Wooden Portholes

It was the big day for the Big Brute vac to arrive.  Instructions on where to come had been provided by me to the company including a link to the spot in google maps and my telephone number.  Needless to say the driver had none of this information and opened with a moan about how hard it to find.

He dumped a pallet of stuff onto the car park and off he went.  Luckily the main vac comes on its own wheels but the secondary drum had to be balanced on a sack barrow to get it to the boat.  Why is everything to do with boats so damn heavy.

Take a look.  Its an impressive beast that will pretty much allow me to empty the Medway if needed.

I tackled the two portholes I failed on at the weekend.  I could not remove the covers so this time I bought longer saw blades and managed to remove the 8 rusted bolts.  Underneath was the typical red paint.  So on with the paint stripper and off to do another job for an hour while it works its magic.

While this was soaking I did sort the toilets.  I have been putting this off due to the proximity of my head to the loo while trying to remove the old seats.  Puke!  I cut the rear supports off with the saw and then used the crow bar to wrench the seat itself off.  That just left the nuts which came off relatively easily.  A quick clean of the loos and on with the new (cheap MDF) seats.  

Meanwhile back at the portholes.  I started to scrape off the paint.  Underneath, no glass, just wood.  Turns out that in each of these portholes they had put plywood discs onto the glass and then sealed them in.  They came out after 20 mins with a hammer and a screwdriver (yes yes, I know, screwdrivers are not chisels).

I had a go at repairing the lock on the double doors.  Alas it was rusted up solid and I had to destroy it to get it off.  Never mind.  It had to go one way or another.

Last job of the day was to put the covers on the air intakes.  Stops the rain getting in on a windy day.

The rusted lock.  I took these so I can compare it to ones on the net.

And now.... drum roll.

Toilets!  yeah!

Newly cleaned portholes

Not complete pics as I am storing the various bits other than the drums inside.

I have been trying to source some parts for the loudaphone.  The handset mouthpiece is missing.  I took these to send to a few people to see if they had any spares.  It turns out that they were used a lot on trains (old trains) and the underground.  Yet there are none of these on ebay.