Tudor Reformation

[BrundallNavy]

 

Spotted your mistake, tut tut.

[BroadAmbition]

Which is?

Griff

[JanetAnne]

There is no sheet of perspex in door three?

[quo vadis]

Tomboy you need to get your finger out 

[Timbo]

There is perspex in there, I took the backing off this one and it made putting the door together so much easier...at least I'm pretty sure there's some perspex in there, is there perspex in there? No' there's definitely perspex in there, I'm sure there is...or the air is a bit hard in that particular location. 

[Polly]

Thinking about your references to fingers Tim, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Niroflex-fm-Chain-Mail-Cut-Resistant-Butcher-Glove-Stainless-Steel-Ambidextrous-/172417634750?var=&hash=item2824e451be:m:mHv8LWnJBpHTip4wMYrdCog

[Timbo]

1 minute ago, Polly said:

Thinking about your references to fingers Tim, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Niroflex-fm-Chain-Mail-Cut-Resistant-Butcher-Glove-Stainless-Steel-Ambidextrous-/172417634750?var=&hash=item2824e451be:m:mHv8LWnJBpHTip4wMYrdCog

Uncle Albert acquired a butchers glove for me, Pauline, when I first tried getting back into the kitchen. His 'butcher friend' also popped in and brought me some sharp knives as in his opinion I was safer with a sharp knife than a standard kitchen knife.

 

[Timbo]

Are we downhearted? You can bet your bottom dollar we are!

So the excursion at Ben Gunn's workshop is over and I've brought my project and the majority of my tools home. On the final day, things were going brilliantly, I cleaned up the components for the final door then glued and clamped it. Turning my attention to door three glued up yesterday I started the sanding process running through the grits from 120 to 240. Sanding complete and I was enjoying a smoke and a cup of tea when I heard a very loud 'crack' coming from the workshop.

Entering the workshop to check what the noise was I heard another loud crack and watched the stile of the final door start to crack through the middle from the bottom upwards.

Marvellous! 

Checking over the other doors I laid them side by side and noticed that they don't appear straight? I checked that everything was square when I glued them up, but each door seems to bulge out in the middle or warp in at the ends. Yet when I run a square and a straight edge down them, everything is straight and square. This wavy wobbly timber is doing my head in. When I stacked them on their edges to put them in the car I noticed that the edges were not straight, but it gave me an idea on how to true them up with my block plane.

As for the cracked stile I'm going to have to try and dismantle the last door, buy some more lumber and remake the whole thing as that crack is just going to worsen!

[BrundallNavy]

Oh dear these doors are really being a pain in the rear., not sure what has caused the crack unless it's where the glue has expanded inside the joint. Keep plugging on you will get it in the end.

Doug.

[ZimbiIV]

They look fine to me the different grains are distorting your view, re the crack when that happened to me I filled with aliphatic glue re clamped and left it for 48 hours then sanded back nobody except me can see the fault, don't be too hard on yourself.

Aliphatic glue accepts stain unlike pva.

paul

 

[Wildfuzz]

If the door has settled simple PVA in the crack mixed with fine dust of the same timber, clamp and the repair will be invisible, or for extra sparkle use clear epoxy with brass or copper filings and make a feature of it. As a wood turner I never failures only "design opportunities".......

[grendel]

I keep takeaway tubs of the various colour wood sawdust, just so if needed it can be mixed up with some pva as filler.

[Timbo]

My visit to Royal Tudor on this occasion gave me the opportunity to see the fabulous work Doug has done on RT's bow cabin. Two new sections with window apertures cut and corner posts. The figure in the wood is beautiful!

My job this time around was to clean and paint the bilges, a task to which my skills as the apprentice were far better suited. How well suited I was soon to find out.

With RT's engine removed for servicing it will be far easier to fit her new calorifier, diesel tank and black water tank.

But before all of the technical stuff got underway I had to remove what looked like sixty years of oil and diesel from the engine compartment.

Surveying the dark pit, balancing on slim ribs and beams reminded me very much of past archaeological digs. And so I armed myself with appropriate tools. Bucket, trowel and scrapers. I also rigged up the dust extraction system to suck up all of the 'loose'.

