Monday, January 5, 2009 at 05:30PM I've made a couple of tweaks to our interior plans as shown here. Hope everyone survived and enjoyed the Christmas break. :)
We're back up to Goole in a couple of weeks, it'll be interesting to see if much has been done during the freezing cold weather.
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 08:20AM Mary and I went up to Goole this weekend to see how things have been going with Misterton. We've not been up for four weeks due to weddings, looking after nephews etc. As it turns out, they hadn't been able to make much progress thanks to the weather. Too much rain, wind and cold to really get much done. I wasn't surprised, but was still a little disappointed as I had hoped we'd have been closer to getting the insulation done and therefore starting the interior. But its not for lack of trying on the boatbuilders part, they're as keen to get on as we are.
We lit the old stove and then went to the museum for a cup of coffee. We were their fourth visitors of the day....... Andy from the museum showed us around a couple of the barges they had, Sobriety, a Sheffield sized keel and the larger #58. Both of these barges are used by the museum for running classes, meetings etc.
After looking at these two finished articles, we went back to Misterton and looked at the cold empty interior. One day..... :)
We didn't get too much done on the sunday either, we were planning to treat some more rust, but it was too cold to use the paint. Mary took some pictures of the gloom.
Note in the last one the beginnings of a roof for the wheelhouse. This will be in three sections so its easier to dismantle if we meet a low bridge.
I'd found some portholes from an old Navy boat in the last few weeks, and I made good use of my nephew's free labour last weekend in getting them polished. We marked out where they were to go on the cabin sides, so thats another little job to be done.
This all sounds a bit downbeat, but its not really. I'm just impatient, thats all. Thinking about it, this time last year we'd only seen a few barges and still weren't sure what we wanted to buy. I'd only seen a picture of Misterton, but had discounted her as she was too big. We've done a lot since then. :)
Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 08:21PM We've not been up to the boat for a couple of weeks, and won't be going back until mid-december due to various social engagements.
But still the work goes on. One of the things I've been doing is thinking about the future electrical system on Misterton. Way back in the spring, when I harboured thoughts of re-using the electrical system onboard, I was planning to continue with 240v lighting due to the easy availability of light fittings and bulbs. Since then we've gutted the boat, and there is none of the old (mains) lighting left.
So now I'm thinking maybe 12v DC lights would be best, as this'll avoid the need for running an inverter (to convert 12v DC in 240v AC) just for the lights.
That left the problem of the lack of stylish 12v DC light fittings. There aren't many, and most of them are far too shiny for the industrial look I'm going for. I did some research and found that you can get 12v DC bulbs that will fit into mains size (B22d) sockets.
A bit of internet browsing found several types, shown here.
On the left is an incandescent 40 bulb from BLT Direct. In the middle is an 11w (60w equivalent) low energy bulb from Solarproductsuk. Finally, on the right, a 7w low energy bulb from Taraschoice. Note to Mary, with this last one I really was looking for light bulbs, the breasts were a bonus!
Here's what they look like lit up.
The 40w incandescent.
The 11w low energy.....
...and the 7w low energy one.
Thats it. Remember, this is the abridged version, Mary has sat through hours of demonstrations and explanations so you don't have to.
Almost as fascinating as my grappling hook story (last story of three on that page).
