, and yes just my luck it's the one which feeds all the outlets for the hard-standing. So we're left tidying up and generally waiting around until it's fixed. By the time it's fixed I really don't want to start any big job so I decide to have a little bit of a go at sanding the floor. First the really good news, the sander I bought off eBay is awesome and the dust extraction with the vac is absolutely first rate, you don't really need a mask . The bad news is that this Jarrah is a hard as nails, it sands really well with a great finish but as there are some places where I've got maybe .5 – .75mm to come off it's going to take ages. The coarsest disks I have are 80 grit so I'm going to need to get some 40 grit or I'll be here forever. Still after three hours plugging away I've done most of the saloon. Still a bit round the hatch but I'll wait till I've got some coarser disks or perhaps I'll break out the 9″ angle grinder

The other exciting thing to happen is that the first lot of plumbing bits have arrived. I've ordered the pipe, fittings and a 3 port valve and diverter valve for the heating plus the Lowara pump. The down side is that the fittings are nearly 600 quid and that's without taps, shower mixer, Thermaskirt etc etc and the pump is £100. Damn it's difficult to see where the moneys gone as there are no big ticket items but when you see that the pipe inserts alone are 40 quid you can see how it all mounts up.

I can't see me getting the floor finished this week which was the plan as I need a couple of days well above freezing so we'll just have to keep plodding away at it. I'm fed up with winter now and ready for spring – bring it on.


I feel as if i've just finished a marathon (anybody who knows me will realise the ludicrousness of that statement) . I seem to have been working on the floor for weeks and weeks. The big issue is just the hardness of the Jarrah and the total inability to sand it down. I've got 40 grit disks and even a 40 grit belt sander but nothing seems to be really working. The good news is that the weather has finally got warmer so I can get stuff glued up. This means that I've got the hatch surround for the one between the galley and the bathroom done and the boards fixed to the hatch and then screwed from underneath. I've been a lot more cunning this time and made certain that the rosewood hatch surround is as high or slightly higher than the Jarrah which should make sanding a lot easier. With everything fixed I can plug the holes for the fixing screws and finally get the whole galley and salon floor flat with 40 grit. After that its a quick sand with some 120 grit disks and a massive clean up. When it's all cleaned up some more nails become apparent so it's punch them down, fill the hole with some brummer, wait for it to dry, sand, vac it clean notice some more nails that you've missed the first time and repeat ad nauseum until I finally reckon I've got everything sorted. Last thing is to lift up the front hatch and put some blocks underneath it so that I can wax it without gluing it in place.

I decide to leave the waxing for another day so Friday dawns and we're over at Siskin armed with Osmo oil and all the gubbins to get it on. First problem is the brush I'm using has hardened despite being cleaned and wrapped up in cling film after the last time I used it. Half an hour later I've softened it up with some solvent and we're ready to rock and roll. I have to say this bit I like, it's not hard work and the results are immediate. Half an hour later the first coat of wax is down and the floor looks amazing . Even the grotty bits of timber have suddenly sprung to life and the saloon and galley floors look great. The high shine will disappear as the wax hardens to a nice sheen and with a second coat on it will be well protected. When the second coat is on I can put the range into it's final resting place, clear the bathroom and get the floor there finished then we can really start the fit-out

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[starman]

I don't know whats happening at the moment. I just can't seem to get moving quickly on Siskin. I don't know if it's the weather, me or what but everything seems to be taking more and more time. Oh well….

 

Tell me about it! Sometimes you spend days working away and seem to get nowhere. Just trying to work out how to solve some little problem seems to take forever.

But eventually it all gets moving again...for a while.

[Steve Goddard]

Just looked at the last post and it was ages ago, bummer. I've not been entirely somnolent but I am starting to wonder if I'm missing a few days in my life

Well in the last post I had just got the first coat of wax down. Now this stuff takes 12 hours to dry at 20°c. It takes a LOT longer to dry when the temperature is around zero all the time. I keep popping back to the boat to see if it has dried and at the end of three days I reckon it's dry enough to walk on. Yeah right!!! you know that nasty sound you get when you walk on something sticky well I got it. Fortunately no big problems and as I've got to get a second coat of wax on it's not an issue. Back on the following Monday and things are dry enough to get the second coat on super. I'm not going over to the boat on Tuesday so it should have plenty of time to dry as the weather is a whole lot warmer now.

Wednesday and the floor is now looking great. It's lost the high gloss and gone a nice even sheen. It's even dry enough to walk on . Close inspection shows two little drops of wax (about the size of a 5p) which must have dripped off the brush at some stage so I decide to get the brush with a little bit of thinners on and just brush them out. Big mistake as I somehow manage to leave a trail of thinners over the floor. Easy enough to brush out but now of course the bloody floor is wet again so I still can't get on

Thursday and the floor look properly dry this time but not wishing to repeat the last load of problems I decide to give it another day before I walk on it. It's going to be tight as David is coming over tomorrow as we are starting on the plumbing but it's better than him arriving and finding the floor is a no go area as I've had to fix it again.

