Progress Again :-)

I now have all the steering system hydraulics fitted.  Flow and return pipes have been run from the steering pump to the ram and with the help of my wife turing the wheel to order the system was filled and bled. Here is the helm pump.  I have removed the wheel again as its sure to get damaged.

I have also fitted the an external 13a socket, the 16a power inlet, 12v switch panel, locker doors and the red bit is the megga loud alarm sounder.

Sam the canopy maker came again today to start the final fit.  This has enabled me to finally get the big tempory cover off.  Whist it has done a stirling job the constant noise of it russtling in the wind has really irritted me. So..........

Before

And the big reveal...........

After

 Panoramic shot front

 Panoramic shot front

Sam's Website  

I have a comment from an email corrispondent about the pram hood:-"The dogs Bollocks"  guess he didn't want to put it in the comments box. I aggree.  I will show it off on another blog later on as to what it does.

While Sam and indeed his daughter Sam were fitting  this I was bust up the front end.  I have removed the horible steel front doors and replaced them with the loverly oak ones I had made.

Before

After
The grind marks are to remove the hinge

Finally today another delivery of furnature to finish off the kitchen and for the bedroom.  Once again it feels like things are moving again.

Its strange how it goes, you seem to be working and nothing seems to get done, then in a couple of days all the prep comes together in a big way.

Sam is back on Friday to put the final fittings on the cover.

Stuff Is Arriving

Sam the canvas man arrived today for the second fitting of the pram cover.  The design of the cover will permit the screen to remain in place with the cover completely down but can also be lowered or fully removed if required.

 There will be more side windows on the finished cover

and a dodger around the base

 The front screen

I also collected the oak doors from the carpenters today.  The small set will replace the steel ones in the forward bulkhead.  The tall ones are the bedroom and bathroom doors.

While Sam was working on the cover I cut out all the holes for the additional electronics to be fitted. Photo of this in a few days when they are fitted.

Even More Rudder

Today I finally finished the rudder and installed the ram.

I had to modify the rudder fixing as my original idea to keep it concealed turned out to be very difficult to fit and remove the rudder.  I wanted to fit it and remove it to be sure it could be done.  Whilst it could be done it was very fiddly, so in the end I filled the tapped holes and re-dilled so that the bolts are accessible from the outside.  Much easier, but not as pretty, but it will be under water so hopefully I won't see it that often.

As this is a Shilling type rudder its main advantage is that it will operate at angles over 35º  to give better stearing especially at low speeds.  The rudder arm supplied was calculated to move through 35º each way with a pre-drilled pivot point at 140mm but by re-drilling the pivot point to 104mm an angle of 50º each way was achieved. 

 Straight

 Port

 Starboard

 This shows why I created the extra borrowed space

I'm glad that's done now it was pretty heavy work in an awkward space both inside the boat and outside.  

The whole assembly moves very smoothly and freely.  The bottom bearing is a simple steel on steel cup and plug set up and the top bearing is a self aligning pillow block bearing. 

I now consider myself an expert on the construction and installation of a Schilling type rudder.  I just hope it works as well as they are said to in this article.

Blue Is The Colour

Sam, the canopy maker, is coming in a couple of days so this is what has spured on the final spraying of the stern area.  There's quite a lot of fittings that need to go on and its better that its painted first instead of masking up loads of little fittings after.

I have never used 2pac paint before this weekend.  I was impressed with how the primer went on and cured off.  Today I spent a couple of hours rubbing down then it was time for the top coat.

I have to say I am pretty pleased with my efforts.

 

Who's that handsome devil in the reflection?

Strange Week

Its been a strange week since the last post. The passing of an era.

I have now sold our Narrowboat.  It needed to have a pre sale survey, unfortunately my marina could not accommodate us on the slip when we needed it but the next marina on the system were able to.  So I went down the marina last Sunday to save a rush on Monday morning.  The new owner turned up and we set of about 10am.  4 hours later we had covered the 12 miles to the other marina.  The boat underwent its survey and apart from some battery terminals that needed soldering and a small clip on a gas pipe all was good.  I stayed at the marina overnight and they soldered the terminals and I did the clip.  All work done I set off back the the home marina.  

 It was a sad journey for me tracked on my iPad

It was the last time I would be the owner of that boat at the tiller.  We have had it for 5 years and have enjoyed every minute if it.  It's been a great first boat and has been the springboard to this boat I am now building.  I hope the new owner has as many good times as we have had.

Leaving Stanground lock

Peterborough city 48 hour moorings

Midsummer Comon 48 hour mooring Cambridge

So having only a short week the priority was to get the rear ready for the cover.  The cover incoroprates a dodger which is the lower part which wraps round the bottom.  To make a neat and weatherproof job of it required a bottom rim to be made and welded in.  Once that was fitted next came the hard part of rubbing down the whole of the stern metawork then finally priming.

 The lower rim

This rim didn't follow the curve of the lower part of the boat so I had to make an infill fillet and weld it in just near the bollards.  The lower rim follows the upper rim.

I will give this a couple of days to harden right off before rubbing down ready for gloss coat. I have used 2 pac primer.  The spray gun I have has a very fine adjustment on it.  As 2 pac is a chemical cure paint the fine adjustment on the gun allows very fine placement of spray.  The primer is a high build filler/primer so the gun can be used to precisly fill any small areas which need building ready for rubbing down.

Door Furnature

I had a call fron the wood shop to tell me he was ready for the door furnature. So I thourght I'd go to a local long established iron moungary store.  My needs wern't difficult, or so I thourght.  I wanted some 3" polished SS hinges, and a SS rebater door lock.  All they had was tat, the hinges were so bad IMO it was a waste of SS and no rebated locks at all.  This is supposed to be a specialist shop.  I then went to B&Q, Homebase and Howdens.  In 2 of these the concept of SS seemed to be alien.  They did a huge range of nasty plated stuff, but not a whiff of SS, and as for rebate lock......Well?  Howdens did have some very nice SS hinges but they wanted over £13 a pair and that was on my trade account!

I resolved to go on the net. I like to support local shops where possible, but they really have to do more.

A Net search turned up a company called e-Hardware  Absolutly brilliant!!  and the even better part quite local to me and were happy to indulge my fussyness in person.  In the end I got EXACTLY what I wanted and even some concealed  door latches I didnt even know existed.

So, excelent quality products, brilliant service and great prices......... How great?  Well the exact same hinges that I liked at Howdens were at e-Hardware for £3.50

I will post pics of this stuff when I get the doors.