Fitting Out (Year 11):
| Date | Discussion |
|---|---|
| 1st April 2020 | Welcome, dear Reader, to another enthralling episode of
this tome describing the creation of a river boat. If you are
still with me, you deserve a medal! Some days I'm not sure even
I'm with me! This project started in 2008. Having decided to build a boat, I also decided to build a larger boat rather than smaller one on the basis that you have to build the hard bits, the bow and the stern, regardless of the size of the boat and that the "bit in the middle" the easy bit, would not matter so much. Well, no! In fact, there are a couple of monumental flaws in that theory, as I have since discovered. The first one is about expectation. If you build a 20' boat, you know that the accommodation is necessarily limited. You get twin "V" berths down the sharp end and a "Porta Potty" somewhere, if you're lucky. However, if you propose a 37' boat, suddenly it is expected to have a State Room with queen sized bed and it should also have a proper toilet. That toilet is expected to be in a private space, so now we have a bathroom - and every decent bathroom has a hand basin and a shower, doesn't it? Furthermore, if you're going to have niceties like a bathroom, then surely a fully fitted out galley is not too much to expect, is it? The expectations raised by considering a 20' boat are that it will just make camping by the river a bit more comfortable. The expectations raised by creating a 37' boat, however, are that it should be akin to a two-storey, one-bedroom apartment, with a view - that floats. Absolutely nothing to do with camping at all... The second fundamental flaw in the theory "that having built a bow and a stern, the length of the bit in the middle does not make much difference", becomes achingly obvious when it comes to sanding and painting the bloody thing. It is a huge project that is tiring, dirty, dusty and simply hard work - and I start this chapter in the middle of doing just that. |
| 26 April 2020 | Well, Easter is out of the way and my partner has had another
birthday, but this month is noteworthy, more because of the
World's ongoing battle with Covid-19. This little guy has fundamentally
changed our society and wrecked the world's economy probably
for decades to come. However, with such a large percentage of the population presently "staying home" either because of the risk of spreading infection or much more sadly, because they have lost their jobs, the roads are deserted and my travel times are reduced considerably! Also, since there is so little traffic on the roads (or in the air), the price of fuel has halved as well - which is all good! One job for the home workshop this month has been to finish the two steering joystick controls. The parts made thus far have just been lying on the bench and there is the risk that they will either be lost or, more likely, I'll forget what I was going to do with them. Rudder movement is provided by a 12volt electric stepper motor, with its own internal reduction gearbox. It is made by Yaskawa and I bought it many years ago at a market for $5, intending to use it to turn a BBQ spit. It turned out to be brand new and perfect for providing electric steering in a boat (I hope). I thought it would also be prudent to try and buy a spare motor "just in case" and discovered, to my horror, that not only are they not made any more, but that the last known list price was well over $1000. However, quite by chance, I did manage to buy a spare 12v armature for $50, so relying on Murphy's Third Law - "As long as you've got a spare of something, the original will go on forever" - all should be well. I had designed a control circuit to drive the steering motor, but before I got around to building it, I very happily found a suitable commercial unit on the market, ready built. It comes from Motion Dynamics in Sydney and is actually made in Australia - fabulous! Also, as a bonus, it was specifically designed for use with the joystick controls that I had purchased earlier. So then, the challenge was just to make the joysticks "look the part". I had spent some time on an offshore cargo ship and had always been amused by the ridiculously tiny joystick control that was used to steer such a big vessel, so I wondered if it were possible to make a traditional style ship's wheel in miniature as well. The smallest wheel I could find was 8 inches across and a beautiful thing, but still I thought "smaller would be better". In the 1960s, there was a fashion for making drink coasters to protect table tops etc., some out of turned timber. In fact, sets of themed coasters were often displayed in lounge rooms as ornaments, souvenirs or just curios. Imagine my delight when browsing in an Op Shop, at seeing a set of wooden coasters in a display holder that itself was made to look like a baby ship's wheel! Since there was one such decorative wheel at each end of the holder, that gave me two, which was just what I needed! They are just 100mm across and beautifully made of Teak and brass. I made new brass hubs to fit my electronic joystick controls and they have turned out very well. Joystick controls operate in all four directions, of course, not only East/West, but North/South as well. The East/West function will obviously be used to steer the boat to Port or Starboard, but what should happen when the joystick is moved on its North/South axis? That created an interesting little challenge. There are two helm positions, one in the saloon and one on the sundeck and, of course, only one should be active at any one time. You can't have someone upstairs steering to Port and someone else downstairs steering to Starboard - that would confuse things a bit. So, there needs to be a method of one helm "taking control" and that is now the function of the South action on the joystick. Approach the helm position and move the joystick South briefly and you get control of the helm (and the rudder position indicator lights up, but more of that later). The "taking-control" function works the same if you move upstairs, for example, and want to take control of the helm from that position, just move the joystick briefly to the