I've got the plywood for the bulkheads between the bathroom and the galley and as It's a really really nice day I reckon working outside in the sun getting them sorted is a reallly good plan. First job is to get a template marked up and cut out. I've got some 3mm ply which was the protective sheets over the rosewood ply which is ideal so a few measurements later and a bit of work with the jigsaw and we have a template. Now I would like to report that it fitted perfectly first time but of course it didn't. However it only took one adjustment to get it spot on so I'm happy with that. I'm even happier with the fact that it will fit the other side of the boat with only 1mm taken off the top. Result

With the profiles marked on the 1″ birch ply for the bulkheads 20 mins with the jig saw and block plane has the bulkheads cut out. Of course when I've lugged them into the boat (bugger they are heavy) they don't quite fit so back out, adjust, back in, back out, adjust back in, collapse (you get the picture) has the two sides fitting really well. The reason I have to work on the outside the boat is of course because the floor is off limits . Still at the end of the exercise I have two well fitting bulkheads and a good cardiac workout.

I'm fitting the bulkheads using pocket hole screws. I couldn't get the right size stainless ones so I have the coated ones which they reckon won't corrode even under water so they should do. I do like pocket hole joints. I've used them for all sorts of things and never had one fail on me yet despite some of them being very badly mistreated. Hope this is not the first time

With all the pocket holes drilled and a couple of coats of cuprinol I have two bulkheads ready to fit. Can't do it until the floor is dry and the cooker moved into position unless I want to cook in the bathroom

Friday over to the boat early before David gets there so I can get the floor covered up so it is protected and we can walk on iy. I'm using Antinox which is a corrugated plastic floor protector. £2.99 +vat from Jewsons. It's cheaper that hardboard, easier to cut and less likely to scratch the surface. Win all round really. In fact it looks so good when it's down I think I'll keep it

David arrives and we make a start on the plumbing. Because I can't get the cooking range in it's final place so we can start plumbing that we decide to tackle the pipes through the engine hole. Originally there were only two to go through. The poo pipe and the water feed to the loo but now that I've seen the Thermaskirt I reckon that I can get a run down the stbd side of the back cabin so we really need to get another couple of pipes through the engine hole on that side. As there are already two pipes from the engine cooling to the calorifier and there will need to be a feed pipe for the range fuel feed, one for the gennie feed and another for the gennie return it's going to be a bit crowded and I'm not even certain if it's possible. We make a start on the port side and get the poo pipe and feed pipes in in quick order. They fit pretty easily as I had Simon weld some brackets on when we were doing the engine hole floor so very long ago. It's a different story on the stbd. side however as the pipes that are in actually take up a lot of space because when we fitted them we thought that that was the lot. However with a bit of juggling we get the two extra pipes in. All I need to do now is to get the pipe supports sorted.

With the final half hour of the day spent sorting out the skin fittings for the wastes etc. I really feel that we're back on track and shifting again. Woo hoo

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

Well I reckon the only way I’m going to keep up with the blog is to move from a daily to a weekly publication (bit like Rupert Murdoc really) .

Quite a lot has happened this week which is good. It all started last Saturday when I was helping a friend make a pair of six foot folding flaming wings (just don’t ask, they go with the flaming sword). While Guy was drilling and tapping the bits of alum I got the threshold strip made and fitted across the joint between the bathroom and galley. Looks quite spiffing really. Monday comes round and it’s back on Siskin. I’ve got one more floor hatch to finish and the floor in the bathroom to sand. I’ve taken a lot more care over fitting the rosewood trims round the hatches in the bathroom and made certain that they are above the jarrah working on the assumption that it will be easier to sand the rosewood than the jarrah. It works but it still takes me all day to get the floor sanded. The temptation is to get a coat of wax on but in reality it won’t help a great deal as it wont be dry by tomorrow so rather than rush it and screw it up I decide to leave it till the morning.

30 mins work in the morning sees the hatches and floor with the first coat of wax on. You can really see the difference now between the colour of the jarrah in the saloon and galley to that in the bathroom. I think it’s going to work really nicely and I am REALLY glad I did not try to mix them. Of course it’s now impossible to work on the inside of Siskin so I decide to get some other stuff done. I’ve designed up a mount for the calorifier so I get that over to Simon at the yard so he can fabricate it up and then I start trecking round looking for shower bits. The good news is that everything I want is standard sizes so you would think it would be easy. The bad news is that none of the shower trays has the outlet in the ideal place i.e the square corner where it would be easy to plumb and most importantly on the low side of the shower when the boat is in the water. Half can be discounted because the waste is on the high side so it does narrow it down. Eventually armed with a bunch of brochures for trays, enclosures and shower mixers so that I can get executive approval before ordering.

Thursday and Simon is over at Siskin with the calorifier mount and a couple of other bits and bobs which need welding. We need to weld the stbd. fuel tank back in as we had to cut the mount out to fix the balance pipe, the tank test plates need to be welded on, I’ve made a mount for the waterpump for the loo which needs welding onto the floor-bearer in the back cabin, there are a couple of tags for the tank hold-down straps to go on and some mounting plates for the shower sump pump. Lots of little fiddly bits which don’t take Simon too long but which moves me forward quite a lot.

The calorifier mount is a two piece affair. When I looked at the calorifier mounting plates it was obvious that I could mount it while there were no bulkheads in place but as soon as the cupboard was built around it there would be no way that you could get it out as it would be impossible to get to the back two bolts. The bottom plate is welded to four legs which are welded to the base plate. It has two bolts at the back which are welded into place and a couple of tapped holes on the front. The top plate has four tapped holes which the calorfier bolts to and a couple of slots at the back which allow the plate to be slid under the bolt heads on the bottom plate. A couple of bolts at the front and everything is solid as a rock but if I ever need to get the calorifier out it’s a dead simple job involving just two bolts which are easy to get to. A coat of primer/undercoat on what will be the inside of the cupboard finishes the day.

