On Schedule !

Week 98

Sunday

After breakfast on Sunday we started to gather up everything to go home later in the day. To be more precise, Mrs. Fitter did this whilst the fitter busied himself first rubbing down, then wiping over and, finally, applying the second coat of varnish to the television cupboard. The difference that two coats of varnish make is amazing. Just think what it will look like when it has had all four coats.

With the varnishing complete and the car almost fully loaded, we headed for the trip boat to clear up after the previous evening's trip and to prepare it for the afternoon's journey. As seems to be normal, this took a lot longer than planned with the result that we barely had time to shower and eat lunch on our own boat before we had to return to the trip boat for the afternoon's journey.

We were clear of the trip boat around 5pm and then popped over to bid farewell to some friends who are off on their annual autumn cruise. Finally we loaded the last of our bits int he car and drove home. We unloaded the car before eating and then the fitter spent the evening on the PC bringing these notes up to date from the previous Wednesday.

The fitter desperately needs to spend a couple of days on some computer programming. He also needs to get further advanced with a couple of things on the boat before the floor is laid. He's hoping that he can concentrate on the programming in London during the day and on the boat work at home during the evenings.

Monday

The fitter didn't take too long to clear his mail when he got back from London so he was in the garage within thirty minutes of arriving home. He'd spoken to a friend in London about the doors and panels for both the television and bureaux cupboards and had been surprised to find that he hasn't yet posted a picture of the television cupboard. He can understand not doing so for the bureaux cupboard because that is in pieces in the garage! He hopes to rectify this when he returns from the boat on Wednesday.

The first job was to sketch out the way the doors, panels and drawer fronts will look following the discussions in London and show these to Mrs. Fitter. Basically each will have a hard wood surround 28mm wide by 18mm thick. The vertical components of this frame - the stiles? - will have a groove on the inside edge to accept a tenon at the ends of the horizontal components - the rails?. The rails will also have a groove in their inside edge. The frame will be assembled around a piece of 9mm thick veneered plywood - which will dictate the width of the groove. With a bit of luck, most of the components of the frame will be produced from offcuts of Ash boards that have been lying around and had risked becoming either parts for the two remaining porthole liners or firewood.

The choice of the 28mm width has been determined by the space available under the television in which to mount the radio without fouling the power and antenna connectors and the amplifier.

Before we could start preparing the Ash - the plywood panels shouldn't take too long to cut, we needed to clear up a number of small jobs to free up some space in the garage. The first of these jobs was to cut and then glue a small block of veneered blockboard to the front panel of the bureaux cupboard after we'd attacked the side panel of the same cupboard with the random orbit sander and removed all the ripples with only slight damage to the veneer, which will hopefully not be too noticeable when the panel is varnished.

The fitter had been pondering over how he would fit the drawer runners to the inside of the bureaux cupboard. Normally he'd measure up from the floor but that isn't flat enough. He'd toyed with the idea of producing a marking template which could be pushed up against the cupboard floor above. All this would need to be done with his head, arms and shoulders buried in the drawer space of the cupboard which was about 440mm wide and 400mm high!

Then he remembered that he has the side panel at home so can measure and mark that quite easily, not to mention actually fitting the drawer runners. The panel on the other side of the drawer space is currently all that remains on the boat and is only held in by two screws, so these can be removed and the measurements made much easier. In fact, both pieces can be laid on the floor of the boat, side by side, and checked to make sure that the runners are in the same relative positions.

He also removed the angled excess from the back of the cupboard top using the router. That was the easiest and quickest of the jobs.

The next task was to cut a small piece of 18mm thick plywood, the same width as the drawer compartment. This will be edged with a piece of Ash and be positioned horizontally under the bottom of the bottom drawer to look like a floor and to act as the top cover for the kickboard, which will be flush mounted like the kickboard under the television cupboard.

The front edge of the cupboard floor had been marked before the bureaux pieces were dismantled to bring home so that we knew how long the piece of Ash trim that will be fastened to the front edge needed to be. We'd also measured the size of both the cupboard area and the drawer space in case we found time to start making parts for these. When we came to fit the trim we found that the mark and our measurements differed by 2mm so we'll limit our activity to just preparing the Ash for the drawer and door surrounds on the saw and thicknesser until we've been to the boat to confirm the measurements.

