Blast!

Well, maybe a bit strong for a blog title but blasted they have been and the first set of big portholes are looking good.  Turns out they are not brass.  They are bronze.  Sand blaster bronze (purists with probably cry that one should not sand blast bronze but there really was no other affordable way to get 50 years of paint off) looks strange but the patiner will return.

The newly fitted cabin portholes look good.  A few pictures below.  The cabins now feel less like dark cupboards.  There is not a lot of light (obviously) through them and you will still need interior lights during the day were you to sit in there but the daylight makes a difference to the feel.  Less claustrophobic.  They also look superb.

The last set of portholes were taken up to the engineers this weekend.  They will be blasted and cleaned up and ready for refitting in the next few weeks.  The challenge of the bolts to fit them though turns out to be an interesting story.  It turns out that the bolts needed to fit the portholes (the old ones were all but destroyed to get them out) are rarer that hens teeth.  What else should I expect? So I will be getting the spec and doing a planet wide search for the right ones.  Otherwise they will need to be custom made at a cost that will make one think they were bought in Harrods individually wrapped in silk and hand delivered by an X-factor star.

The new ones look great.  Fitting to be completed but they look the part.

They are hard to photograph.  The rooms are lighter but the picture exposure works for the light outside and make the rooms look darker than they are.

This is probably the first daylight these rooms have seen for 30 years.

The big portholes look strange.  They are big lumps of bronze.  They will age nicely (so I am told) and will go back to the darker colour one would expect bronze to be (and the colour they started off as under the paint that had already come off).