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).

Mushrooms and light

The mushroom is fitted!  This is the jammed air vent fort the wheel house (clearly no longer jammed and nicely restored.  The wheel house has no opening windows so the restoration of this vent was vital.  A simple screw thread allows it to be raised and lowered (shut).  Good job Dave!

The first portholes are in and they look amazing.  The first light these cabins have seen for probably 20-30 years.  I cannot wait to see them for real.

The picture below shows the gantry that Dave built so he could access the ship side without scaffold and mud!  Its going to be useful when it comes to painting the ship.  At some point.

Fast pace

Dave is now rapidly outpacing my ability to keep up with progress.  By last weekend all the portholes for restoration had been removed and ready for taking off to Craig.  Lots of work done.  The pipe work on the water tanks are now ready for connection to the pump.  The cabin portholes are now all cut out and the supports for hanging over the side to cut off the outer layer of the porthole covers are now complete and ready for Dave to start work there.

Phew, it wears me out just trying to keep up with his progress on the blog let alone the work.  Well done Dave!

He was kind enough to share some of his photos of his work.  See below with explanatory notes.


Before.  Note the square window closest to the camera.  This was used to replace the missing ones at the front.  It had that engine air vent right in front of it anyway.  Also all the rear portholes (the round one for example) are now gone too.

As you can see below the original front of the ship wheelhouse only had two windows in.  You can now see (later below) that all the slots have windows in (5 windows in the front in total).  Makes a huge difference to the view.

Dave on the scaffold.

The pipes below are lead.  They had to be cut into short chunks to make them liftable.

These two sea ports originally carried out waste water from various places.  One will now be taken off and closed up and the other will be the air vent for the sewage tanks (apparently, if you dont vent them you can get gas build up and a lot of smell).

You can see here below the first 4 round discs that cover the portholes up in the cabins. The first 4 from left to right have now been removed ready for the first restored ones to go back in.

All the large portholes from the living areas are now removed.  First 4 have been taken for restoration.

Pipes everywhere!

Cabin porthole spaces now cut out.  Getting close to the point where the new ones can be fitted.

These are the new windows in the front of the wheelhouse.

Hard to see but the two 6000 litre water tanks have now had their pipies fitted ready to be connected to the water pump and the filters.

Lead pipes still to be moved.  I feel my back aching already!

Portholes ready

Exciting times.  The remaining portholes are restored (big thanks Craig) and will be collected tomorrow.  Big bill too but they look superb and worth every penny.  Dave has worked hard this week and has cut out all 8 porthole holes and is building the hangers to allow him to cut the remaining bits off the outside.  Then the 8 can be fitted and thats the cabins done (well the first set at any rate).

The next set of large portholes is now ready to cart back to Craig to be restored.  Hopefully they will come apart without massive engineering work as per the last 4 of the smaller ones. 

Dave has fitted the pipework to the water tanks so I can start to put those in place now (Dave doing plumbing work, what jobs can't Dave do!) with the new water pump and start to lay piping.  Will be starting to measure the rooms for battening and get the wood on order.  Then my favorite job of all.

I get to buy more tools :->

I will need a saw to speed up the job.  Off to B&Q (or screw fix).

Bog standard

A brief visit to the boat at the weekend has shown that Dave has made fantastic progress.  All the holes for the cables are in place and ready to start lining (need grommets) and placing conduit.  The toilets are out and the wall between then taken down.  This has left a roughly square room which will be a lovely size for a toilet and vanity unit.  Its one of those decision you make which turned out to be a no brainer.

The toilets though were just the beginning.  The toilet sewage pipes ran down through the floor and into the cabin below before routing down to a seaport in the wardrobe.  Nice.  Who wouldn't want a sewage pipe in their wardrobe!

Dave has done a superb job at removing the pipies.   Turns out they were not steel or copper but lead.    If you can imagine trying to cut and remove a 2 meter long toilet sewage pipe attached to a ceiling made of thick lead then you can imagine the fin Dave had.  It all had to be cut into short sections as the sheer weight of the pipes were unbelievable.  Even trying to lift a 2ft section from the floor was no joke.

But as usual, Dave managed it and came out the other side uninjured.

All other pipes were removed and capped and the cabin ceilings are now all but clear of pipes.  The toilet floor will need concrete to level it but that should not be a big issue.

The pipe below is just one of the lead sink drains.

The main sewage outlet in the wardrobe now capped off.  Had to be done well as this is only just above the water line.  No leaks wanted here.  The sea ports on the other side will be taken off and welded over.  This will free up some space.  This one can stay as it will enable me later to fit a sewage outlet (much smaller) to enable us to pump out sewage from the ship to a boat.