South and, as James Tiberius would say: "Mr Sulu - you have the Con". In addition, the power to the steering system is provided on a separate circuit that is independent of everything else. It needs to be available even if the engine is not running, to allow for emergency situations such as being towed. So, another function of "taking-control" is to turn on the power to the steering system. It is on a timer and will stay on for a set period after it was last used and then shut down completely to conserve power. Of course, if all the batteries are flat - tough! Now I know what you're thinking - what happens if I push the joystick up to its North position? If I were James Bond, I could probably eject a troublesome guest through the roof, maybe? Perhaps I could use it to summon another beer from the cabin crew - yeah, right - I'm really going to get away with that one. No, it's simple - it blows the horn, of course.... The sundeck has now been repainted with Interseal 670 to match other roofs. The sundeck will ultimately be carpeted or covered with artificial grass, but in the meantime, once the boat is moved outside the shed, it will be exposed to the weather. So, it will now be fully protected whilst the flybridge is built and installed. The major effort this month has been the fairing, sanding and undercoating of the sides of the coach house. I have divided the boat into six sections of about three metres each because of the length of my scaffold board. I have worked out a routine for each section which starts with a rough sanding with 80 grit paper and then fairing with an epoxy fairing mixture, including fixing or reshaping all of the exposed fillets. Then, another sanding with 80 grit, ready for the first application of Ecotec 408 epoxy undercoat using a short nap mohair roller. It was suggested that I try using a "guide coat" to help with the sanding. The guide coat consists of a fine black powder that is applied with a flat pad. It neatly highlights all the high and low points and indicates exactly how much of the undercoat layer should be removed to produce a smooth finish. It also highlights all the pinholes, screw holes, dings and dents that need to be "spot filled" before moving on. I'm using an automotive polyurethane body filler, principally because it's easy to use and quick to dry. It can be sanded within about twenty minutes. However, a downside is that it has to be applied in only one small area at a time because the working, or "pot life", of the mix is only about two minutes - so you have to be quick! The first layer of undercoat, together with any spot filling is then sanded according to the guide coat, with 120 grit paper. A second layer of the same undercoat was then applied and sanded with 240 grit, again with the help of the guide coat powder. The final result is exceptionally smooth and quite ready for the final layer of undercoat to be sprayed on, followed by the two-pack gloss polyurethane topcoat. My friend Grant is a professional boatbuilder and has agreed to spray the final finish for me, so at least that part will be done properly... The coach house is to be painted brown to make it look as though it is timber that has been finished with clear varnish. I gave up, long ago, any ambitions that I might have had, that my carpentry was good enough to support a clear finish. So, paint it brown and from a distance, it will look much the same - hopefully! I had chosen the colour from an old British Standard colour chart that was called "Buff". I had compared it with a sample of clear finished Hoop Pine and it was not a bad match. However, when I painted a small area on the boat to see what it looked like, it was awful! It had much too much yellow in it and reminded me of my early days as a parent and of something that my then baby son might have contributed. (He's 40+ now, but you don't forget these things!) So, back to the colour charts - the Australian AS2700 this time, and with a piece of clear finished Teak in hand as a sample, I picked X53, "Golden Tan". I hope it will be closer to what I had in mind. Once it turns up, I'll re-paint (and hide forever) the previously applied "Buff" colour and hope that the new colour looks significantly better. Does anyone have any use for four litres of light brown gloss paint? It would be good for a nappy bin maybe... |
| 30 May 2020 | Those of us of a certain age and with an interest in comic
songs might remember a very clever ditty called "The Gas-Man
Cometh", which provides a nice segue into the major achievement
of the last few weeks. Andy and his son Jay, from Alexandrina Plumbing have been around to start installing the gas system in the boat. They are both keenly interested in boats and have a wealth of experience of marine installations and all the various rules and regulations that apply and are thoroughly nice blokes. I took some small comfort in that most of my planning and construction already done over time turned out to be mostly correct and that the routing I had imagined for the gas pipes was quite usable. I did have to add a timber piece next to the stove to support a dedicated isolation valve and make provision for the main gas feed from the sealed gas bottle locker to be allowed out through the bottom panel. This change was needed to allow the automatic twin bottle changeover unit to be mounted properly with a gas shut-off solenoid immediately below it. Andy did make the gruff observation that auto-changeover gadgets like the one I had selected weren't used much anymore because they were too good. By way of further explanation, he said that when one bottle was empty it seamlessly changed to the other without human intervention, which of course is the point. However, because it is out of sight, it doesn't give any indication that the first bottle is empty until the second bottle runs out and you realise that you have no gas left on board at all. All of which means you have to remember to check it manually and very regularly! I privately thought that a small camera mounted in the gas bottle locker with a screen that could be seen from the galley might be a simple solution... We'll see. All the holes drilled in bulk