Mary's view - 2012

It's been a while, but Mary has written about some of the events of this summer.

MSO #6

A picture paints a thousand words apparently, in which case here is an essay in two-pack epoxy...

 

Just the topcoat to go, followed by welding on the sacrificial anodes and then the name. She should be re-launched this week on the spring tides.

The only trouble is the Thames is now in flood, so no immediate hope of getting back home.

MSO #5

Another saturday and another trip to Brentford to see how Misterton is coming along. All the welding has been done, including installing a hawse pipe for the anchor.

Up on deck by the winch it looks like this....

This will all hopefully make it easier to actually use the anchor, rather than it being a 'deploy-once' emergency system.

Work has begun on the painting, all rivets, seams and joins are getting a stripe coat of aluminium expoxy primer. The whole hull will then get a coat of this, followed by black two-pack epoxy.

The ballast is back in place inside and the frames and new plating has been coated in anti-rust grease. We were considering painting the new plating on the inside, but the old frames would need a lot of work to be able to take paint. The grease is pretty good at preventing corrosion, its been used on Dutch barges for many decades. We'll be keeing the bilge area well ventilated and clean, so these repairs should last well beyond our lifetimes.

In theory it should be out of dry dock on the week of the 26th of November.

MSO #4

On saturday we paid our customary visit to see how the work was progressing. Most of the welding has been completed and very good it looks too. Last week we could see part of the bow and stern overplating tacked in place, but it is much more impressive now its all welded. they've taken care to follow the lines of the original plating and the bow area in particular looks great.

The stern isn't bad either, with a number of plates being required to follow the compound curves.

Although not quite as impressive in appearance, the flat bottom plates and bilges have all been completed. The bottom plate is 10mm and the curved plates 8mm thick. Not the easiest to work with apparently, but we wanted to keep to the same thicknesses as she was originall built with (3/8 inch, so more or less 10mm).

 There are a few places where the orignal rivets have started to pull through, and these are just welded over.

Saturday was also the first time the tide had been fully in and the dock afloat, as shown here.

Hopefully only a few more weeks to go.

MSO #3

Mary, Nate and I all paid a visit to MSO in Brentford today to see how the work on Misterton is progressing. Very well it seems - there are now six people working on her. All the replaced plating has been stitch welded to the frames from the inside and the external welding has begun.

The over plating at the bow is almost completed, there were a few holes underneath the old  plating that needed patching before the larger over plates were welded into place.

The over plates follow the same lines as the original plating for a neater job. Its a similar story on the stern, with the plates following the curvature of the originals.

 Thats about it for now, tune in next week for more of the same.