Friday sees a quick visit to get a second coat of undercoat on the inside of the cupboard and a second coat of wax on the floor. With luck that will all be dry on Monday and we can crack on. A really good week.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[bargemast]

Nice work Steve, once the floors are done you can start with the fit-out, and start staying on the boat overnight, which will make your progress even faster.

 

Good luck,

 

Peter.

[Steve Goddard]

Peter

I'm lucky in respect that I only live 10 mins away from the boat so I can go home have a cold beer in the evening



Steve

Well this is the first of the new style weekly posts. The first and obvious problem is how the hell am I supposed to remember what I was doing a week ago. I can barely remember what I was doing an hour ago

First thing Monday I can finally get the floor finished. The wax has all hardened and I can get the hatches battened down and the antiknox duck taped down. I also get a coat of gloss on the inside of the cupboard around the calorifier and a coat of Waxoyl on the bilges where its been cleaned off to do the welding. Doesn’t look any different in the pictures. I’m getting really fed up with constantly tripping over stuff and spending hours searching for tools etc. so I decide to have a REALLY good clear up. I’ve also got some cheap shelves so I can actually move all the crap out from under the tug deck and get it organised so I can find things. It’s surprising how long it takes to do a really good clean and tidy but at the end of it I have a: found some things I had lost, b: found some things I had forgotten I had and c: thrown out a load of crap. It will be a lot easier now to work and if the truth is known it feels really good to do it.

Tuesday and Andy is over. We’re making a start on the engine room today but before we do we’ve got to rectify a little over sight When we put the ceiling up under the tug deck we forgot to cut the holes for the two little vents which are in the deck beam. Easy job just unscrew the sheet, drop it down, clean the spray foam out of the vents, cut the holes in the sheet and put it back up again. problem is that when we put it up we also put a line of nails down each side to stop the sheet from going wavy so getting it down is no longer an option, bugger. Some careful measuring and deft use of the hole saw and we have a couple of slots cut out in exactly the right place. Andy is up on the tug deck cleaning out the sprayfoam from the vents and I am down below getting covered in all the spray foam Andy and I are cutting out. I really thought I had finished with all this. At the end of it however we have two functioning vents and a boat full of sprayfoam bits .

Next little job is to cut out the mushroom vents, dog box and front hatch. I make a start with the pierce and trim bit in the router but while it work well on ply wood it’s not so good on the tulipwood ceiling as it cuts really poorly cross grain . We try a couple of alternatives both of which work reasonably well. On the dog box we rough cut the middle out with the Fein and then sand it back with the orbital. It doesn’t take too long leaves a great finish and no mess as I’ve got the extractor. Result . Of course you can’t do this in the mushroom vents so its down to roughing it out with a series of drill holes and then taking it back with a bearing guided trimming bit. Again works well but because I have not put the extractor on the router the place is covered with shavings. So much for cleaning up.

Finally after lunch we get round to what we were supposed to be doing and get the linings for the engine room cut out. But the end of the day we have all the sheets cut to size and the front ceiling panel fully fitted. As this is the most complex because of the slide cut outs, vent pipe and light we’ve actually got the hardest bit done. A coat of Cuprinol all over and some primer on the back surface and it’s ready to go. A great day.

Wednesday and it’s pissing down. Spend the day inside Siskin filling nail holes under the gunwales and in the ceiling with Brummer and then sanding it all down so that it’s ready to paint. Cant really do a lot more but I suppose we need the rain.

Thursdays a much better day with the sun shining so It’s really pleasant working outside. Job for the day is to get some more of the engine room sheets fitted. The ones under the gunwales need cutouts for the fuel fillers which are unfortunately to big to fit totally behind the lining so they will need a little bit of boxing in. It’s actually quite a nice and satisfying job as I’ve got enough 3mm scrap ply to make some templates which is a whole lot easier than humping 12mm sheet in and out of the boat. After they are cut out it cuprinol and primer time. Two more ready to go in

Spent the rest of the afternoon running wire around the engine room as they need to be finished before the sheets can go in.

Had a bit of luck this week. Noticed on ebay a Purolator filter which will fit the proper engine crankcase breather on the Gardner. Tried without success to get one when I was rebuilding the engine and ended up with a cartridge type one which is ok but not right. I’ve got the proper pressed steel housing but it’s all rusty so got a bit more work to do before I can fit it.

David is over on Friday and we’re finally making a start on the plumbing proper. David makes a start on soldering up the copper pipes through the engine room and I tap the mounting holes for the feed pump for the loo. I’ve soon got the pump mounted but then realise that the filter is not on and that it fouls on the steel work when you try to fit it. Not a big deal as I can just reposition the pump and drill and tap some more mounting holes. After David has finished the pipework I make up some little clips using a single and a double clip screwed together. The single clips onto the old pipework which is firmly fixed to the hull and the double clip support the new pipework we have just put in. It works really well and the pipes are well supported. Good job.

David gets on with organising all the pipework around the calorifier which is quite complex and I nail the poo pipe to the wall (well wrestle it into some clips really) .