There are a few minor bits and pieces for Dave to complete before we can start the rebuild but we are close.  The porthole fitting will start soon.  I am still waiting for the last 4 portholes which I hope to get in the next week.  We have decided to restore the main ones in the rooms that will be regularly inhabited and leave the rest.  Especially the ones in the bathroom as that will be a wet environment and would require lots and lots of cleaning.

I am still investigating the electrics and heating.  The pipes from the water tank (the thread) has been identified and a simple pipe will join the two water tanks up and enable us to us one pump to extract the water (hopefully).

More holes than swiss cheese

Progress is being made on board ship.    Dave has been working hard on cutting all the holes needed for all the pipe work and cabling.  All done.  The toilet wall has been removed and the toilets too.  The door has been walled up.  Dave is due to remove the piping (eeek) this week.

The front window on the wheel house has been removed and is ready for clean up. The spinny bit makes this a difficult job.   But I am sure it will look fine when Dave has finished.

The next stage is to liberate the last 4 portholes from Craig and we are ready to go.

The list of work is starting to shrink.  The cabin portholes need fitting which is a big job and the anodes still need to be fitted.  Then the cable room and the front cabin needs a lot of steel work to do.

I think Dave will appreciate the work inside as the weather starts to worsen.

7 out of 11

The first windows arrived this weekend.  Portholes actually (I must get more nautical).  They look fantastic.  The sand blasting cleaned every piece of paint from the base and they almost look golden.  The brass on the rest has been polished and looks new.

Well done Craig for your work.  I know you have a trickier job to do on the last 4 (machining out the screws) but I am sure they will come out as well as these ones.

Photos will follow.

Meanwhile Dave is busy cutting lots and lots of holes.  He has the unenviable job of removing the toilets and the toilet pipes from the cabins below.  I owe him a beer for that.  A single pipe carried all the output of 8 stew eating irishmen for 50 years.  That pipe has seen a lot of history and Dave is not keen on the job.  Who would be.

Measure up

The windows are looking good.  One more to do in the wheel house.  The spinning window needs removing and the surrounding area cleaned.  Not a big job.

Other activity.  Now the boat is basically stripped back it was time to start planning the holes.  Lots and lots and lots of holes.  So, equipped with drill and hole cutter I started on the first of perhaps 80 holes.  The hole cutter has a standard drill bit which sits within the bigger hole cutting blade.  After about 5 mins of hard work the hole cutter had not even reached the steel.  Damn.

Dave!

I marked out all the holes throughout the boat for the routes for the heating pipes and power.  Each room had its lights marked out and the wiring routes traced.  Even radiators are drawn on the walls.

One further change that was needed though.  The current layout has the two toilets and a single bathroom.  The trouble is the toilets are very very small.   This will now change.  The wall between the toilets will come down to make one toilet and a new toilet put into the bathroom.

Job done.  All laid out.  Just got to build it now.

Its heating up

My first meeting with Gary the heating guy on Saturday was very fruitful.  I now understand how it all fits together and it was refreshing to meet someone who was laid back about how things could work and not try to sell the whole end to end solution.

So it turns out that the build should be relatively straight forward.  We calculated that a boiler (system) of about 25 to 30 KW should suffice and a twin feed tank.  However,  I was surprised to hear of course that a fire with a back boiler should feed the second coil in the hot water tank but would could not be controlled.  What this means is that there is no way to switch off the back boiler when the hot water in the tank reaches temperature.  It will switch off the gas boiler but no secondary controls.  This is an interesting risk to have.  It means that the back boiler on the fire may ultimately boiler the hot water tank.   I will need to think through that.  I also find that hard to believe and will look into it.

The second coil in the tank is designed to be fed by solar power.  So in theory that would never be able to heat the tank to a dangerous temperature.    But someone must have cracked this problem.  I will look into it.

I can also put my radiators in zones with controllers to have them independently run.   I am yet to decide if this is useful.  I am not sure why I would only want to hear part of the ship and then let the rest freeze.

The rest of the day was spent sorting the deck.  Yawn.  Not much to tell there other than the amount of scrap metal is far more than I thought.

Garbage compacting

I have to admit that it has been quiet for a while in terms of boat activity.  There has been plenty going on, just not really by me.  Dave has progressed well and all the windows in the wheelhouse should be cleaned and put back in by this weekend when I go down.  The chain holes in the windlass are now covered as are all the old porthole holes. 

The only things for Dave to do then is to fit the portholes.  However, the porthole cleaning job is taking a long time.  They have been unable to get the screws out of some and they need to be machined out.  Until that happens they cannot clean 5 of them and so we are a little stuck.

Started on the deck clearance last time.  It was taking yonks to break down all the scrap into manageable chunks.  Luckily the neighbours had taken all the wood and so that has reduce the volume considerably.  Saturday's job will be to have it all broken down into moveable bits.  Boring work but necessary.

This will then leave us in a position that we can start to rebuild the wheelhouse.  Electrics, heating piping and so on.  Yea!  Finally some construction work.