What have you fettled for the boat today?

[Ex- Member]

Well boat now nicely trimmed. Been meaning to do this since getting on the water 8 months ago. The boat has been a bit heavy about 1.5 inch deeper on the water Starboard side. I had a hunch this would be the case so the central dining area of the boat has much less ballasting making it easy to trim up in that area.

 

I've been putting this off for far to long though so today took the floor up. We have T&G Bamboo flooring 15mm thick, I fitted it pretty tight and it was a right bugger to get up.

 

I've also been dreading what's possibly in the bilges as they were last accessed in this area about 6 years ago. The galley is one side and the bathroom the other. We did have a problem a few years ago with a frost damaged shower mixer which had leaked quite a lot over one winter, so wondered if it had caused problems below.

 

Anyway T7G up and we got the 2 ply sheets up. and what a lovely sight, a bone dry bilge. In fact so dry there was still loose sawdust lying in it.

 

 

Surprisingly we only had to move around 10 slabs, they were mostly 18 x 18 ones as well so very easy to shift around. There was a bit of light rust around the shower pump area not far from there the mixer leaked, it was bone dry though so we cleaned it up and applied some bitumen. We also checked out the shower pump as well and all looks good.

 

 

All sorted we relaid the floor. We cleaned up the T&G boards prior to replacing, this removed worked in grime from the joints. I was really impressed how the floor looked when finished, it's at least 6 years old and taken quite a lot of foot traffic and general wear & tear. Really impressed with this Bamboo flooring.

 

Job done!

 

Really pleased to get this one out the way. Nice to be back on the level too

Edited April 30, 2014 by Julynian

[mark99]

Mounted the old Gardner plate and added a brass UK Coat of Arms. These (Coat of Arms) come up quite often on ebay.

 

[Naughty Cal]

Fitted new batteries.

[Ex- Member]

I noticed our engine battery drops some energy over numerous days as we don't need to run the engine.

 

I checked the engine battery today with a hydrometer, it showed one cell a bit in the Red and a couple more borderline. The battery reads 3/4 full though and would start the engine no problem. I had one of those small trickle charger solar panels that I connected up a few days ago, over that time a small improvement in the analogue needle was apparent.

 

Anyway I have 3 of these wee solar chargers as my dad used to use them to charge his radio sets and all sorts of stuff to do with his radio ham hobby. He's sadly passed on and I've ended up with 3 of them, but with portholes they're tricky to use. So rather than them stuffed away in cupboards I thought I would parallel them all and use to maintain engine battery.

 

Found some off cut polypropylene sheet so set the solar panels on that was left over from the fit out. Panels are only 1.5W each but just wanted to make use of them.

 

[Naughty Cal]

Ours let us down last weekend yet were fine this weekend. Wasn't willing to go away in a couple of weeks with "dodgy" batteries so we have replaced them.

 

Could prove to be replacing for the sake of it at this rate! Old ones donated to a friend. See how he gets on with them!

[BlueStringPudding]

This morning after much trepidation drilling through the tiles (nothing cracked!) I got my Taylor's heater mounted and the fuel pipe fitted.

 

 

 

Alas I can't play with it yet because despite charging me a whopping 8 hours labour to cut a hole in the roof and fit the collar and topmost section of flue (by comparison my entire Boatman stove was fitted in just over 3 hours and that included cutting the hole in the roof) the boatyard didn't seal it properly and as you can see from the wads of kitchen roll, it's pi**ing in rainwater. They don't have time to make it right till next Thursday but at least they'll make it right.

 

In the meantime, on to the next half finished DIY project.

[bizzard]

This morning after much trepidation drilling through the tiles (nothing cracked!) I got my Taylor's heater mounted and the fuel pipe fitted.

 

 

 

Alas I can't play with it yet because despite charging me a whopping 8 hours labour to cut a hole in the roof and fit the collar and topmost section of flue (by comparison my entire Boatman stove was fitted in just over 3 hours and that included cutting the hole in the roof) the boatyard didn't seal it properly and as you can see from the wads of kitchen roll, it's pi**ing in rainwater. They don't have time to make it right till next Thursday but at least they'll make it right.

 

In the meantime, on to the next half finished DIY project.

You must be joking BSP. 8 HOURS LABOUR!!!!!! for cutting a smallish hole like that and fitting a collar, astounding. That's an hours work including any stoppages for tea.

[BlueStringPudding]

You must be joking BSP. 8 HOURS LABOUR!!!!!! for cutting a smallish hole like that and fitting a collar, astounding. That's an hours work including any stoppages for tea.

I argued the case with them (it was Wyvern in Leighton Buzzard) but they'd have none of it. Claimed it was because their standards are so high. Hmm - their standards don't seem to have stopped the rain coming in though! I won't use them again.

Edited May 18, 2014 by BlueStringPudding

[canals are us?]

Spent the afternoon buying and installing a 1.25kw immersion heater as my calorifier never had one. Bought the complete immersion heater from Shobnall Marina for £23.50 and then went to Screwfix and bought a digital immersion heater timer for £19.99 and some cable clips. Previously spent 40 minutes removing the old immersion heater blank. Installed the immersion heater. Wired it to heatproof flex to the timer in my wardrobe and then used arctic blue from the timer to the new MCB at the mains unit. Tested it all and lovely hot water after 1 hour 15 minutes.

 

Start my job on Wednesday and it will be great to come back to hot water and a nice shower without having to wait or use the engine or back boiler.

 

BlueStringPudding, that's an unbelievable time to cut a hole! I would expect the boat yard to have decent hole saws of various sizes and cut through it in less than 10 minutes. Even drilling a few pilot holes and cutting it out with a jigsaw could do it far, far, farrrr quicker!! What did they use to cut it?

