mbird

Oooh, that hole saw makes me wince

I'll have to ask SWMBO what that is Jimbo. I'm sure I've heard of it......

Hi Guys What is the best stuff to use to grease up impellers when you first put them in. I have some bog standard waterproof grease, or a tube of silicon grease. Either of those any good?

Just make sure the cooker you get is certified for inland waterway use Jim, otherwise the BSS could prove an issue.

More of a challenge if they are afloat though

It's starting to look like a boat

I don't think they'll work Gordon, as the GoSystem ones are screw on, whereas the type Steve is refering to have a small spigot on top similar to a normal aerosol.

Hi Steve When we had our last boat and was in the middle of refitting it, the only cooking/heating facility we had was one of those portable stoves. When it snowed at Easter a couple of years ago, we had exactly the same problem, and the only way to sort it was to take the gas canister out and hold it in you hands for a few minutes. As you say, it's not ideal for a heater to need to be in the warm, but I would think the problem will only ocurr when the temperature is below about 5 degrees. I think I am right in saying though, that the gas is only available in one form in the aerosols, so I'm afraid you are stuck with it. You could try dunking the aerosol in luke warm water for a little while before you use it maybe?

Oops

Hi Ian Is your outdrive model number not on the engine ID plate? Mine have all the enginer serial numbers but also the outdrive, listing them as DP-D1. Armed with this, it looks like mine use the Synthetic GL5 SAE 75W-90.

Good question Luke. Personally I reckon to just leave them. Most boat engines get winterised over the cold period anyway, which means they can't be run without opening seacocks etc and then re-winterising afterwards. I winterised mine, by managing to rig an adaptor to pump some antifreeze via the weed trap into the heat exchanger so I'll be leaving mine until a week or two before easter, when we intend to have a bit of a blast over Breydon just to shake everything down before the salty bottom jolly.

You're not wrong Ian. Over £200 for a little box of bits

Well after ringing around a few places, I decided Keypart were about the cheapest for Volvo parts. I placed an order at just after 2:00pm yesterday afternoon, and it was delivered this morning at 10:00am. That's a pretty good service in my book, especially as it's free delivery at the moment

Unless you have Microsoft Office on your computer, in which case you already have Microsoft Picture Manager, which is also very simple to use and can batch resize groups of pics.

I've had a number of electrical issues on Serenity, and after taking loads of panels off and tracing wires etc, more than one have been attibuted to a popped breaker

Well, quite interestingly when quoting like for like genuine parts, Prior diesel were still dearer than Keypart on every item I asked for except for the fuel and oil filters where they were £0.70p each cheaper. I think I'm going to struggle to get better than Keypart by the looks of it!

I'll give them a chance to quote for the stuff I need Luke

They're the ones I started with Jon. To be honest, if using the ND grads singlely they're not too bad, but try doubling up and look through them and you'll see what I mean. Bruce warned me about the colour cast, but to try out filters on a budget, it was the only option available. I sold them on ebay for a reasonable sum, so didn't lose too much when I upgraded to the Lee's.

I framed a few and popped them in the office at DRL last year, thinking holidaymakers might see them as momento of their stay. I think I sold 2 to holiday makers and about half a dozen to staff. Hardly gonna pay the bills though

Yes, they are a complete PITA Simon, you are right . What to us seems like a great shot, I'm afraid, to the them is simply another snapshot. They are inundated with so many excellent photos from all over the world, they simply take the best of the best. I've largely given up on trying to sell stuff, as I'm just not good enough. That first shot is excellent, Simon.

What amuses me with that site Luke, is when you put in your engine numbers you get about 6 different versions of the manuals come up, all basically the same

They were lovely boats Simon, but I always thought the boarding arrangements down those stupid ships ladders were a design flaw, that excluded less able bodied hirers. Sounds like you've got a great (if busy) year coming up Clive I can't say I'm sorry we took the decision to move south side though

Hi Pete I use a hood most of the time, and purchased the genuine Canon ones for both my lenses from ebay. I think they came from Hong Kong or China, are the genuine article, and cost about half the uk retail price. Each hood is tailored to the focal length of the lens to ensure you do not unintentionally get corners cropped off your photos when shooting at wide angles. Filters is a bit of a mine field, but I was guided by Bruce, who I consider to be something of an expert in these matters, and they have proved almost essential for landscape work. You can get cheap filter kits, such as Cokin, which I started with, but I quickly realised the quality of these is pretty poor. I'm not too sure how the polarisers fair, but with regard to the neutral density grad filters I bought, they leave a horrible magenta cast on the image. I went for the Lee filter system in the end, but they are horribly expensive, though all hand finished and of excellent quality. I have a polariser and six ND grad filters (0.6, 0.9 and 0.9 in both hard and soft graduation). If you only buy one filter, go for a polariser as for sky, water, reflections, glare etc they are indespensable, and are about the only filter effect you cant properly replicate in editing software.

Ah ha! I already found the Seascrew site, but for some reason could find that page, I think we may be onto the formation of an idea here . The Makefast site is the one I was thinking of where they seemed to have everything under the sun. Many thanks guys I was going to say the same Jim. I hardly said a word to you or Ian, or your respective better halves which I was a bit embarrassed about We had come straight from the boat, as Richard (Snuggtopz) has been trying to get over to us for weeks to try to sort out canopy out, but the weather has put paid to every plan we had. The glorious sunshine yesterday was perfect so we rushed over there, Rich took the canopies away, and then we had to put 2 winter canopies on to keep the rain out. That put us behind with the plans for the rest of the day, so I'm afraid we were somewhat pushed for time. Still it was nice to finally meet David and Perry, and at least wave to you over the table I'm sure there'll be plenty more meets this year to put that right though mate!

Hi All I'm sure a while ago someone posted a link to a canopy fitting supplier, who seemed to have every imaginable sort of fitting you could think of. I need to come up with some bespoke ingenious way of fixing a couple of canopy poles that are easily removeable, but so far trawling the net only seems to return standard type fittings. Any bright ideas where I could try?