When did narrowboats become "all steel"?

[Southern Star]

Just a very quick question, when did boats become "all steel", in other words stopped being built with wooden or grp superstructures?

 

 

[MtB]

1975

[RLWP]

1975

 

On a Tuesday, I think

 

Richard

[alan_fincher]

Depends exactly what you are asking!

 

"Sickle" was, for example built largely "all steel" in 1936, and is certainly not amongst the first boats to have steel cabins. (But I'm guessing that's not really what you want to know!)

 

Leisure boats built in the early 1970s were a complete mixture.....

 

Top of the range bespoke boats by builders like Malcolm Braine has wooden cabins, (usually oil tempered hardboard - "Masonite" over tongued and grooved boards. However cheaper boats, such as Rugby boatbuilders ones used similar.

The "better" hire cruisers types, like Harborough Marine tended to use a GRP sandwich.

However, (perhaps surprisingly!) budget Springers were already being built all steel - perhaps why many have survived better than more expensive offerings.

Edited June 3, 2014 by alan_fincher

[MtB]

 

On a Tuesday, I think

 

Richard

 

Your memory is failing. It was a Monday evening.

 

MtB

[Tonka]

Were they not iron before steel

[Alan de Enfield]

Forty-Two

[MtB]

Were they not iron before steel

 

Yes.

 

Is the question mark key on your laptop broken?

 

 

(Ready to duck the incoming..... )

 

MtB

[Guest]

Is not the OP asking when narrowboats became constructed from an all steel welded construction, as in a welded steel tube? Hull and cabin welded together.....?

[Southern Star]

Depends exactly what you are asking!

 

"Sickle" was, for example built largely "all steel" in 1936, and is certainly not amongst the first boats to have steel cabins. (But I'm guessing that's not really what you want to know!)

 

Leisure boats built in the early 1970s were a complete mixture.....

 

 

But it's safe to assume that anything built from 1980 onwards will have a steel superstructure?

[YamYam]

Forty-Two

Good to see you've given that Deep Thought

[stagedamager]

 

Your memory is failing. It was a Monday evening.

 

MtB

 

It must be a Thursday.... I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

[alan_fincher]

But it's safe to assume that anything built from 1980 onwards will have a steel superstructure?

I'm not sure it is, but can't say definitively.

 

Magazines from that time certainly show many, (most?), hire boats based on GRP tops, but whether everybody had stopped building them that way by then, I don't know.

[MtB]

But it's safe to assume that anything built from 1980 onwards will have a steel superstructure?

 

No, but it's safe to say that anything built from 1980 onwards will probably have a steel superstructure....

 

MtB

[dave moore]

Hi

 

I doubt that there will ever be a definitive answer to the question, different builders switched at varying times. I remember a friend's shell being all steel in the early-ish 70s, although wooden cabins were more common in those days. I vaguely remember arguments about stability, that a steel cabin would prove top heavy, though by the 80s steel tops were common.

 

Malcolm Braine built wooden tops, wooden frames with planked cladding with Masonite, an oil based hardboard, to form the outer face, along with timber framing if required to simulate recessed panels of working craft. Some boats were also treated with fibre glass resin for longevity. Graham Edgson, his successor, went on to re-skin the exterior, removing the framing and Masonite, leaving the planks and constructing a new steel cabin over the top, a highly skilled bit of fabricating.

 

I've a pile of old WW mags in the loft, when I get a moment I'll dig them out and check the adverts.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[John V]

any one know what the cabin of this was made from?

 

concrete nb at Gloucester by mudlarker2, on Flickr

Edited June 3, 2014 by John V

[alan_fincher]

any one know what the cabin of this was made from?

 

concrete nb at Gloucester by mudlarker2, on Flickr

 

I doubt it would have had one.

[FadeToScarlet]

It varied very much, mine was one of the very first welded, not riveted, boats with a metal hull and cabin in 1935... But it was iron, not steel, and the bottom was wood.

[Black Ibis]

Willow also has a 1980 cabin which was originally wooden but has since been skinned in steel.

[Timleech]

The ready availability of affordable MIG welding sets must have contributed to the popularity of the steel cabin, they make producing a decent cabin with minimal distortion much quicker and easier than with stick welding.

 

Tim