Having said that, we could still thickness the two pieces of trim and also cut the kickboard to approximate size, which is the final thing that we did. Each piece was cut about 10mm over length and will be trimmed on the boat. Because we are glueing and pinning the trim, we've done that at this stage, careful to make sure that the last few millimetre aren't pinned.

It was 8.30pm by the time all this was done and time to call it a day as far as garage work was concerned. The fitter then headed upstairs and wrote up the day's notes, popping back into the garage briefly afterwards when he remembered that he had meant to fill the nail holes in the trim before he left the garage.

Our plans for the trip to Kinver have taken a bit of a knock in the last twenty four hours due to a breach in the canal close to Kinver. First estimates suggest that this is likely to take about four months to repair. Fortunately there is an alternative route which we can take. The down side is that the diversion will add about six hours to our cruising schedule, which is already extremely tight if we are to avoid being faced with a weekend at Kinver because the factory is not open. We think that we can just manage the trip in the available daylight hours but we'll need to cruise continuously for around eleven hours a day to do so.

Tuesday

He was back in the garage after eating, taking chippings and dust to the re-cycle bin before Mrs. Fitter filled it with mundane things like hedge cuttings, dead leaves and the like. Then he busied himself first rough cutting and then planing pieces of Ash that will ultimately become the frames of drawer fronts and doors. He managed to produce several pieces of either 18mm or 28mm thick Ash - the thickness depending on the original size. He felt it was too late by the time he'd got thus far to start running it through the Triton, so he had a brush up and headed back to the PC to write up these brief notes and to try and get some more of his programming done.

Wednesday

The fitter had stayed up until just after midnight on Tuesday evening trying to advance his programming task. He'd turned in but still taken a while to drift off to sleep. He woke about 2pm and again, later, while it was still dark. He finally checked his watch just after 7.15am and decided he'd better move as his trip boat duty required a fairly early arrival at the boat yard

We left home before 9am and called in at our local hardware store to see if they had a 9mm straight router cutter. This is required for making the rebates in the door and drawer frames to accept the 9mm veneered plywood panel. The fitter was pleasantly surprised to find that they had the required cutter in stock but he was less appreciative of the £20 price tag!

We arrived at the boat yard just before 10am and just had time to unload the car before the fitter had to go and get the trip boat ready leaving Mrs. Fitter on the boat - her trip boat duty started a few hours later.

The fitter got back to his boat just before 3pm. He'd brought the bare essentials in the way of tools; a pencil, a tape measure, a couple of screwdrivers - one to open the varnish tin - and the BrushMate. He was on the verge of leaving his boat in the morning when he realised that he'd forgotten the abrasive, which he'd need if he was to de-nib the television cupboard and apply another coat of varnish. Consequently, with no abrasive, the BrushMate headed for home again, unused.

Mrs. Fitter was due back on the boat at about 4.30pm so the fitter had time to check his mail, which took a little longer than expected, and then re-assemble the bureaux cupboard to check the measurements taken at the weekend and found to be suspect when the fitter was sketching out the layout to show Mrs. Fitter earlier in the week.

This is where the fitter started to find things not as they should be and things that he could not do as he'd planned to do because he hadn't brought the necessary tools with him.

The side panel was put up first. This was followed by the floor panel that separates the cupboard part from the drawers. Here was the first mistake! The Ash trim that had been added had been a piece 12mm by 18mm. This didn't match the 18mm square trim that had been fitted to the side panel and the front panel, which overlays part of the floor area, is also 18mm thick. Blast!

We'd also left the trim slightly over length, to be trimmed on the boat. Because we hadn't brought a saw or chisels we couldn't cut the trim to size. This meant that the front panel couldn't sit snug to the floor panel. Blast and Blast again!

The kickboard under the drawer compartment had also been left over length for the same reason so we couldn't check this for fit either. Blast, No. 3.

What we could do and what we did was to mark the height and/or position of the relevant pieces so that we could trim them at home.

We'd trimmed the back edge of the cupboard top at home earlier in the week. This hadn't removed enough, although the fit now was better than it had been. We marked up where this will need further attention.

We had, by now, exhausted all the practical things that we could, besides which, Mrs. Fitter had now returned to the boat. The fitter dismantled the bureaux cupboard, having first re-checked all the measurements, and everything was put back in the car.

