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Week 68

Sunday

Last week had taken its toll on the web pages, so a few hours of Sunday morning were spent playing catch up. This was followed by a fleeting visit to the garage to re-glue the broken plywood window surround. This was left clamped up over dinner.

After dinner the surround was removed from the clamps and put to one side. One or two of the surrounds may get a coat of varnish during the week so that they can go back to the boat and stay there.

We went shopping for some extra clamps after lunch but couldn't find any at a price that we're prepared to pay. We may well opt to get some via the Internet as even with the postage the overall cost will probably still be cheaper than buying from the local shops.

We started work on the second shelf end when we got back from the shops. We marked round the first one, cut to the line with the jigsaw and cleaned up the cut edges with the plane. We then spent quite a time painfully trying to work out where to position the shelves. The ends are slightly tapered so the higher the shelf, the deeper the shelf is. We reckon that we need to be almost halfway up before we can get a reasonable depth shelf - one that can hold canned food.

After much soul searching we decided to space the two shelves evenly apart on the basis that we didn't really want cans of food on semi-permanent display. We'll simply use the shelves for whatever will fit.

We marked up the position of the shelves on each end - the shelves will be at 90° to the cabin wall, so they'll slope down towards the back in an attempt to stop things sliding off if any lock walls come out to meet us! Then we cut grooves for the shelves using the router and an 18mm cutter - the shelves will be made from blockboard offcuts. All the visible edges will have Ash applied and the top edge of the Ash on the front of the shelves will be about 9mm higher than the top of the shelf as a further restraint device - not that our steering is that bad.

With grooves cut for the shelves we could turn our attention to the shelves themselves. We had several offcuts but opted to use two unvarnished pieces as they are better matched. We ripped these down to approximate width to give us a straight edge that we could run along the fence to get the shelf to the correct width. We then squared off the end and cut them to length, at least that's what we did with one shelf. We were just making the final cut to length when we realised that we hadn't squared off the end of one piece, so we had to recut both slightly shorter so that we could square off the second shelf. A few mm won't matter as it will allow for the wood to move. If we do have any problems we can always fit a shim to hold the shelves firm.

The blockboard that we've used for the shelves is slightly thicker than the size of the grooves in the ends so we'll open the groves out later in the week, probably on the same day that we fit the edge trim.

The evening meal was ready by this time so, having reached a suitable juncture, the fitter had a quick brush up, closed the garage and went and got washed and changed.

Monday

The fitter returned home from London a few minutes later than normal having paused en route to negotiate with the supplier of the extra ballast that was still required. The fitter was further delayed once at home by the need to power up the PC to be ready for a technical support call. Indeed, just as the PC powered up the phone rang once, but there was nobody at the other end. The fitter stayed by the PC for a little longer but finally gave up and made for the garage.

The first of the evening's two jobs was to slightly increase the width of the grooves in the shelf ends. This was always going to be a tricky job. Too little taken off meant another attempt and too much taken off meant a sloppy fit. We erred on the side of caution and ended up making several passes with the router on each groove. The end result was one slightly loose fit and three slightly over-tight fits.

The second task was to varnish some of the plywood surrounds. Each was wiped down with the tack cloth and then given a single coat of full strength varnish. As there's no way that we'll be able to fit the trim to all seven windows in the near future, primarily because we don't have enough trim, the urgency level for the varnishing is quite low. Having said that, once they're varnished they'll be able to be taken to the boat. This will eliminate the risk of them being damaged whilst around the garage.

We opted against fitting the trim to the shelves at this stage, preferring instead to take the ends to the boat to check them for size, position and temporarily secure them so that we can confirm the shelf measurements. The front edge of each shelf will need to be angled slightly so that the trim lies in the same plane as the trim on the shelf end supports.

Tuesday

For what has to be the first time this year and also the first time in quite a while before that, the fitter went to the boat on Tuesday. He'd almost run out of things to do for the boat at home and, as Mrs. Fitter was going to be elsewhere for much of the day and he wasn't in London, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

The car was loaded and the fitter was on the road around 8.15am, arriving at the boatyard just before 9am. He had intended to unload the car, turn the heating on and then go and have a cup of tea, but he met someone as he arrived and decided to head straight for the kettle. His colleague disappeared whilst the fitter washed up the dirty crocs so, although the fitter made tea for three, the original cause of the diversion diverted elsewhere and was eventually seen heading back towards his now cooler hot drink as the fitter made his was back to his car to start unloading after drinking his tea.

