grendel

Celebrate the colour difference, thats the glory of wood, its all different, just finish and varnish it to bring out its natural appearance.

another little job, swaging out the pipe in the outlet, then filing flush and polishing

tonight was creating a pattern for the floor, basically i placed a sheet of thin ply as a template, using a spacer the outline of the internal space was traced onto the template, the template was then laid onto the plywood that would become the floor, the spacer was then used to recreate the shape from the marks made on the template, this was then cut out and fitted, its still a bit tight,but it fits in there fine, it will be trimmed to be a good fit later as i build up the well internal fittings and features.

I tend to untie, loop round a post and bring the end back to the cockpit, spring the stern out with a shove as I board, then when its clear, flick the rope off the post as I reverse out. not so good if the wind is holding me in, but its not been a problem yet. if on a boat like Jayne 2 from marthams where you can usually reach the post through the open front window, just round the post and back to the cleat, where you can release as you need. I mostly hire solo nowadays and preparation is the thing, think through what you are going to do and do it calmly and methodically, making sure if you are casting off that the ropes you will need to moor up later end up where they are required. take things calmly and slowly, if it takes two or three attempts before you are happy with the way things are progressing it takes two or three attempts, never refuse an offer of assistance when single handed, a spare pair of hands always comes in handy.

modelling isnt a hobby that lends itself to speed, to do it right is the priority, not to do it right now. as an example, the skin fitting for the model Broad Ambition, was probably three hours work, setting the lathe up, turning the piece, reconfiguring for threading, configuring back for parting off, it all takes time,

pop gun with corks?

I have left the outlet pipe a little long, it can be cut down if needed, i might try swageing the pipe at the outlet for a good seal, though its a pretty tight fit anyway.

ok, 5mm hole positioned drilled and the pipe fitted, tightening the nut was fun, but achieved, the other end has been sealed into the hull fitting, i will gradually open up the hole in the hull fitting until i get the desired flow. its less than 1mm at the moment

ok so its been a busy day, what with tidying my workshop to be able to find some things, then making the skin fitting for the exhaust outlet, first some bar had a centre punched, then centre drilled, then it was drilled out to 3mm for the tube. after that a section was turned down to 5mm and a thread turned onto it, after this it was parted off (though in hindsight i should have cleaned the thread with an m5 die first), then cleaned up and tested on a piece of 3mm brass tube. its now ready to install (hoping i made the threaded section long enough now)

but its more difficult to hang tea leaves up to dry and re-use them.

is that the moorings near hill farm, just outside beccles?

well little bits as and when, the second well deck side went in this evening, followed by the bending of the water feed pipe for the exhaust, i've left the end long as i have to turn up a transom fitting, this will need to be threaded about 5mm or bigger to allow the 3mm brass pipe through, i had to heat the brass to cherry red before i could bend it satisfactorily , this pipe will need to sit under the servo linkage and will exit through the transom, after that an inner well deck will be templated up and fitted above the rudder post.

i started and stopped on the same day back in about 1968 when i took one puff of a cigarette, doubled up coughing and never tried it again.

it does have its quiet moments too.

Bonjour and

my new volvo came with a spacesaver spare, on top of that was a lovely tray to allow shopping to be stowed, the spacesaver was soon replaced with a full size spare, and the spacesaver and tray above it then had to be removed and put in storage, my only issue with spacesavers is that they really unbalance the cars handling - even at the 50mph restricted speed for them, i suppose at least the volvo does come with a spare wheel as so many modern cars do not.

I was in our local sainsburys at the quick self service tills, and for some reason the machine wasnt playing ball, i waited about 10 minutes for the assistant to notice the unmoving till right behind her, as she chatted to her friend behind me, even better it was captured on the surveillance screen on the machine, my tapping my fingers waiting to be served as the till had had a hissy fit and wouldnt let me continue. then she cleared the fault, it went back to the store service screen and she walked off to help out at another till leaving me logged into the staff assist page, it took me nearly 20 minutes to get through that fast till, all the while their little camera was recording, and as I had held the till up for that length of time I know it will have triggered a 'what was going wrong at this till point that it was locked up by one customer for so long report.

I know its more expense, but if you are having one turbo reconditioned / repaired, and they are both the same age, it might be worth having both done as sure as sure murphys law will say as soon as one is fixed the other will pack up if you dont.

I would hazard a guess that most broads cruising will count as low revs, on a boat that has twin engines the revs when out of speed restricted waters would naturally be a lot higher, but then you come back to dock up in the speed restrictions so you will be once again using low revs.

I always use a chip shop based upon the length of the queue, the longer the queue the better the chips in my experience, if its good and people are willing to wait in the queue, its good enough for me.

no, you can still find some places where the staff have the knowledge, but generally they are becoming few and far between.

nothing as good as early morning cruising with a hint of mist on the water, just ghosting along at minimum revs, I did the trip up from Stracey in August I looked out of the window, and saw the tide still in flood and just took advantage running up to Potter with the tide in that early morning peace and quiet, breakfasting at Bridgestones one I had transited the bridge (they do quite a nice breakfast).

I had to get a new oven about a year back, and as I wanted one on a sunday to cook my sunday dinner in had to go with what they had available to take away, I ended up at currys where the only one they had available to tke away was a narrow one, so we ended up with a 500mm wide oven in a 600mm gap, none of my baking trays fitted either, luckily I do know how to wire up an oven (as i work for an electricity utility company) and have colleagues on call if I need things testing, I did end up going for one with a glass top (ceramic?) it glows when cooking, so it is easy to clean (it needs to be as all but one of our cats tend to decide to sit there, so disinfectanct cleaner to hand before using) the one that doesnt sit there any more made the mistake of jumping up while it was still hot - talk about cat on a hot tin roof, he had tender paw pads for a couple of days (not bad enough to need vet attention thank goodness).

my parents gas oven broke (they smelt gas and it was condemned by the gas board) so they had to get a new one, like you they found it difficult to find someone with the correct knowledge, then it took a week to have it delivered (they dont own a microwave so it was their only method to heat food, I ended up lending them a camping stove) and when it was delivered they found it needed to be wired into the electricity to power the igniters, which considering my father had asked whether anything else was needed was rather poor service / knowledge as they didnt have a suitable socket anywhere near the cooker. I do find that retail service in the modern day is nowhere near as good as it used to be, when I was younger if you wanted a new cooker, you went to the gas showroom, and they knew all the ins and outs of the cookers they were selling, then they also had them in stock on the premisis, not just display items and order for later delivery. they would usually get it out to you and fitted the next day too, that is if you didnt want to load it up and take it on the day. thus the advent of online shopping means that nothing is as readily available as it used to be, my parents are old fashioned sorts that want to go and have a hands on look at the item they want to buy.

when I lived in a little rural village they were installing gas with a big circular saw like digger, they went down one side of a BT pit and took out the main international link between london and Paris, the down time penalties were measured in thousands of pounds per minute (mind you they were hitting electric lines several times a day too and just paying the penalties as it was cheaper than conventional digging