heads and the like, for the gas pipes have now been sealed with epoxy sealant and have had polybutylene sleeves put in place to avoid any abrasion damage. All the steel fixings in the plastic pipe saddles have been replaced with stainless steel equivalents. All these "through points" will be sealed with silicone once the job is complete. Having the gas system installed feels like a significant milestone. It seems to make the whole project real and prove that I really am building a boat that one day will be pottering about on the river whilst I make cups of tea and cook the odd toastie. Great stuff. In readiness for the sanding and fairing of the hull, various skin fittings had to be finalised. Any hole in the timber of the hull has to be lined with epoxy of course, to keep the end grain of the plywood dry to avoid rot. The plastic skin fittings have a screw thread through the hull and moulded nuts on both sides, which leaves them proud of the hull on the outside when finished. This not only makes them obvious and unsightly, but vulnerable to damage as well. The solution is to not use the nuts and simply epoxy the fittings directly in place in the timber in a slightly oversized hole. Then they can be sanded flush with the hull, which is a great improvement. Although it has occurred to me since, that depending on the chemistry of the plastic, paint may not stick to the fitting, which is going to be a problem. So, more research required there yet! Another aspect of the hull fittings that had not really been recognised was the sheer number of them that are required. There are two ballast tanks that need a drain each. The fresh-water tank has one on each side. There are bilge pumps for the galley, engine, petrol tank, gearbox and stuffing boxes. I have recently purchased seven fully automatic TMC 500 g/hr bilge pumps. The grey water comes out of the port side exhaust fitting in the transom in case your curious, just to keep it away from the water inlet! Both sides of the coach house have been faired, undercoated and sanded. The only unfinished sections are the windscreen and the very back wall above the transom. These have been left until last for different reasons. The windscreen frame - simply because it's awkward, has lots of tight angles and because of the amount of glass and epoxy used in its construction, has left it in a bit of a mess. The back wall is simply not quite finished because it is to have steps attached to form a ladder up from the transom to the sun deck - which creates another method of entry into the boat. Sanding of the windscreen frame is proceeding, but oh, so slowly. Lying on one's back with the sander up in the air is very tiring and unpleasant work and is necessarily being done in relatively short bursts. However, it's almost ready for its first undercoat. The centre panel of the windscreen consists of a hopper window and it has to be sanded and painted as well, of course. It was heartening however, to discover that although the hopper window was made many, many months ago and doesn't yet have glass in it, it hasn't warped or changed shape and in fact still fits into the frame very well. I had been told not to make windows or drawers from plywood because it warps, but I can now confirm that if you laminate several layers of plywood together with the grains in opposing directions, it seems to work very well. The steps up the back wall of the coach house consist of three separate cast bronze (or maybe brass) treads that were recovered from an old G-Craft that was being dismantled. They have since been re-chromed and look terrific. The original plan was to bolt them in place right through the timber of the back wall with polished dome nuts and stainless "penny" washers. However, when it came time to fit the steps it became immediately obvious that the lower set of four bolts would need to pass right through the LED reading lights already fitted on the other side - not so good! In any case, the whole idea of the interior of the bedroom wall covered in shiny nuts had never been particularly appealing, so, time for another solution. The simplest jobs can suddenly become so much more. What was going to be just four bolts per stair tread has now become a monster. Strength is a consideration, since these treads may have to carry some significant weight (I seem to have some heavy friends)! So, two 500mm lengths of flat stainless-steel bar 25x5 are now drilled and threaded to take the treads and also drilled and countersunk for wood screws all of which will be firmly epoxied into the timber. Since this is all really ugly, a pair of cover mouldings has also been made from Australian oak, which although would carry a stained finish really well, will probably end up just painted to avoid the maintenance issue. All of which just goes to prove the old adage - "Five Minute Jobs Aren't"! It's nice to be able to add what might be described as a "finishing touch" once in a while. Particularly if it's somewhat frivolous in nature. I had been concerned that the passage from the bedroom to the saloon would be a bit dark and decided to add a porthole. Since the Starboard side wall of the passage is also the wall of the sundeck stairs, it is open to daylight, which makes it a great place for a window. Many years ago, I did a bit of stained-glass work and having dredged my memory for the techniques involved and de-rusted the tools, made a 250mm diameter stained glass window in a sun-like pattern. The window has been installed and looks terrific. Yes, it's a bit of frippery, but in the end, isn't this project supposed to be fun? |
| 24 June 2020 | As we all know, any new window needs a frame and the new
stained-glass window is no exception. It's easy to decide to
make a round window without considering that it will of course,
need a circular frame. And, to make matter worse, it needs one
each side, so now that simple decision results in having to
make two round window frames. The interior frame is made from
eight segments of Tasmanian Oak (recovered from my much earlier
attempts at kitchen renovation - I knew that they'd come in
handy), stained and clear finished to match the timber walls.