With everything transferred to the boat and the heating now turned on, the fitter set to work. Because glueing up the Ash for the window surrounds requires the assembly to be left to set for an hour or two the fitter had intended to glue up the first two assemblies for the next window and, whilst they set, turn his attention to the Ash surround for the original window which, it will be remembered, had developed a rocking horse tendency. Although the fitter was well aware that any delay in starting the glueing operation would extend the day, the lure of finding the fault with the first window proved too much and the fitter started his working day by removing the small plywood panel above the window and planing the batten to which the panel was fixed.

The fitter had thought that the batten was vertical and probably a bit proud. He wasn't too sure how he was going to remove any excess. When the panel was removed the batten was found to be horizontal and appeared to lie flush on the metal work to which it was fixed. It is only as these notes are being written that the fitter remembered that the metal side panels of the boat have a weld at about the point where the pivot is. Anyway, with panel removed, the fitter took the plane to the batten. Fortunately the fixing for the batten were far enough below the surface of the wood to avoid them catching the blade of the plane.

After the first assault with the plane the fitter refitted the plywood panel and found that although the effect of the bulge had reduced, the Ash still had a tendency to rock. The plane obviously needed to be used again, However, the fitter decided that he'd better start work on the next window or he'd not get the trim all glued up in time to take all the clamps back home at the end of the day.

The hardest part of dealing with the next window was trying to find enough suitable Ash. A lot of what had been prepared a week earlier had defects in it. Some pieces are too far gone to serve any other purpose than firewood and some will be good enough for getting short lengths but there's only about six full length pieces left and still five other windows to attend to. Another annoying factor was that the Ash had been cut into lengths that would fit into the car when it was bought. These lengths were about 1.6 metres long. With most of the lengths required for the window surrounds being about 1 metre or 700mm long there we a large number of short offcuts left. We'll need to be more careful when we buy the next supply.

The fitter hadn't trimmed the damaged ends off the Ash, nor had he squared the ends up when he prepared the wood. He generally remembered to do this before he cut the lengths to size as he prepared the Ash for the next window. However, he did forget on one piece and had to very carefully square up one end with a chisel, removing the smallest amount of wood possible if he was to salvage the length.

The two glue up sessions went well, although the second couldn't be left as long as we'd have liked because the fitter needed to get home. However, when the fitter tried the Ash in position, it all laid nice and flat on the plywood panels with none of the rocking horse tendencies shown on the opposite window.

With the first glue up done and left to set, the fitter turned his attention to the original window. Off came the upper small plywood panel and out came the plane. This time we used the Ash as a straight edge to see if we'd completely removed the bulge before we put the panel back on.

Another test fit of the complete assembly revealed that there was also a bulge in the horizontal batten below the window so off came that plywood panel and the fitter got to work with the plane again. Eventually everything was re-assembled. The effect of the two bulges had disappeared but there is still some unevenness around the edges of the plywood. It isn't realistic to remove the two adjacent plywood panels so we'll probably have to fit the Ash as best we can and hope it will flex enough to get a reasonably presentable fit.

The fitter had stopped for his mid morning cup of tea some time earlier and, by now, was thinking of lunch. He rubbed down all four assembled pieces of Ash for the first window and put them to one side to take home to be varnished. They'll probably have two coats of diluted varnish all over and then a couple of full coats on the exposed faces. In theory it is possible to glue the whole assembly together and the resultant joints would certainly look good. However, as some of the joints involve glueing end grain, the glue joints won't be too strong and are liable to break at the slightest excuse. We'll think more on this before we go to the boat again.

The rubbing down exercise conveniently took us to lunch.

The first of the day's glue-ups were released from their clamps after lunch and the remaining Ash located, cut, glued, clamped and put to one side.

The fitter then turned his attention to the under the gunwale shelf unit which was temporarily put in place to test the fit. The reduced length shelves were actually spot on for measurement. The forward end of the unit is restrained by the kitchen unit and the aft end - note the nautical terminology - needs to be be flush with the door that closes off the passage between kitchen and bedroom (and is just visible on the right hand side of the first picture.

This door was a real beggar! The general dampness of winter has swollen the door very slightly so that it is a very tight fit when closed across the corridor. The plywood covering over the central heating pipes is a bit too proud and is fouling the lower part of the door edge. The strike plate for the ball catch was removed to ease the short term problem and whilst this allowed the door to close across the passage, it was quite difficult to establish exactly where the door will sit when it is closed. We think we may need to remove this door and attack the edge with some abrasive in order to reduce the width if we are to avoid this sticking problem in future winters. It has to be abrasive because the Ash is fixed the door with glue and nails and the latter wouldn't do the plane blade any favours. We'll then have to re-varnish the edge and then re-hang the door.