After all the money I spent on plumbing bits and bobs you would have thought that I had everything. It soon becomes obvious that there are some additional bits I need not least of which are 22 mm pipe clips (how could I miss those). In fairness some of the missing bits are because we’ve changed the way we’re running the pipes as we get to them, some are because I got the wrong thing or just missed it all together:( . I’ve now ordered the new stuff and it comes to another £200 quid. Damn plumbing is expensive.

Last thing is to look at the cooking range and figure out what we need to get to connect that up. Blimey we’re getting places now.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

Another week gone by and what have we got to show for it? Well quite a lot really seeing that I didn’t get to the boat on Monday and as we’ll see only got a half day on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning and I’m all ready to tackle the plumbing. Only problem is that the additional bits I’ve ordered havn’t arrived . I furtle around in the boat all morning finishing off little bits, tidying up the engine room electrics, drilling a hole in the engine room roof to get the horn wires through and do the first bit of second fix electrics as I get the bilge pump switch connected and screwed into place. The 240v to the immersion needs a switched outlet fitted so the first thing is to cut the Arctic cable to length, strip the outer back and get some crimp ferrules on the wires. I’ll be honest and admit that I’ve never used crimp ends on 240v before (although I did notice when we had some work done at the house recently that the sparky used them then) but the standard says that you can’t have screws going down onto bare wire. However when I fit the outlet I’m totally converted. It makes such a neat, secure and safe connection. Brilliant. After a well earned cuppa and a bite to eat there is still no sign of the missing plumbing bits so I pack up, tidy away and lock the boat up. I’m just getting into the car when Steve comes over and tells me the bits from BES have just arrived. Typical but it’s to late to unpack and start again so it will have to wait till another day.

Wednesday and it’s make a start on plumbing day. Now I have to admit I HATE plumbing. It’s not the actual pipe work etc. that I don’t like it’s all the water and the fact that whenever I’m doing plumbing it seems to be because there is water pissing everywhere or I’m about to make water piss everywhere. It’s a knack I have . This time however it’s actually quite enjoyable. It’s the first time that I’ve worked with plastic pipe and it’s a lot easier (and quicker) than copper. The pipe clips I have bought from BES are great, they are made by a firm called Talon and the neat thing is that they all clip together so once you have screwed the first run of clips down subsequent runs clip into them and you have really neat pipe runs. After a little while I’ve got the pipe runs along the stbd. side to midships for the circuit from the range to the calorifier for heating the water, a 22mm cold water run with the various “Tees” for taps. The hot water runs, “tees” and the expansion tank connected in. I reckon I’ve done OK

Thursday and Andy is back over to give me a hand with lining out the engine room. The bit round the hatches is already to go up and only takes a few minutes to get in place. The next bit we need to sort is the back half of the ceiling. A few mins with the stilsons has the exhaust off and a few more screws have the clutch rod and speedwheel box out of the way. It’s actually simpler to mark up than the front bit as there is only the exhaust in the way and the cabin sides are pretty straight as the curve inwards doesn’t happen till the back bulkhead. With the sheet cut out I find that I don’t have a hole saw big enough to cut the hole for the exhaust so I need to mark it out and cut it freehand with the jig saw . I’m actually amazed at how good a hole I ended up with. What went wrong . With the sheet cut and fitted Andy gets a coat of paint on the back and we make a start on the sheets underneath the gunwales. Now I’ve cut them all out BUT I havn’t tried them to see if they fit. We make a start of the port side as that is the easier one to do and surprise surprise it fits perfectly. I’m so amazed that we get the screws in before something changes and then realise that we’ve forgotten to feed the wires down behind it for the tank sender. Still there’s enough space behind to feed a bit of corrugated conduit down and the feed the wires through that so no issues. The stbd. side is a little more difficult as I need to make the cut out round the black water tank vent a little bit bigger but by lunch both are up and in place. Result

After lunch it’s on to the cabin sides. There a bit more complicated than they seem as there is a rise on the cabin sides to the stern and there are the side hatches to cut out. We rough out the port side sheet and offer it up so that we can scribe the top side. It’s then a jig saw job (with the blade set at an angle matching the angle between the side and the ceiling), get the sheet back inside, offer it up, mark the hatch and the stringer on the bottom, back outside cut them out, drill the screw holes, paint the back and fit. Simples really

The stbd. side however proves to be as awkward as the other was simple. We must have had the sheet in and out half a dozen times trying to get a decent fit so in consequence by the end of the day we have got the sheet fitting but there is no time to get it up which is a real blow as it’s a two person job so it will have to wait until Andy’s back over or some poor unsuspecting person pays a visit

Friday and I’m back on the plumbing again. When Andy was over I noticed that I’d made a mistake and forgotten the hot water feed to the shower and I’m also not very happy with the expansion tank so I’m going to take the opportunity to redo it plus I need to get a couple of non return valves in . In order to do all this stuff the calorifier needs to come back out which is a fairly simple job with the stand as it is and then it’s back to sorting out the pipework. When it’s finished however I’m much more satisfied with the setup than before. The pipe work runs better and it looks good. I just hope it doesn’t leak especially as I’ve now fitted all the locking clips into the fittings so it will be a lot more work to get them out if they need to be worked on.

Finish the day with a happy hour filling screw heads in the engine room. A really good week all things considered

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

Well another week has been and gone and what have I got to show for it. Well quite a lot really

Got a phone call early (and I do mean early) Monday morning from Nick who lives in the village and is a painter and decorator. I’ve been talking to him for some time about doing some internal painting on Siskin on a “return favor” basis and he has a couple of days free before his next job so he’s able to come over and make a start. Great stuff!!