There had been one good development during the day. Wilson's had called the fitter whilst he was out on his trip boat journey. They would be in the area on Thursday and were prepared to come and template the cratch cover. This means now that we won't need to wait for a day after arrival at Kinver for them to make the cover because they'll now be able to make it before we arrive and fit it the day we arrive. Furthermore, if anything goes wrong and we can't get to Kinver, Wilson's will now be able to bring the cover to us and fit it.

We arrived home about 5.30pm having topped up with fuel on the way. We unloaded the car and the fitter went into the garage whilst Mrs. Fitter prepared the evening meal. His first job was to sort out the various bits of the bureaux cupboard that required attention.

The first thing was to trim the kickboard and the bottom floor piece to the correct size. Then the kickboard was glued and nailed to the floor piece. Finally, two blocks, the same height as the kickboard, were glued and nailed to the back of the floor piece. The floor piece will be held in place a bracket fitted to each of these blocks and to the boat's floor.

The fitter then broke off for his evening meal.

Next we trimmed the rear edge of the top of the cupboard. Examination of the marks we'd made on the boat revealed that we needed to trim a tapered piece off. This piece was 2mm at the edge, tapering to nothing in the middle of the top. We did this with the router and a straight edge.

Finally, the fitter extricated a piece of Ash that was a shade over 18mm wide and 6mm thick from his stock of odd pieces of Ash. This was cleaned up, cut to size and then glued over the other piece of Ash on the cupboard floor piece to increase the thickness of Ash to 18mm.

The last half hour or so in the garage was spent sorting out a number of offcuts of Ash that had been lying around the garage since they'd been cut off boards earlier in the fit out. It was just possible to cut one or two of the relatively short lengths of Ash that we required out of each piece. With luck we may yet be able to avoid cutting pieces of the remaining boards to get what we need.

The various pieces had all been cut to the most advantageous sizes by about 8.20pm, by which time the fitter decided that it was too late to start reducing them to size on the thicknesser. With nothing else quiet to do, the fitter closed the garage and headed to the PC to write up these notes.

Thursday

The fitter had a lunch time meeting in London that enabled him to escape a little earlier than normal so he was home early in consequence. The down side was that he then had to attack his mail twice, rather than the once that he normally does on days when he's been to London.

The first job afterwards was to contact the flooring people. Initial indications were that the flooring would have arrived by now and, possibly, even have been installed. The delay is a blessing in disguise because it has given us more time to fit the cupboards. However, with only three more weekdays at the boat before we depart, we need to make sure that the flooring is down before we leave or things will get more awkward as we're hoping to buy a couple of decent easy chairs while we're away and they'll get in the way if the flooring has to be put down when we get back.

Apparently the flooring is due tomorrow morning and we'll be contacted on Monday to arrange fitting.

The fitter hadn't been home long before he had a call from Wilson's. Their man had been delayed on his first job and hadn't managed to get to our boat. He's expecting to be in the area on Monday or Tuesday week - seven days before we expect to get to Kinver, so we should still be able to arrive and have the cover fitted rather than have to wait for them to make it after measuring for it when we arrive.

The fitter spent the rest of the afternoon in the garage thicknessing Ash. At least he thought he was thicknessing Ash to start with but the further he went the more convinced he was that some of it wasn't Ash. In the end he sought Mrs. Fitter's views and we agreed that it probably wasn't Ash and may even have been some Pear which we'd got some while ago for woodturning. Unfortunately, now that it is in four pieces, each just 18mm thick, it is unlikely to be of much use for turning!

The chip extractor didn't take too kindly to what turned out to be the Pear (or whatever it is), frequently ending up with a blocked hose. At one stage the fitter decided to investigate the extent of the blockage and turned the extractor off. He removed the collection bag and put his hand in the channel between input pipe, fan and outlet pipe. Unfortunately, the fan hadn't quite stopped revolving and caught the fitter's little finger with a mighty wallop. The result was a very sore and probably bruised (and definitely swollen) little finger.

The blockage re-occurred at least twice more but the fitter was more careful and removed the inlet pipe to clear the debris which was blocking the inlet hose.

With some time still to go before we ate the fitter reviewed the wood that had been thicknessed (excluding the Pear). He was pleased to find that he probably had enough, with a few bits spare. He then took the wider pieces - everything was now 18mm thick - and trimmed them down to about 32mm wide on the Triton.