Once the fitter was happy that the shelf unit was a good fit, it was taken down and put to one side to be taken home. It will have trim glued to the front exposed edges and two or three coats of varnish applied before it is brought back to the boat and fixed in place.

The final jobs for the day, apart from test fitting the Ash around the second window, were to try to address the remaining problems with the plywood for the covers over the central heating pipes alongside the bathroom and the bedroom. The reason why the plywood was fouling the door (mentioned above) was soon evident - the top cover is too wide! Also the restraining blocks that will help to hold the cover in place are about 1mm too close to the front edge. They'd been positioned using an offcut of the plywood taken from the end of the cover piece. However, the vertical piece of plywood is about 1mm thicker than the cover piece and this accounts for the misplacement of the blocks.

We checked the distance between the front face of the vertical piece of plywood and the plywood wall panel and found that it varied between 59mm and 64mm, and we'd cut the top cover to 66mm wide. Rather then remove odd amounts away from the boat we'll reduce the overall width to 64mm, reposition the restraining blocks and try the fit again. We can then remove any excess carefully using a jigsaw, plane and abrasive.

Lastly we cut the next vertical piece of plywood to length. This will need some carefully trickery at the aft end because we need to make sure that the last few centimetres can be removed quite easily if we want to drain the heating system. With the vertical piece cut to size and loosely stood in position we could check the width for the top cover. Based on the straight line that we think we'd drawn on the floor on Saturday, the cover width varied between about 64mm and 71mm - not very good when the top cover has already been made to 66mm wide. We have got a string line in the tool box and we'll use that to check whether we can get a straighter line. Otherwise we might sneakily align the vertical plywood piece slightly inward.

There wasn't anything else to do here and as the fitter was expecting a telephone call at home about 4.30pm he quickly removed the clamps from the window's Ash, checked all four pieces for fit - very good, even if we say so ourselves - and then loaded everything into the car.

A quick farewell to colleagues around the boatyard who were just sitting down to their afternoon cup of tea, and the fitter headed for home, where he arrived just after 4.30pm. He unloaded the car, putting things reasonably tidily in the garage, got changed and headed for the PC, where he spent most of the rest of the day.

Wednesday

The fitter was back in London for the day on what was to turn out a slightly expensive trip. The temperature when the fitter left home was just below freezing. There were signs of frost on the car but everywhere else seemed dry as the fitter mounted his velocipede and headed to the station. He was within about ¼ mile from the station and on making a 90° turn at a slow speed, suddenly found himself sliding across what seemed like sheet ice and his bike doing likewise but separately.

Apart from a couple of aching limbs probably caused by invisible bruises there was no known physical harm to the fitter. However, his clothes didn't fair quite so well and he soon noticed that he would need a replacement coat, a new pair of trousers - the one's he was wearing were the only pair that fit and are suitable for wearing to London - and a new pair of gloves (to keep the cold out on mornings like this).

The fitter picked himself and his bike up and continued on his way with some slight discomfort. The full extent of some of the damage didn't become evident until the fitter was on the train.

The garage is almost bursting with stuff all over the place, much of which is around 8ft in length. As a result, something has to be moved out of the garage if any major work is to be done therein. The fitter didn't feel like having a great move around so limited his activities to glueing a piece of Ash trim to the front edge of one of the shelf ends shown in the picture above. Perhaps not surprisingly, this took a goodly number of clamps because the Ash was slightly misshapen and had to be pulled back into line.

It took a while to get the trim applied because it had to have one edge lightly planed to reduce its width before it could be fitted to the blockboard. That's the problem with double sided panels. you can't risk planing or heavy sanding once the Ash is fixed to the panel for fear of catching the veneer. With all the clamps in place and the evening meal cooking away in the kitchen, the fitter called it a day, went and got changed and sat down to eat.

Thursday

The day started with the weekly shop. We then had to await the post person, who we'd arranged could make a second attempt at delivering a parcel. The fitter needed to go shopping for items to replace those damaged on Wednesday but couldn't do so until after the post had been. He also had some work to do on the PC. Usually the post arrives by 11.30 but, as it was Valentine's Day, it didn't. The post finally arrived as we were finishing a slightly late lunch, at almost 2pm.

With PC work finished and still no sign of the post, the fitter decided to head for the garage - he got changed a fair number of times during the day - including in the fitting rooms at the shops!

There's little to do on the boat without preparing some more wood. As mentioned above, the garage is littered with wood at present. Some of this is 8ft lengths of 12mm thick plywood that is in strips about 30cms wide and which need to be reduced in width to provide the vertical panels to cover the central heating and other plumbing pipes on both sides of the saloon. The Triton was manoeuvered into position so that there was an 8ft space on the outfeed side and the infeed side aligned with the door as the 8ft panels won't fit within the garage at that end.