The outside frame is 6mm plywood and will be painted dark brown.
The window represents another simple decision that resulted
many hours work, in the end. The installation of the LP gas plumbing naturally involved lifting all the saloon floor panels and that suggested that it was a good opportunity to attend to some of the other underfloor plumbing requirements. The black tank connections to the outside world were installed in the hull with significant effort, some time back, but they had not been connected internally to the tank. The connection for the pump-out for all new vessels is required by the EPA to be 50mm diameter and I have used PVC Pressure pipe (although it's for a suction connection - I know)! It is frustratingly simple stuff to use, but inevitably ends up with a lot of pushing and shoving and fighting a ferociously strong glue that sets very firmly in about three seconds flat. The flush connection is 40mm and its use is not mandatory. I built spray arms into the very bottom of the black tank using 25mm pipe with small holes drilled every so often. The idea is that after the tank has been emptied, flush water can be pumped in to lift any settled sediment to enable it to be then pumped out as well. Sediment left in the bottoms of tanks will eventually solidify and has to be removed manually - I have some experience of this situation - unfortunately. The flush pipes were supposed to follow the suction pipes behind trim panels down to the tank area so that they could not be seen. The installation of the gas pipe on the Starboard side made a new route necessary for the pipe on that side. It now goes down through the engine space, next to the starting battery, which is a bit circuitous, but I don't suppose the water will mind. The starting battery sits on a tray that was installed in the engine area quite some time back. I recall spot gluing it into place thinking "I must come back and finish that off one day". Naturally, whilst installing the flush pipe in that area, I put my foot on said battery tray and was very promptly reminded that I had forgotten to do that! The joint broke at one end understandably and the tray had to be repaired - another job! It now has proper sized glue fillets all around and even a support block underneath. So, if you feel the need to stand on the battery tray now or even jump up and down on it for that matter - feel free! Another plumbing job lurking under the floor awaiting attention was a permanent connection for the toilet to empty into the black tank. This is also 40mm PVC although the outlet from the macerator pump is only 25mm, which seems odd. I had also arranged for it to have a "fall" all along its journey from the bathroom to try and avoid any standing wastewater that might solidify into a blockage. The pipe runs through the petrol tank locker and the bilge blower was moved to accommodate it. It is now all connected. Final installation of the toilet bowl cannot be made just yet. It sits partly on the portion of the bathroom floor that is removable, which is only chipboard at present. The real floor, which is a sheet of polyethylene, will only be installed once construction is finished, so that it is not damaged in the process. There is also some significant plumbing yet to be installed under that floor before it can be sealed down. The outlet pipe of the toilet bowl goes up before it goes down, in what's called a Goose Neck, to create a water trap to stop smells coming back the wrong way. It has an anti-syphon valve glassed into the highest point of the pipe as well. The height of the Goose Neck above the floor sets the height (or depth) of water that remains in the toilet bowl after it has been flushed. The toilet manufacturer makes no recommendation as to what this height should be, but presumably it should not be too low. Nor should the level be so high that a gentleman sitting on the toilet might find his "dangly bits" reaching the cold water. To find a solution, certain "dangly bits" had to be measured. I must say that it is a very, very long time since I've gone into a bathroom with a ruler... Another result of having to remove all the floor panels in the saloon was to discover that some of them were broken. Each panel has reinforcing battens glassed underneath, but in the end, they are only as strong as the top veneer of the plywood to which they are glued. Given that the panels will all be carpeted, I realised that I could screw the battens through from the top surface and the repairs would be invisible. Yet another underfloor connection was required to be able to fill the fuel tank. A cast stainless filler fitting has been installed in the Port side deck and a 38mm bowser hose with a spiral wire reinforcement, used to connect it to the petrol tank. The hose is hidden behind a trim panel in the saloon wall before it goes under the floor. The 420litre petrol tank came from a truck wrecker and a 38mm aluminium hose fitting has been welded into