 

James

Edited May 18, 2014 by canals are us?

[Beaker]

Seat upholstery completed, pic in gallery.

 

Excellent, that would go nicely on Cloud 9!

[BlueStringPudding]

And I've spent the rest of the day fettling a pullout bed base so my dinette can be turned into a double bed. All parts courtesy of the Beacon Boats sale (thanks Ally!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mark99]

Not a lot - Dave did me a painted mock up of the "Gas Light and Coke Company" flag so edged it in brass and screwed it to engine room wall.

 

Also effected a rescue of my new, bespoke, expensive chimney which got swiped off by a low branch. It hit the bottom and sent up a load of bubbles in the alignment of where it fell - pulled boat backwards via tree branches and used boathook to find the chimney via the bubbles - so bloody lucky as first stab found it. Lost the chimney chain however - but it was only one of those cheap, thin plated ones.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2014 by mark99

[BlueStringPudding]

 

 

BlueStringPudding, that's an unbelievable time to cut a hole! I would expect the boat yard to have decent hole saws of various sizes and cut through it in less than 10 minutes. Even drilling a few pilot holes and cutting it out with a jigsaw could do it far, far, farrrr quicker!! What did they use to cut it?

 

James

 

 

I can only assume they used their teeth.

 

They overcharged on hours IMHO when fixing my loo a few months ago (not in terms of hourly rate but in terms of how they legitimise the length of time a job takes - compared to other boatyards and mechanics I've used over the years). They justified it by spending time looking inside the holding tank to find out how it works. I challenged that because I hadn't booked them to spend time working out how the tank works, I had paid them to repair and descale the motor in the macerator - which is built into the loo not the tank. So they reduced the amount I had to pay because I challenged it.

 

I really didn't think they could find a way of overcharging for a job as simple as installing a roof collar. But when I cited the example of my Boatman installation taking 3 hours, James the man in charge of Wyvern said "he probably didn't have the overheads we do". I took that as they had inflated the number of hours the job took in order to cover their overheads. He further justified it by "the high standard" of their work (tell that to the bucket and bog roll collecting rain water under the flue at the moment!). I was very cross but they wouldn't sway and I felt I had to pay them in the end (I'll need to use their facilities in the future but I'll never book them for maintenance work again). They installed the new gas cooker too at the same time. Considering I arranged and paid for collection of the old one, delivery of the new one through a third party, they still managed to charge me an additional 5 hours labour for installing the cooker and changing the jets.

 

Quite frankly I feel conned by Wyvern. James also expected I'd be asking them to prep and paint the roof of my boat (which certainly needs doing) but there's no way I'm going back to them for any other work on my boat. I now don't trust the company - not the fellas doing the work, they're very down-to-earth - I don't trust their manager. Word of mouth of my experience isn't going to help their trade either.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2014 by BlueStringPudding

[lexicon]

Absolutely agree BSP, when enquiries were made about my engine, they claimed to be to busy to do some bits, when actually they can but only if I don't send the engine away to get rebuilt elsewhere. No wonder they are not busy.

[Ray T]

Took the old header tank off the top of my LPWS3 and fitted a remote one, easier to get at and top up.

 

 

Millie making sure I have done a proper job.

 

[Stevie101]

Took off my fenders and gave em a scrub lol

Getting rid of the winter grime

[mark99]

Our side hatch glazed window infills. If I got the hatch open, people stop and look into the glass for some reason.

 

So I've put on a van type mirror film.

 

Here is the job 1/2 done. Just need to mirror the second glass panel and re-affix to the side hatch hole via hinges.

 

Edited May 27, 2014 by mark99

[Ray T]

Installed an engine coolant temperature gauge.

 

[madcat]

Knitting a few blanket squares for a new blanket. I hope it stops raining soon and I can get on with the boat.

[Naughty Cal]

Cleaned some seagull poo off the cabin roof!

[Lockie Junior]

In a similar vein to Naughty Cal, I spent a fair bit of last night cleaning over an inch of goose s**t off of my cadet units rowing boat and cover. With only lake water, a bit of rotten wood (to scrape with) and my bare hands - .

 

Then the motor boat started playing up (loosing revs and stalling) so I drained off the water trap and made smoke and all appears well (for now...).

 

Regards,

Lockie.

 

Edited to add in remainder of post after CWDF had a 'fatal memory error' moment.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Lockie Junior

[mark99]

Used the very dregs of the red paint to paint the 2 strap/dividers on the back cabin roof - it does not come out well in photo but it creates an illusion of a longer space as it subdivides it to the eye.

 

Edited May 30, 2014 by mark99

[Naughty Cal]

Not fettled today as such but we did find out why our old batteries seemed to fail so quickly!

 

The 2x20 watt lights in the engine bay had been left on for a few weeks.

 

Oops!

[FadeToScarlet]

Today, the other half:

• Reblacked some scratches on the fore end, having cleaned off a little bit of rust
• Cleaned the windows
• Zapped the rust in a few scratches on the cabin sides, and primed them
• Cleaned up a 1938 penny found in the engine room under the fuel tank!

 

I managed to:

• Remove the swan neck, taking a slice out of my finger with the mole grips
• Shim out the rudder stock and reattach the swan's neck, so it no longer wobbles (hooray!)
• Scraped and primed various parts of the counter ready for repainting
• Cleaned and dried the engine room bilges
• Installed the bilge pump properly, in its bowl, held down with a brick so it's better placed to deal with drips from the stern gland
• Painted with white International Danboline - very shiny and nice, now, but it's not coming off my hands!
• Removed lots of white Danboline from my (newly-cut this morning!) hair, where I'd managed to lean my head against a freshly painted side of the swim

 

And lastly.... went to the pub!

[mark99]

Finished mirror film.