With the plywood cut into two we then had to cut the leftover pieces to the right width for the top cover over the pipework. We could get two of these from each offcut. As each 8ft length was finished it was laid on the kitchen floor - the only free area available. With the plywood cut, the currently unwanted offcuts were also moved into the kitchen. At last we could move a bit more freely - we'd already move the shelf unit parts and the made up Ash window surround pieces out of the garage as well.

Next we ripped a couple of pieces of 9mm prepared Ash into 12mm wide strips for edging for the plywood panels recently cut. We cut the initial strip too narrow forgetting that the plywood is 12mm think and the Ash only 9mm thick. We cut a 9mm wide strip and were puzzled when it was too small. Luckily we only cut the one strip and we'll probably find a use for it if we have to edge any 9mm plywood.

The final job for the Triton was to rip the last remaining Ash board into strip for the window surrounds. This board is about 30mm thick and around 30cms wide. It was first cut into 50mm wide strips and then, in a change from last time, into 50cm wide by 12mm thick strips using the Triton - last time we used the bandsaw and had problems getting good straight cuts.

The Triton was then moved aside and the planer pulled out. Luckily it was already in thicknessing mode and only needed to have the thickness measurement set before we were away. There were only ten strips to work on but each was about 14mm thick and, as the fitter refuses to take heavy cuts, each was passed through the machine four or five times. Mrs. Fitter had lunch ready by the time the thicknessing was done and the fitter had swept up and got changed again.

With our parcel now with us we were able to go shopping after lunch, Here we are in the middle of February and the chain stores that we tried had no gloves and no warm winter coats with hoods - something to keep ears warm on cold, dark mornings as you cycle to the station. After staggering around a few shops and visiting the local market, we finally got what the fitter wanted and were able to head for home, nearly two hours after we set out.

We skipped the afternoon cup of tea and the fitter went and got changed again! He went back into the garage and rubbed down the shelf end that had been glued up on Wednesday, Then he planed the Ash for the other shelf end and glued that to the shelf end. Finally, he moved everything back into the garage so that Mrs. Fitter could have her kitchen back.

The fitter then checked the PC for the last time, had a shower and then got ready to go out after the evening meal as it was quiz night. The boatyard managed to field seven people who split into three teams to challenge the one other team that turned up. A certain amount of exchanging of information took place but the three boatyard teams were beaten by the fourth team with all the scores reasonably close.

Friday

The fitter was in London again, trying out all his new apparel on the way. When he returned home he removed the clamps from the shelf end and used the clamps to glue an Ash strip on the edge of one of the plywood cover strips. This took a large number of clamps because the Ash had distorted slightly since being cut on Thursday and needed to be pulled back into line. After that the fitter sorted out things to go to the boat on Saturday and, finally, reduced some 18mm square softwood into 15cm long strips that will be used to secure the plywood surrounding the pipework to the floor. These strips were all drilled, ready to have screws fitted when they get to the boat.

Saturday

We didn't get away from home as early as we'd hoped on Saturday morning, so didn't get to the boatyard until a little before 10.30am. We transferred everything from the car to the boat, turned the heating on and disappeared for the obligatory cup of tea with the guv'nor. It must have been around 11am by the time we got back to the boat.

The task for the day was to sort out at least one further window and to do some more work on the plywood covering for the central heating pipes. We also need to re-position the boat, ready for it to be slipped on Monday so that the bowthruster can be installed and the rudder straightened. At some stage in the boat's short life span we have managed to bend the rudder horizontally. We have vague recollections of reversing into some piling at some stage and think that this may have caused the damage. The cup in which the rudder post sits on the skeg is a little too large for the post and this results in vibrations being felt on the tiller when under power so whilst the boat is out of the water we'll have that looked at as well.

The plan for the day was to measure, mark, cut and then glue up the first two Ash assemblies for the window opposite the side hatch in the lounge. We'd leave the assemblies to dry whilst we turned our attention to the plywood covers for the central heating. After lunch we'd measure, mark, cut and then glue up the other two Ash assemblies so that the clamps were available to return home with us at the end of the day.