So squatting on the beams in the engine bay, I began by extracting about six inches of solidified compacted grease. I shovelled out the contents of the drip tray and sliding it to one side I discovered another six inches of compacted oil and grease.

Along the way, I made some finds. Three shillings and two pence in proper money, along with a 10p coin dated 2000.

 Underneath the first layers of grease, I came across what at first I thought was some padding or baffle for a component. I carefully excavated the object to discover it was a ladies shoe.

Just beneath it was a price label that disintegrated the moment I lifted it but had read something or other and 6d. I'm not sure whether the two are connected even though in context. It did pose the question of 'how the hell did a ladies shoe get under there?'.

Next job was to extract the oil drip tray. With a bit of head scratching, I managed to slide the tray out and give it a good scrub with soapy water. I discovered several small holes in it which may account for the oil in the bilge.

Moving onto scrubbing the bilges with soapy water presented a problem. After being on dry land for so long, RT's planking had opened up, and the oily, soapy water would flood the boat shed floor. Nipping off to see Uncle Mike and Aunty Pat onboard Chameleon...and a quick phone call to Dave (Janet Anne)...and I had a solution. Cat Litter!
"That's a lot of cat litter!" said the girl in Lathams "you must have a lot of cats!"
"Nah, just one big one!"
Thus the myth of the Martham Tiger is born!

Cat litter works brilliantly well to soak up gunky water. After scrubbing the bilges, each time I would lay down a layer of cat litter, let it soak up the fluid and then hoover it all up with the dust extractor.

Stuck in the bilge of the boat is very hot work, I make a good bilge rat!

After two days of scraping and scrubbing the timbers of the bilge were still saturated with oil and diesel from the fuel tank leak. So much so that scraping the wood brought oil and diesel bubbling to the surface of the timber. So I gave the whole engine compartment a rub down with WD40 and a very strong detergent and let it dry over night.

The following day I started painting everything with underwater undercoat. I was most surprised to find the paint soaked in and dried quickly on top of the timber. Crawling into as many spaces that my slight sixteen stone frame would allow I painted anything and everything wooden...including myself!

So at last, a bit of a transformation. Just a coat of bilge paint to apply now! Oh and do the rest of the bilges!

[grendel]

from the tassels on the shoe, I think we are looking 1940's 1950's style.

painting - only your head then ?

looks like the oil and grease has preserved your timber for you.

[Vaughan]

4 hours ago, Timbo said:

Along the way, I made some finds. Three shillings and two pence in proper money, along with a 10p coin dated 2000.

 

And what looks like an 11/16 AF ring spanner.

[Timbo]

Just now, Vaughan said:

 

And what looks like an 11/16 AF ring spanner.

Ben Gunn suggested that the bloke at the previous yard threw that in to make us think someone had been down there since the 1980's!

[grendel]

I see you have a variety of woods, Canadian redwood, white oak, and is that silver birch between them?

 

[Timbo]

3 hours ago, grendel said:

I see you have a variety of woods, Canadian redwood, white oak, and is that silver birch between them?

 

Argh...she be good mahogany on oak Master Grendel!

[Timbo]

Three steps forward and one back this weekend, OK technically it's two steps back...but I'm in a buoyant mood with the prospect of my boat looking at though it might be buoyant quite soon!

I arrived in Norfolk on Thursday afternoon and got straight to work giving the engine compartment a second coat of bilge paint. With the drive down to Norfolk and two hours of bilge 'ratting' I was fair 'done in' so an early night for me!

Bright and early back at the yard the following morning I was very pleased to see Gordon up and about again in the sheds following his heart attack. 

Working boat sheds are marvellous things. They have a rhythm, culture and social bonds all of their own. Hirer's, you don't know what you are missing! Perhaps I could start a company providing 'real boating holidays' where you get to do the varnishing, painting, tea brewing, sanding, more sanding and even more sanding? Look inside most boat sheds, and history is stacked here and there in every corner. It seeps into you the moment you walk inside the sheds at Martham, most often through the camaraderie you share with other boat owners and boat builders. After four years of wielding a random orbital sander in anger, I'm only just beginning to learn. Just like anyone I'm more than capable of finding information on the internet, but it's only when one of the 'old hands' calmly explains and demonstrates a technique, which tool to use,  how to use it and why you are using it that everything suddenly snaps into place. Then, of course, its practice. With sanding contraptions of all descriptions, I'm more than practised.