While Nick makes a start on the prep for painting I take the opportunity to get him to give me a hand to get the remaining cabin side up in the engine room so I can work in there while he is painting in the main cabin. Nicks going to do the ceilings (Jabot) a sort of chalky white (cream if you’re not posh), under the gunwales in the saloon and galley (Jade white) a very light tinted green and in the bathroom (blossom white) a very light pink tinge. I’m using oil based paints for everything so I know that there’s going to be some waiting time while it dries even though the weather is great.

Rather than make you all watch paint dry suffice to say that by the end of the day Nick has got a coat of paint on the ceiling and under the gunwales. The ceiling looks great just as I imagined but I’m not so certain about the Jade white it seems a lot lighter than the colour card. Nick even thinks that it looks blue instead of green . We’ll see how it looks tomorrow when its dried.

I’ve spent the day in the engine room filling the screw heads with Brummer and sealing the edges with Sikaflex, rubbing everything down and getting a quick coat of primer on above the gunwales. It’s starting to look really nice.

Tuesday arrives and we’re still not certain about the Jade white but more importantly I’m really not happy about the joints in the ceiling boards. I’d sanded them all down and they were smooth and level but with a coat of semi gloss on you can see that they are not at all flat in fact to be honest they look absolutely crap . It’s no good I’ve got to fix them or they will bug me forever. It’s out with the big orbital sander and work over all the joints leveling them out. It actually doesn’t take too long and at least with the primer on they look better but the proof of the pudding will come when we finish coat them.

With that done Nicks back to painting. I have to say that he can paint ten times quicker than me and still get better results.

Next job for me is to sort out the hatches in the engine room. I’ve left the sheets over size so I can trim them back with the trimming bit in the router but to be honest I’m not too enthusiastic about doing it as the bearing will be running on metal and I can just imagine what will happen when I tilt the router a bit. I decide that I’ll trim it off with a saw blade in the Fein and then sand it down flush. Using a wide blade and the steelwork as the guide it’s very quick to trim the boards back and the resulting cut is so good it only needs a quick hand sand to take the edges off. Magic and it reinforces my thoughts that if I only had one tool to use in fitting out it would be this one. With the hatches sorted out it’s time for the pigeon box. With a lining made out of some 12mm ply fitted inside the hatch I can work from the roof with the Fein and cut the center out. Easy!!

End of the day and Nicks sorted out the priming on the bits I’ve sanded, got a second coat underneath the gunwales and a second coat on the ceiling. I’ve sorted all the wood work in the engine room and got undercoat on the ceiling and bulkheads. Sorted.

This post might now get a little bit fragmented. I finished the post, saved it, spell checked it and the found everything from this point on had disappeared. Don’t you just love computers.

Wednesday. Nick running out of things to paint so he starts on putting some more varnish on the rosewood panels above the gunwales. I’m messing about keeping out of the way doing little jobs like cutting a hole in the roof for the horn plug and sorting out how I’m going to do the plumbing underneath the tug deck. MMM popped over to trim some stuff up on the saw, it’s always nice to be able to reciprocate a favor. With Nick finishing just after lunch and as it’s such a nice day I decide to slope off and get an iced coffee and pretend to be civilised for a bit.

Thursday. Nicks finished, he’s got two top coats on everything, two additional coats of varnish on and even another coat of undercoat on the engine room above the gunwales. We’ll put a final coat on the ceiling and sides when I’ve finished the fitout to cover up any little dings I may put on. The transformation inside Siskin is remarkable, pity it doesn’t really show up in photos. I’m still not certain about the Jade white so I’m passing that decision to the boss and Chris can let me know what she thinks at the weekend.

With a clear run at the boat I can get back to some proper work so the first thing to do is tidy up and sort out (again) so that I’ve got a reasonable working environment. As always this takes a lot longer than you think but it makes doing stuff easier. Next bit to go up is the stbd. bulkhead as there is a really good datum line where the galley cupboards end. The bulkhead goes up a treat and only needs minimum trimming to get it to fit really well. It’s really square with every angle being 90 ± 1° as measured with my super dooper digital angle measurymebob thingy (which I got free when I bought my saw bench and have been wondering what I would use it for).

I can’t fit the port bulkhead yet as I need to use it as the template for the larder sides but I can at least get it fitted properly. Imagine my horror when I suddenly discover I’ve cut the cutout for the pipes in the wrong place. How the hell I can ever have managed that it’s impossible for anyone with half a brain. Well it’s got to get fixed as I cant afford to scrap the bulkhead. The one redeeming factor is that the mistake will be covered on the bathroom side and well out of sight on the galley side.

First thing is to cut a plug out of some 1″scrap and sand it till it fits the hole. With a couple of pocket holes and a squirt of glue to hold it in place it’s sorted. When the glue has gone off and the faces are sanded it doesn’t look to bad at all and I don’t think it will be noticeable when everything is in. Lost a couple of hours fixing it however.

With the mistake fixed (I still can’t believe I did it in the first place) I can fit the bulkhead and trim it. It needs even less work than the stbd. one which is good news. I’ve really run out of things to do now until I get the next lot of material from Rob so I give him a ring and see if it’s ready. He reckons he can have it ready by tomorrow morning if I can get to the workshop and pick it up.