After we'd eaten he converted the thicknesser to a planer and planed one cut edge of each piece of Ash to guarantee one square corner. He then converted the machine back to a thicknesser and effectively reduced the width to the required 28mm.

It was after 8pm by the time that this stage was reached so the noise had to stop. The fitter had a brush up - it'll be nice to give the place a good clean when we've got room to move after we've finished the boat. Then, in a fit of madness, he extracted the 4'x2' piece of 12mm thick plywood and roughly marked out where he needed to cut the drawer sides. These will be the first things to be done on Friday so that the Triton can be converted to a router table and the Ash and the drawer components all routed as required.

The fitter then adjourned to the PC,checked his mail again and wrote up these notes. The more eagle eyed regular visitors will note that it was Thursday and that we hadn't gone to the pub quiz. The question masters weren't available and a lot of the regulars weren't going to be there either, so we took the opportunity to stay home and progress work for the boat.

Friday

For the first time in what seems like ages, the fitter had a day when he didn't have to go to London and a day when he didn't have any trip boat duties. He still had a sore little finger at the start of the day but by the time these notes were written, during the evening, most of the soreness had disappeared although the finger is still swollen. Its amazing just how much you rely on your little finger for grip and the like, as the fitter found out during the course of the day.

We awoke quite early, had a cup of tea in bed at 5am and then surfaced for breakfast two hours later. The fitter's intention was to do as much as he could in the garage during the day to advance progress on the two cupboards. He even contemplated varnishing some of the cupboard parts in the garden - away from the dust in the garage - early in the day. He never actually got round to that which was quite lucky because before the day was out we'd had at least one heavy rain shower.

Mrs. Fitter has been threatening to dismantle part of the bathroom shower to get to the bits that aren't easily accessible for cleaning. This would have been done with the first tools that came to hand, regardless of fit, and would probably have ruined the head on the screws in the process. The fitter opted to do the dismantling part himself to avoid stirring up trouble for later on. He then left Mrs. Fitter to the cleaning.

The first job after breakfast was to saw the drawer sides and ends from the sheet of 12mm thick WBP plywood bought for the purpose. The drawer design had changed overnight! Gone was the idea of a vertical rebate in the sides into which a rebated front or back would fit. In was a simple 12mm wide rebate on the sides into which the ends fitted. Although the original idea would have helped to hold the drawer together, the rebate at the end of the side would have left a 6mm wide island which the fitter decided was too likely to break off either when the rebate was being cut on the router table or when the drawers were being assembled or in use. The new method relied on four clamps to hold the drawer together initially, until the sides had been nailed to the ends. Two clamps were then removed and the other two left in place for a couple of hours, until the clamps were wanted for something else.

The saw table work - a.k.a. the Triton - passed off without any problems and the saw table attachment was soon being removed to be replaced by the router table attachment. So far so good - but not for much longer! The fitter gave the whole assembly a thorough going over with the vac whilst the table tops were being swapped, the first time some of the sawdust has seen the light of day for many a week.

With the tables swapped the fitter put a 6mm bit in the router, set everything up to cut the rebate for the drawer floor in each piece and started routing. Things went pear shape within a few seconds. The router is a ½" model, so has plenty of power, even if the bit has seen a fair bit of use. We weren't even taking a big bite out of the plywood. Yet, before the first piece was halfway across the bit, the thing almost came to a stop, with a hole in the plywood where the router bit could be seen. Further examination of the router revealed that the bit had risen, not just the bit but the collet as well.

The fitter repositioned the cutter and tried again. Another hole didn't appear but the bit had risen again by the time the piece of plywood had completely passed over the bit. Luckily there were enough parts of the rebate that were the correct depth to avoid losing the piece. Why lucky, because we'd used up the sheet of plywood and we'd have had to put the saw back in the Triton to cut another piece if we'd needed one.

We don't remember ever using the locking lever to hold the bit at the desired height but we did so now and the problem didn't recur - the Triton has a funny mechanism for raising and lowering the bit and the fitter assumed that this kept the bit secure once set. Obviously it doesn't.

