And so it goes on

We've spent the last few weekends working on Misterton, fitting a door, painting the last of the floor etc. It's so exciting that we forgot to take any pictures. So for something to look at, Malcolm Slater has some good photographs on his site of Misterton leaving Goole.

Mary has also written part 26 of her views here. A cynical observer might suggest that Mary had in fact written these some time ago, and that I'm simply drip feeding them into the website at a rate that doesn't overshadow my own fascinating writing. That would be a very cynical thing to think indeed. :)

Heat

With the onset of winter one of the main things on Mary's mind was how were we going to heat Misterton. It'd been on my mind too, but I was prepared to tough it out a while longer. However, the wisdom of my years made me realise I should do something sooner rather than later.

We've always intended to install a solid fuel stove, as well as a boiler system, and we had found a model that we quite liked. However, in doing some internet research, I found that there are some new British standards about to be created to do with the installation of solid fuel stoves into boats (there are currently no official standards. I contacted the Boat Safety Scheme head office and had a very useful chat with one of their advisors. He said that until the new standards are out, a common sense approach would be fine. He also made the comment that many people install a bigger stove than they need (which our choice probably was...).

With this in mind, and with the half term week approaching, I made a sideways leap and bought a small stove from canvas and cast. The reasoning behind this choice was this: the stove is designed to be used in tents so can be assembled and disassembled without too much trouble. It will also operate quite happily with a flue length of about 2m - most domestic solid fuel stoves need about 4m. And its cute, very cute.

It was installed temporarily at half term and proved quite a success, Mary loved it. However, the wall behind it was plywood, and as these models have no firebricks it did get quite warm, so we only had it on when we were there working.

I've since installed it a bit more permanently. First of all the plywood wall was replaced with cement board (the grey bit in the middle).

Then I fastened some copper sheet to the surface of this for looks and heat reflection. This was more work than I thought and involved drilling many small holes for the tiny nails I used. With the stove installed it looks quite good though, so it was worth it.

You can see from the bucket in the picture above how small the stove is, thats a standard 600x600mm paving slab used as a hearth. When its lit, it does put out the heat and with a door fitted it actually got quite snug in the main area of the boat. We're still experimenting with fuel, I need to find a coal that doesn't produce so much ash, as being small it gets full after a day. We also burnt some bits of wood from an old pallet, but this clogged up the spark arrestor in the chimney.

In addition to the stove, I also installed a smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector. Sensible to the last.

You can see that the flue doesn't stick up that much, that's 2m from the back of the stove.

I know the deck fitting doesn't quite fit. I should also know by now that nothing is ever as straightforward as I'd like. :)

Half Term

Another one. Yes, we spent another week or so working on Misterton, progress is being made, even if sometimes we're too close to the wood to see the trees.

We were visited by my sister, brother in law Steve and nephews William and Tom one day. I soon had William and Tom on ballast shifting duty. They managed 1.5 tons between them, and Tom was the only casualty with a lacerated finger. Steve and I basked in the glow of watching a new generation doing thankless manual labour.

I spent a lot of the week preparing the front cabin for the two 900 litre water tanks. Steve and I took turns at painting the inside with the solvent rich light grey anti-corrosive paint. Even with the hatch unbolted, we could only manage ten minutes at a time before the fumes overcame us.

The tanks were secured with rachet straps. After filling them the front of the boat came down a bit and the stern came up, so I'll need to put the last of the steel ballast back there (instead of the middle as planned).

 Mary meanwhile was painting, lots of painting. We had some help on friday from Guy, who did a great job of painting our bedroom.

The results look great, we should finish off the bulk of the inside painting this weekend.

 

I even managed to watch some local traffic going by, to Mary's amusment. Not quite the same as the big barges in Yorkshire, but interesting all the same (to me alone I must admit.....)

 

 Part 25 by Mary here too.

October

We're currently spending half term working on Misterton. Hooray! Sort of....Making progress but sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees. I'll put some more pictures on later in the week, for now, heres part 24 by Mary.

Massive in Staines

My mother took this nice picture when she and dad visited us the other day, as they dropped by to see progress. I did note that they made themselves scarce after lunch when the paintbrushes came out. Maybe I should offer food after work?

And working we have been.

One of the reasons that Misterton was towed to Staines was the fact that she is sitting too high out of the water for her propellor to get a decent 'bite'. This picture shows that it was only just below the surface.

When we first saw Misterton, she was about 8 inches lower in the water than this, due to a combination of the junk the previous owners had stored aboard, and also the general levels of dampness beacuse of the holes in the deck etc. Well, since clearing out and fixing all this, she's sitting too high, so we had to put something back in.

Various things have been used as ballast, from gravel, through to poured concrete. For various reasons I decided to use steel, as its compact and movable (should we ever need to). Several tons of 10Kg scrap bars duly arrived and luckly the delivery company was able to place them by the dock.

Most of this weekend was spent putting this into the space underneath the workshop floor, I did about 4000Kgs on saturday, Mary helped with the last 2000kgs on sunday. We still have a couple of tons to go further up the boat.

I forgot to take a picture, but the propellor is about 3-4 inches lower, which should help. We may need to add more, but we'll get more of the interior done first and see where things end up.

Tired? Oh yes.