Friday hitch up the trailer and off to Robs workshop. True to his word the sheets are all cut and ready to go. All the small bits go in the back of the car and the larger bits onto the trailer and it’s back to Siskin to get going.

The cupboards for the galley are all being made with 18mm birch play faced with Melamine on both sides. It’s a bit expensive but I know that I will end up with a set of carcasses which will a: be very sturdy, b: be neat and easy to clean on the inside and c: should last a lifetime. The only downside is cutting it as the Melamine will chip. The bits Rob has cut are magic as he has a zero clearance insert on his panel saw but I’ve got some profiling to do on the larder sides. I had hoped that Rob could get me ply which was faced on one side only which would have made cutting it easier but it wasn’t available in time.

Still I can minimise the breakout with some masking tape over the cut line and by making certain that the good side is to the inside of the cupboard it will look fine.

With the larder sides cut out I can finally fit the port bulkhead. With a couple of pieces of wood cramped across the bottom to keep the two bulkheads in line and the magic digital angle measurymebob thingy the second bulkhead is soon up. Problem is that the doorway is 10mm wider at the bottom than at the top. Some head scratching later and I can see no obvious reason for this. The bulkhead is slightly off square to the floor across the boat so fixing the gap will also fix that. A quick run with the saw and a straight edge has the doorway square and parallel and a few pockethole screws later the bulkhead is in place.

Somebody told me that the biggest difference you will ever see when fitting out a boat is when you fit the bulkheads. I reckon he was right. Pity I didn’t think to take a picture

Postscript: Chris like the Jade white as it is so don’t need to change the colour

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Athy]

I always enjoy reading your weekly column, which you construct with the same care that you lavish on the boat itself. Thanks for posting it.

[Steve Goddard]

Athy. Thanks glad that you like the ramblings. I do intend to keep it up to the very end. Steve

Blimey I moved to a weekly blog entry because I couldn't keep the daily one up and now I've even missed a weekly one. What am I like .

In my defense however it's been a couple of short weeks so if you count the days I've actually been over at the boat it's equivalent to one week (well nearly, sort of).

The first job I've tackled is to build a little ser5vice cupboard next to the range. This will house all the heating pumps and controls and also the midships electrics. It's just a couple of bits of 18mm ply with the obligatory pocket hole screws holding them together and to the lining and floor. It doesn't take long to get the components sorted and then painted on the backsides and varnished on the front so it looks a bit more presentable. With the two bits joined together it's simple to get it fixed in place. The only issue is making certain it's in the right place so that the subsequent galley cabinets are in the right place. As I line it up it becomes obvious that I'm going to have to make a significant change and reduce the sink unit from a 600mm to a 500mm unit (good job I've not bought the sink yet : ) in order to get it to line up with the hatch properly. With that all sorted it's fixed down with some more pocket hole screws and the jobs a good un. Another thing that becomes apparent during this exercise is that I'm going to have to fix the cooker down to the floor as it now seems to have decide that it will move with the slightest touch . Before it was all I could do to move it at all. Oh well.

With the bulkheads in place, the cooker positioned and the service space in the space inside Siskin is now properly delineated and for the first time I can get a good idea of the physical spaces as they will end up. I'm actually quite pleased. I had thought that the spaces would feel very cramped but they actually feel comfortable.

Now that the bulkheads are up I can get the short runs of B&R up in the bathroom which don't take very long and make a big visual difference. All I need to do is to get the rosewood veneer up above the B&R and the bathroom lining will be complete.

Davids over for another day and the main task is to get the fuel pipe for the cooker fixed in. I need to get a length of iroko fixed underneath the engine room floor bearers so that we have something to clip the pipe to. We get the pipe in pretty easily but the connection at the cooker end is another matter all together. I've ordered up some flare nuts and a flaring tool but none of the nuts fit the fitting on the stove. Bummer. While Davids clipping the pipe into place I nip into town to try and get the correct fittings. Now Market Harborough is actually pretty well sorted for places to find obscure fittings but can I find the right ones, can I hell. Even Nick down at HAMS can't help and to be honest if he hasn't got the correct fitting then it probably doesn't exist. Armed with a mixture of bits and bobs I head back to the boat and we manage to figure a way of connecting the pipe to the cooker. Down side is it's all compression fitting so the 10 quid I spent on the pipe flaring tool was a waste of money but I suppose it could have been worse .

To finish off the day David and I get most of the outstanding skin fittings sorted (bilge pump, shower sump pump and washing machine) which only leaves the galley sink to do but that needs the sink installed to make certain we put it in the right place.

With the boat to myself the next day I can make a start on the cold water pipework and main pump. I've decided that I'll fix the pump down with 6mm machine screws into brass inserts let into the floor. The inserts, should in theory, need 8mm holes drilled and then simply screwed into the floor. Yeah right, that's going to work in the Jarrah. The first one simply disintegrates as I try and screw it in and I spend the next 15min muttering and swearing as I try to removed the remains of the insert. Next is to try with a 9mm drill. It's a little better in the fact that the insert doesn't collapse but it's by no means simple. In the end I end up opening the hole up even further and it's still a struggle to get the inserts in.

Still once the inserts are in the pumps mounts easily and of course can just as easily be removed if it ever needs to be. After the struggle with the inserts getting the pipework sorted is quite easy. There's a 6m length up to the water tank so that there are no hidden joints and a couple of isolating valves on the pump inlet and outlet. Looks nice and tidy when it's done.