The rest of the plywood was routed without any further problems. This included cutting the rebates in the ends of the side pieces to accommodate the ends. With the sides and ends routed the fitter assembled the two drawers roughly and checked them for square. Then he measured the size of the inside of the drawer, added a few millimetres for good measure and arrived at the size of the drawer floor. This was marked on and cut from a piece of 6mm thick plywood which was also bought specifically for the purpose. The fitter used the handsaw for this and was surprised at just how straight he managed to keep the cut.

With all the components prepared it was simply a case of applying some glue, putting it all together, clamping up, checking and adjusting for square and then nailing the sides to the ends to release two of the four clamps originally used. The first drawer was then put to one side to allow the glue to set and the whole process repeated on the second drawer.

It was about this time that the fitter discovered Mrs. Fitter in the kitchen, armed with a knife and with half the drainage pipework dismantled. Apparently the dishwasher had refused to start so she thought that it might be because the drain was blocked and had dismantled the pipework to give it a good clean. The knife was being used to scape the residue off the inside of the pipework!

The fitter joined in and tried to get the dishwasher working, but failed. He then re-assembled the pipework and mopped up as much of the lying water as he could. We called a man out to look at the dishwasher and discovered that the electric compartment at the bottom of the dishwasher was full of water, which had probably caused it to stop working. We were told that the damage was terminal so we must now add a replacement dishwasher to the shopping list to join the replacement fridge which is also not working as it should. These purchases will wait until we return from our trip.

By comparison, the rest of the day passed off reasonably easily. The fitter checked his mail a couple of times and also re-assembled the shower unit during the evening. The rest of the day was spent initially routing a rebate in the inside edge of all the recently cut and sized Ash. The first attempt, to cut a 9mm wide, 6mm deep rebate seemed to tax the router so the fitter decided to have three bites at each cut and, once all was done, decided that another 2mm depth was probably needed to ensure that the tongues that were yet to be cut in the rails had sufficient glue area.

With all the initial rebates cut, the fitter started cutting the Ash to the required lengths and, at the same time, routing tenons in the ends of the rails. With all the Ash cut to length - and we had quite a bit left over as well - we were able to start making the frames. Each frame - there were six of them - was roughly assembled and the internal measurements checked. We then worked out the size of the plywood panel that was to be used and these were cut by hand. Finally, the panel was glued up, clamped up, checked for square and adjusted as necessary and put to one side for the glue to set.

Three panels had been completed by evening meal time and the other three were tackled after the meal and after the shower unit had been re-assembled. This allowed the fitter to remove the clamps from the original three frames and re-use them for the next three.

Everything was basically finished by about 8.30pm. The fitter had a bit of a sweep up and then adjourned to the PC to write up these notes. He returned to the garage briefly afterwards to remove the clamps and to fill the few voids that were visible in some of the frames. The filler can then dry overnight and be sanded in the morning before the panels are taken to the boat.

Saturday

The fitter was up reasonably early on Saturday, had breakfast and then spent an hour or so in the garage rubbing down the various pieces that were due to go to the boat later on. They were done at home, using a power sander, because that's where the dust extraction facility is. He'd done by 10am and loaded everything in the car to go to the boatyard. He called at Maplins en route to buy an illuminated switch that is to be mounted in the panel below the door to the television cupboard. This switch will turn the amplifier on and off, bypassing the switch on the amplifier, which we'll then leave on, and which will be behind the panel, so will be invisible - and we don't want to leave the amplifier on all the time.

Arrival at the boatyard was a little after 11am and time for tea! Then the car was unloaded with a large proportion of the items making a one way journey. Apart from stowing the frozen stuff, the first job was to unscrew the television cupboard carcass from the wall. The top of the cupboard had been screwed on top of the carcass and, as such, was preventing the removal of the trim at the foot of the upper wall panels if ever that was necessary. The plan was to recess the top into the carcass by cutting out a notch in each of the three verticals.

This took a little while because the back of the top had been shaped to match the tumblehome of the upper wall panel. This had to be corrected and squared off. It took several attempts to get everything right and the whole process was interrupted by the need to break off and do a journey on the trip boat. It was during this trip that the fitter had a call from the flooring company. The flooring is to be fitted next Friday.