After checking the bilge paint...still not dry, I set about attaching the belt sander to one of the two dust extractors I have on Royal Tudor. These fifty-litre bright orange dust guzzlers were a bargain from Amazon at £89 each. The problem is that none of the tool manufacturers make a standardised dust extraction ports on their tools, so I spent an hour trying to fit a round hose onto a rectangular port. Gaffa tape, lots and lots of Gaffa tape!

Eventually, I connect to the dust extractor. I will point out to the health and safety wombles that yes, it's a big shiny orange dust extractor, and when connected to a round extraction port sucks up a lot of dust...but in this instance is not as effective as the rectangular mini bag supplied with the tool! All a bit Heath Robinson, but I get the job done!

On to filling, or what Watson and I call 'first fill'. Slowly I work my way down the hull from stern to stem roughly filling in gaps and crevices. Mixing small amounts of filler each time. Then onto the random orbital sander (ROS) and I rub back the filler. I am a virtuoso on the ROS. We carry five machines on Royal Tudor, Erbauer, DeWalt and Bosch. Erbauer although the budget brand is better for this kind of work and the dust extraction port fits exactly onto the hose! By the end of the day, I've managed to sand about two-thirds of the hull on the port side.

Saturday morning and I'm up even earlier, but not necessarily brighter (see the tramping thread later on for an explanation). Back to sanding, and I'd done about half an hour of it when Sensei arrived. Coffee and catch up, boat related issues, and back on with the work. While I finished sanding, Doug got on with 'things' around the engine. Oh, I'm worse on engine's than I am on boat building!

With the sanding finished I got on with the 'second fill' while Doug started fitting the new deck. As Doug worked from the starboard side towards the bow, I was working my way along the port. I'd just put the last of the filler in place when I heard a 'Hmm' coming from Sensei. When Doug say's 'Hmm' I think 'Ooh f*&%!'. What usually follows is a discussion on the correct method of repairing, the cost of a proper procedure in time and money, the length of time needed to repair and finally any possible alternatives. Nine times out of ten we do the job right.

The problem this time was with the gunwale. It was sitting in the incorrect position below the deck, and we needed to remove and replace it to put the Trackmark deck covering underneath it. So at this point, we started to remove the binn iron and gunwale.

Now then you old Wherry buffs...I asked Doug why it was called 'Binn Iron'. Later at home, I became a Google Warrior and found an explanation for the term, which appears to be Norfolk in origin. The holds of a wherry are called 'binns'. The 'binn iron' protects the gunwale or lip of the bin from damage when the wherry is fully laden and low in the water. Is this correct?

With the binn iron and the gunwale removed, the decision to remove it turned out to be a good one as we discovered soft timbers in the bow planking. Sensei removed these...and that's the two steps back. But with the engine compartment cleaned and painted and the hull now 'second filled' and the deck almost finished...I feel much happier!

I've returned to Lincolnshire with homework to do. Rails to make for the cabin windows, hardwood plugs to make for the cabin sides, bucket sides to make for the cabin windows and the aft doors to finish...oh and make a panel for Mike's windscreen!

Oh yes boating is relaxing!
 

[Hockham Admiral]

Tim, I've followed this thread from the beginning......

Am I the only one who wonders just where do you get the patience to keep going despite all that's thrown at you?

I think that she's an extremely lucky old girl to have you!         

[grendel]

John, I think its the same sort of dedication that keeps me going on the model of BA.

[Hockham Admiral]

For which I have nothing but total admiration!         

[MauriceMynah]

6 hours ago, Hockham Admiral said:

Tim, I've followed this thread from the beginning......

So have I. Sad gits eh? :)

[JanetAnne]

That Timbo has got it easy, all Royal Tudor needed was a freshen up and a lick of paint.

Now this one is more of a challenge....

 

[ZimbiIV]

Is all that wood chip the rest of the boat, ready to glue together?

paul