The following day the weather is awful so I decided to spend some time in the workshop and get some of the galley cabinets sorted. The first one to do is the one which is next to the range. I need to get this one done so I can check that all the clearances for the range doors and the cabinet magic corner work. The cabinet is put together with pocket hole screws and some polyurethane glue which should mean that they last forever. Before I put the top on the cabinet I fit the magic corner as it's a lot easier. The corner is a German one and it shows. The quality of the bits and the precision of the fit is impressive. With the frames in place it's a simple job to fit the runners and baskets, as you can see it makes really good use of the dead space (the left hand side of the cabinet will be covered with the range) and yet when you open it everything is nice and easy to get to. I like it .

David's over on the Friday working on the heating pipework so before he can start I need to get the range position fixed. Good job that I had made the cabinet because when it's in place it's obvious that I need to shift the range 25mm to make certain that the range doors open fully. I'm fixing the range down with some 25mm aluminium angle screwed to the floor and self tapped into the range. Same old problem with the Jarrah and screws with real problems getting the screws into the floor and it actually takes a couple of goes to get the angles screwed down. While Davids working on the copper piping I need to get a couple of additional runs through the galley for the heating. These cant go above the existing pipework as that would stop the cabinets from going flush back to the hull sides so they need to fit in front of the existing pipework. I make up some back to back clips using 6mm machine screws which clip onto the existing pipework and the new pipework clips into the front. This really works well and the pipes are really well supported.

While Davids working on the pipework it's loo time as it's just been delivered. Some time is spent in trying positions checking that the all important clearance is there to ensure that a newspaper can be opened without problem (the FT of course ) and a location is finally decided so I can work on the little bulkhead to go behind it. I had hoped that I would be able to lift the bulkhead out of the way without moving the loo so that I could get in to do any necessary maintenance and repairs but thats not going to happen so I'll have to go through the hassle of getting the inserts into the floor again. By the end of the day I've go the bulkhead sorted and sort of wrassled the pipe into position (I can see this being a problem to get it fitted) and David has just about finished the copper pipework but my phone battery has run out so no pictures (next post honest)

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[AndrewH]

looking really good

[Steve Goddard]

Andrew thanks I'm trying

Well got back to the boat this week after having a break over Easter. Had a couple of days in London to go catch some shows. Saw The 39 Steps absolutely brilliant, so clever and SOOOOO funny. An ideal way to relax.

Back on Siskin it’s a really slow start, with other commitments and the fact that the weather is rubbish (I know we need the rain) All I manage to get done in the first half of the week is to sort out the wood work for round the loo and get a couple of coats of paint on it. Hardly outstanding. It’s back to a bit of plumbing on Thursday running the water feed pipe for the loo, a couple of heating pipes which will be for the towel rail and sorting out the poo pipe getting it properly fixed into place which is a job in it’s own right as it’s really hard to work with. It’s the sort of job that two pairs of hands would breeze through but just on your own it’s like wrestling a giant anaconda while trying to thread a needle. It’s not helped of course by my using stainless screws as of course they are not magnetic and keep dropping off the screwdriver bit .

Friday arrives along with David so here’s a chance to resurrect the week. Davids finishing off the copper pipework un the services cupboard by the range and I’m determined to get the loo sorted out. My first job is to get the pipework in place. I’ve fixed the poo pipe so it’s only the water feed that needs sorting. I’m using a Jabsco loo as it seemed to do all the things I wanted and as an added bonus was cheap (well I use that term in a purely relative sense you understand ). there’s an anti syphon solenoid to be fitted in the water feed which has a ½” inlet and a ¾” outlet, nothing like a bit of standardisation to make things easy . Still it’s a pretty simple job and doesn’t take long.

Next job is the electrics. Those of you with a nervous disposition should stop reading now and go and lie down in a dark room for a bit.

I have never in all my life seen such a shite job of electronic packaging as the control unit for this loo. It is absolute rubbish. The control box is pretty small (about 80mm square) and has a couple of wires that go to the battery, two to the solenoid, two to the macerator motor and a small signal cable to the control panel. First thing is that the feed and return wires for the macerator and solenoid come out on different sides of the control box. How the hell are you supposed to make a neat job with that. I was so surprised that I actually took the box to pieces to look at the circuit board and was dumbfounded to find that INSIDE the box they are on the same side and practically next to each other. The battery cable is a twin core flex that looks as if somebody stripped the sheath off with their teeth and the control cable comes out on a third side of the box. At least theyv’e got the label on the box the right way up so when the empty side of the box is on the top you can read it. The only way I can get a half decent job is to strip off the sheath on the battery cable and route the -ve’s for the macerator and solenoid round the box with a couple of cable ties to hold them in place and pair them with their respective +ve’s. Next problem is that the bloody cables are so short that I can only just get the box near enough to the solenoid (after I’ve stripped it down and rotated the coil so that the terminals are on a sensible orientation) so I don’t have to extend the cable but I need to extend the macerator pair. Next problem is that all the cables are 3mm². The devil of a job to crimp in a blue crimp but too loose to use a yellow This is turning into a nightmare. Fortunately David has a good range of cord ends with him so we decide to use them with some chocolate block to join the cables properly, althought it’s not my ideal way. The final insult is that the wires from the macerator pump its self are so short that they do not come outside the loo body so you are struggling to get connectors on to them in the confines of the loo. Nothing showstopping in any of the faults but just a little bit of thought would have made this so much better.