Finally, the television cupboard carcass was screwed back into place and the top screwed to the carcass. We were then able to concentrate on fitting the door over the television and the panel under the door. The door wasn't too difficult save that it has what we'll call fold back hinges. these allow the door to be recessed in an aperture in front of the television and then, when the television is in use, the door will open across the shelves next to the television that will hold our (currently) meagre supply of DVDs and CDs.

Apart from the fact that the fitter was working on his own - Mrs. Fitter had remained at home as she had other commitments over the weekend and wasn't wanted on the trip boat - the hinges weren't of a particularly good make and were very loose on their pins, meaning that the door has a tendency to droop in the closed position, despite there being a magnetic catch in the far top corner away from the hinges. Fitting hinges with only one person to mark/drill the holes and to hold the door isn't the easiest thing in the world and the whole process probably took twice as long as it otherwise should have.

Eventually the door was in position and we could turn our attention to the panel below. The fitter had allowed a 2mm margin all around the framework, forgetting that this panel would be held in position by two magnetic catches and hardly need to be moved. As a result, we found that when the magnetic catches were fitted to the carcass they didn't connect with the plate that we'd fitted to the rear of the panel - it was mounted right on the edge but even that wasn't good enough to get the plate to mate with the magnet.

The only way to resolve the problem was to increase the size of the panel. This will be done at home early next week by glueing a couple of very thin strips of Ash on to one edge and the bottom of the panel. With luck - and we've tried this successfully in one or two places - the join will be almost invisible and the plate can be re-position to help it mate with the magnet. Having said that, there is a temptation to do away with the magnetic catches and simply screw four slim but long brass screws through the carcass wall into the side edges of the panel to hold it in position. We'll give the catches a second chance once the panel has been modified and see what happens before we make our final decision.

The fitter broke off about now to prepare his evening meal. Nothing posh (or too complicated), just a ready meal that was put in the microwave oven. However, it wasn't until he read the instructions that he found that the meal, which apparently was bought chilled (and had cooking instructions from chilled) had been frozen by Mrs. Fitter at home. Consequently, it took several attempts to get all the ice out, which protracted the preparation time.

With the meal over the fitter was able to start work on the bureaux cupboard. He had to fit the drawer runners before he could start erecting the component parts of the cupboard. This was a slightly drawn out process because all the measurements had to be taken from the position of the underside of the floor of the cupboard over the drawer space due to the unevenness of the boat's floor. Nonetheless, we eventually got the runners into position and were able to start assembling the cupboard.

Most of this had been together at least once before so it was simply a case of screwing everything back in the places were it had been before. We were lucky insomuch as everything went together easily and the drawer that we'd earlier fitted with runners rolled in and out as it should have done. We quickly added runners to the second drawer and hit our only real snag - apart from fitting doors and drawer fronts.

The floor of the cupboard area above the drawer space is supported on one side by a piece of 18mm square softwood. The drawer boxes have been made as big as possible and with only a 12mm gap between the outside of the drawer side and the inside of the cupboard side - to which the softwood was screwed, the drawer fouled the softwood even though we'd been very careful with our measurements to position the runners so that they didn't foul the softwood. The drawer only caught the softwood as it was being placed on its runners.

The fitter removed the softwood and planed the leading edge of the underside and re-fitted it. Although the interference was nowhere near as bad as it had been, the softwood had to have a second visit from the plane to totally resolve the problem.

Now it was the turn of the doors. In what appears to have been a somewhat unusual occurrence, the fitter had made drawers, doors and cupboard fronts at home and they all fitted when they got to the boat! And so was the case of the cupboard doors. All that needed to be done was to fit the hinges. Easier said than done when you've only the one pair of hands with which to do everything. However, eventually the hinges were fitted, leaving just the drawer fronts to attend to.

It was gone 11pm by this time, so the fitter decided to call it a day. He made himself a bedtime drink and sat and read for a while before retiring to bed.

It had been a warm and pleasant day but the temperature had dropped as night fell. Although the temperature in the lounge remained comfortable, the bed was decidedly cold when the fitter climbed in. Whether or not it got colder we don't know but the fitter woke several times during the night, feeling not very warm and also needing to visit the small boy's room. Whether the two were linked we don't know. He finally woke as the dawn broke and had managed to get warmer by then. He lay in bed for as long as he could and finally decided to get up at 8am, something he'd regret later in the day when he found himself having to stay later on the boat to complete the varnishing..

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