It’s been quite a while since I posted anything about the boat, fact is I’ve been too busy with it and many other things to find the time to piss about with websites.
Anyway, below you will see the head (bathroom) being constructed and clad, all seems so long ago. This included steaming a piece of timber to fit the curve under the window. I didn’t build a steamer, I just wrapped the wood in rags and poured hot water on it. The last pic shows my colour LED lighting..
Next pictures show the stow cupboards in the wheelhouse and cladding of the rear Cabin, loads of tricky curves in there!
What does every living space need? a good set of speakers. My studio has a set of PMC TB2 speakers, these are a transmission line design and I’m a big fan of how they detailed they sound, they also produce accurate bass to 20hz. The transmission line design places the driver at the end of a long passage folded into a box. I was considering putting a set of the smaller DB2’s on the boat but I needed something smaller. I’ve been mucking around with small digital amps and speakers for a while and was impressed with Monacor SP60 Driver. I decided to build a transmission line speaker with them. A year later I had them built, I did loads of research and calculations to get them right, how do they sound? F**ing Ace!!!
My dining table has now been taken over by synths, so no change there….
Synths need electricity, so next I fitted some solar panels, 800W tied to 420Ah of lead acid batteries. I specced the system to produce enough power even in the depths of winter, this means in the summer I have loads of left over power. I wasn’t keen on chucking it away so fitted a dump load water heater to my hot water tank. This turns waste electricity into heat. Handy as in the summer the stove is not running to heat the water, the result is loads of lovely 60deg water.
BSS states that gas cylinders must be installed in a locker after sorting this I plumbed in the rest of the gas system including bubble tester to check for leaks.
One of the boats engines is missing. I’d acquired a cheap motor as described in the last post, I spent quite a while reassembling the engine from the various bags and gradually got to the point of trying to start it.
But sadly I never got it going, it almost ran a couple of times but then locked up. On further investigation I found that a main bearing had failed due to a tiny bit of rust in the oil hole, TBH I took a risk not checking it and in this case it didn’t pay off!
The second pic below is of the engine complete and ready to be wrecked, after a few beers I stared looking for the parts to fix the crankshaft, the bearings and regrind would come to £200, however I found a rebuilt engine on ebay, for £125!
After swapping the injection pump and fitting some new glow plugs I tried to start the 3rd engine. I tried everything to get it to run, heat guns in the intake and all, for 8 days I charged up the batteries and wound the engine endlessly. The problem with diesels is they need to generate very high pressures to heat the air to the point where it will burn fuel. These pressures are not reached until the engine is bedded in. The rings don’t fit the bores to create a good seal. When a engine is professionally rebuilt its run on a dyno until the compression is high enough. Without dyno you have to do this with the starter motor.
So it took 8 days, I was going to give up but decided to try the potato trick, this involves stuffing a potato into the exhaust manifold to help build combustion pressure! Well it worked, the engine runs really well and after I’ve fitted the gearbox, I’ll be putting it into the boat.
The last few shots show the boat in its final coats of paint, coat 7 in fact! I decided on battleship grey and used the exact same paint and shade used by the navy. I guess Royal Navy internet paint enthusiasts do have a use after all!
So the million dollar question? when is launch day? I always say “next spring” and so far its been 4 years! But the fact of the matter is that it will be ready when its ready, its not a good idea to float a boat that’s not ready, after all it might not float!