At the end of the day I’ve got it as neat as I can and it doesn’t look to bad (so I keep telling myself).

Next step is to fit the loo properly. I’ve made the little bulkhead out of ½” ply covered in the same bead and reed as the walls and it fixes to a couple of battens on the wall with some 6mm brass machine screws into the little brass bushes, which went into the battens a whole lot easier that into the Jarrah floor for the water pump. With the bulkhead in place it’s guess time to try and get the pipe lengths right. I’ve used a little bit of heat from the heat gun to soften the poo pipe and it does make it easier to manipulate. With the length estimated and heart in mouth I cut the pipe to length. If I’ve done this wrong and it’s to short I’m really in the poo . With the loo pushed back to the bulkhead it all looks OK but when I pull it back out it’s obvious that the poo pipe is still too long as it has kinked close to the hose tail on the loo. With a bit more off the loo slides back and all looks well. Last job is to get four bushes into the floor for the hold down screws and then the whole thing can be bolted down. Just need to make a lid for the boxing and seal between the loo and the bulkhead and the job’s a good un not only does it look alright but it’s a very simple job to pull the loo out for simple maintenance or even take the whole bulkhead out if you need even more access.

David meantime has been beavering away on the plumbing which is quite complicated round the range as all the central heating controls, heating to the calorifier, isolation valves for the heating plus the main water feed are all in this little space. Oh and I need some of it for the electrics.

Still David manages to get everything in and look decent. I’ve still got to change the head on the three way valve for a Sunvic one but I should be able to do that without an issue.

Last little job to round the day off is to fit the horn socket which David manages to do in between showers. All in all a good day with some real progress.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard

[Steve Goddard]

I’m thinking about renaming Siskin the Ark given the amount of rain this week. The only good thing is that if it goes on like this I can get a refund off Mike because I won’t need a crane back into the water I’ll just float off the hard standing .

With the weather (which makes it difficult to work at the boat) and other stuff I have to get done it’s another slow week on the boat. I’m looking at things I can do in the workshop rather than at Siskin so a good start is to sort out the galley sink cabinet. The only issue is that I don’t have a a sink so a quick troll on the Internet and I’ve found the ideal sink at the right price (if I pick it up from Rotherham). Sometimes things do come together as I’ve also bought a 1.2 x 1.2m sheet of 10mm tufnol for the electrical service cupboard and I have to pick that up from Sheffield so it all works out. Day 1 gone

Next day it’s time to make a start on the cabinet. The base needs some cut outs for the waste and an access so you can get to the taps to connect them. I’d thought about using a hole saw but I don’t have one anywhere near the size I need so it’s down to routing them out. I’ve got a little jig from Trend which makes routing out rectangles a simple job so some work with the jig a bit more work with the pocket hole jig and some work on the back and cabinet bottom to cut an access slot for the pipes and I’ve got all the components prepared. Putting the cabinet together is the same as the other cabinet but I need to get the base at the right height so that the sink fits properly under the worktop, a little bit of maths and I figure out where the base needs to be so I cut some little legs so I can check that it’s at the right height. Good job that I did because I messed up the maths and made the legs 18mm short (yep I forgot the thickness of the cabinet bottom ). Good job it’s easy to pack the legs up and then reset the sink to check and it all fits just as it should . After that it’s just a case of screwing it all together. Nice thing is that I can use the legs to make certain the base is correctly positioned. With the legs on the only little job left to do is to make a couple of little runners for the top of the sides which will hold the sink in position as it is a few mm short of the gap. Now you might be thinking that this is all a bit organised for me and you’d be right, if the truth is known I originally decided that I would cut the sides down to the top of the sink base and then decided to leave them full height. Only problem is that the sides were cut to the standard measurements which have the top of the cabinet sitting on the sides so this left them 18mm short. Still it’s an ill wind as they say and with the runners in place the sink is well and truely secured Day 2 gone.

Wednesday and I get a call saying that the shower stuff has arrived so it’s off to pick that up and offload the cubicle and mixer at home and load up the sink and cabinet to get them over to Siskin. Nick from Fandango kindly offers to give me a hand to get everything into the boat which considering the weight of the shower tray is a really good thing. I get the sink all set up and decide that I’ll unpack the shower tray and set it up. Imagine my my horror when I find out it’s a 800 x 800 square rather than a 800 x 800 quadrant. A quick call to the shop and I’m relieved that it’s their cock up not mine but it means that I have to pack it all up again and drag it back out of the boat. With all of this messing around it’s buggered the day completely so another day come and gone. Day 3 gone.

Thursday and Nicks over at the boat to get some more paint on the engine room. While he’s doing that I’m trying to sort out how to get all of the electrics in the service cupboard by the range. As there is both 24v and 240v I need to get some sort of separating partition between them. After a bit of thought I’ve got a plan and I need to make a little shelf to go into the cupboard. Into the container and trim up some 12mm ply on the bench saw. Now I’ve been woodworking for 35+ years and in all that time I’ve never had an accident so how the hell I managed to poke my finger into the saw blade I’ll never know . Good news is that my fingers still the same length bad news is that the ends a bit mangled and it don’t half slow you down. That’ll teach me to be more careful in future.

Nick however has got the final coat of chalky white and the first coat of red oxide on the engine room and even if I do say so myself it’s starting to look really good.

Friday - new bed,

no boat

Week done

Edited October 15, 2015 by Steve Goddard