We cut the four pieces of Ash that sit at right angles to the window glass - two vertically and two horizontally. Three of the four fitted against the plywood window surround satisfactorily. The fourth was a right bitch. First we had to trim the top left corner of the plywood surround because there was a slight protrusion on the window frame which we thought was stopping the plywood from fitting properly. This modification led to a slight improvement but the Ash was still proud so we looked a little closer and discovered another blob of weld for which we had to cut a notch in the back of the plywood. Finally, on the other side of the window, the plywood wouldn't sit comfortably. We discovered that this was because some foam insulation had seeped through the minute gap between two pieces of metalwork and left a ridge of foam that we hadn't removed. It wasn't a significant amount but just enough to stop the plywood window surround from going all the way home. For those who haven't been with us through our build project, the bare metal around the windows has been covered by us with foil insulation and this insulation hides some of the problems that we're now finding.

It was more or less plain sailing for the rest of the work on the Ash, save that one piece which was a comfort fit, would suddenly take a liking for the floor - several times.

With the first two Ash assemblies glued up we were able to turn our attention to the plywood covers for the pipework. The horizontal piece adjacent to the kitchen units had had 2mm trimmed off it on the Triton on Thursday. At the same time we'd re-positioned the stop blocks that help locate the cover against the vertical piece of plywood. We now tried the modified cover for fit, a vast improvement over the unmodified version. However, we still needed to trim a little off the back edge with the plane before we were happy to say that the fit was as good as we were likely to get without securing everything together. It will be recalled that we're trying as hard as we can to make everything so that it can be removed if required for servicing. Consequently, we won't nail or glue anything we don't have to.

With the first horizontal piece now sitting comfortably, we moved on to the second vertical piece. We cut a short length off the back end of this so that it can be used to provide an access point for the drain valve below the radiator. Here we will glue another piece of plywood at right angles and a further piece over the top. This sub assembly will be held in position by a mix of magnetic catch and wooden blocks and be easily removable should the need arise.

The plywood wall panel behind the radiator must be bowed because the gap between wall panel and vertical piece of plywood varies between 64mm and 70mm. Unfortunately, we've already cut the horizontal pieces to 66mm wide so we'll have to add a piece of narrow Ash to the back edge to fill the gap where the distance is at its greatest.

Before we could finally screw the vertical piece of plywood to the floor we had to mark and position the softwood blocks on the wall panel. These blocks will support the back edge of the horizontal plywood cover. Said piece of plywood will need to be cut into several lengths, with each cut across the middle of a 15mm hole that will surround the pipes to the radiator. It was lunch time by the time that we'd finished this. How time flies when you're enjoying yourself (or keep finding small niggling problems that seem to take ages to resolve).

After lunch we removed the first two Ash assemblies from their clamps and cut the last two pieces of Ash. These were then glued to their adjacent pieces and left to set. We toyed with the idea of doing some more to the horizontal plywood cover for the pipework but, as it was such a nice day - cold but with bright sunshine - we decided that as we had to move the boat we might as well take advantage of the situation and go for a short cruise whilst the Ash assemblies set.

We tided up some of the tools so that we could walk safely through the boat and then disconnected the mains shore lead, untied the boat, started the engine and slowly and carefully, reversed out of our mooring and into the canal. We turned slowly and set off on our trip. In what seems to be a regular occurrence, as we arrived at the first lock, which was full, we found a boat coming the other way, so we had to let them through the lock first. Luckily, they'd set the second lock and left the gate open for us. We opted to leave the top lock gates open as we guessed that it was unlikely that anyone else would want to use the locks before we got back.

We were back at the boatyard just under two hours after we'd left. We'd only pottered most of the way, happy to enjoy the nice weather. We also had to contend with very strong sunshine, reflecting on the water and making it very difficult to see where we were going.

We took the Ash assemblies from their clamps and put all the tools away prior to transferring everything to the car. As we loaded the Ash assemblies in to the car we noticed that one had sprung at both ends and the glue hadn't taken. There was nothing that we could do then and spent the journey home wondering how we could resolve the problem.

We were home just after 5.30pm. We unloaded the car and headed straight for the garage to see if we could cure the problem with the Ash assembly. We teased the joint apart gradually. Finally the two pieces of Ash separated. We cleaned off the glue as best we could and then re-assembled the two pieces. We were a little concerned that the joint wasn't too tight in places but decided that we couldn't do anything about that at this stage.

We were about to leave the glue up and go and eat when we made a final check and noticed that the two pieces had slipped longitudinally, missing the positioning marks by about 3mm. We quickly removed all the clamps, separated the two pieces again and cleaned off the glue and headed for the meal table (after washing our hands).

We re-glued the two pieces after we'd eaten but turned one of the pieces around so that the joint closed neatly. A final check for no slippage and a wipe over with a damp piece of kitchen roll to remove the excess glue and the fitter closed the garage and called it a day.

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