the original tank cap to allow the hose to be connected. Taking up the saloon floor for Jay to install the LP gas pipes seems to have triggered a myriad of other jobs, which is not really surprising, I suppose. However, there is no hiding place secure enough to protect you from still outstanding filling and sanding jobs. This week, with great determination and lacking a decent excuse, the windscreen frame has had its final sand and first coat of undercoat. That then has to be sanded as well, spot-filled and given a second coat, but it's well on its way and looks terrific. I'm not keen on cheap tools. However, there are some exceptions. I am onto my third random orbital sander. I buy "el cheapo" brands on the basis that they have a two-year warranty, although probably not for the kind of use I give them. I have discovered that the problem with both the current unit and its predecessor for that matter, is the eccentric bearing behind the sanding pad. Whilst mourning the failure of another sander and idly dismantling it over a cup of tea, I noticed that bearing that had failed was a standard size and therefore, readily available. So, a quick visit to eBay provided a couple of new bearings for a very low price and the sander was repaired. In fact, its predecessor is repaired too, so now we're "sander rich"! |
| 24 July 2020 | The major achievement for this month is nothing to do with
any effort of mine. Jay Waghorn from Alexandrina Plumbing came
back to finish the gas installation and I now have a working
stove and saloon heater, which is outstanding. All the pipes
are properly lagged and labelled as required by the code. The
automatic bottle changeover pressure reducer is installed together
with my gas shut-off solenoid. All finished - and there's a
word I don't get to use very often. Actually, it's not quite finished because the Hot Water Service that I bought so long ago from China, is not approved for use in Australia, so Jay wasn't legally able to install it - quite rightly. Jay simply left a capped connection in the HWS locker and I will have to add a couple of fittings and connect it up myself in due course. I decided to fit (well, have Jay fit anyway) the gas shut-off solenoid mentioned above, to deal with the inevitable situation where the boat is left unattended and no-one has remembered to physically turn off the gas bottles. So now, unless the solenoid is electrically activated, no gas can enter the boat. The solenoid is activated via a four-hour timer. So, if you want to use the stove, heater or have a shower, you have to turn on the timer first to activate the solenoid and feed gas into the system. In one sense that's a nuisance, but the upside is that when the set-time expires, the gas is automatically cut off. I deliberately selected what might be considered an "old-fashioned" style of timer that is mechanical, so that even with a partial failure of the electrical system in the boat, the gas will still get turned off. Naturally, a complete electrical failure will de-activate the solenoid anyway and still shut off the gas. Since the shut-off solenoid is located together with the gas bottles in a sealed and separately vented compartment, any leaks in that area will simply escape to the outside. I did suggest earlier that the gas installation is now finished, but I now realise that it's not - not quite! (Is nothing ever actually FINISHED - Grr)? Jay still has to come back and fit the BBQ on the sundeck - when I can finish the sundeck and I can't do that until the boat is out of the shed because of height limits inside the shed and I can't move the boat out of the shed until the painting is finished and the boat is weatherproof and I can't paint the boat until the sanding is finished. Everything always depends on something else - Grr! The back wall of the bedroom above the transom is the last part of the whole coach house to be faired, sanded and undercoated ready for the final topcoat, and it is now finished. This includes the three chrome steps and their very complex mounting frames described in such excruciating detail in an earlier post. Still, the result is that the coach house is now ready for final painting in a delicate shade of "Golden Tan" (that's mid-brown to the rest of us), which is nice... Having finished the coach house, I have now begun fairing the hull, starting with the top planks on each side and they are actually a bit of a mess. They have holes and dings in them, some of which are intentional and some that are not. They have also had the side decks glassed on to their top edges, which has left lots of bumps, ridges and glue dags, all of which now have to be faired out. So, starting with 80 grit paper, then a layer of epoxy fairing compound, then another sand with 80 grit paper followed by a "spot fill" to fix up the missed bits, this is just the start. The first layer of undercoat is then sanded with 120 grit paper and the second coat with 240 but because of the cold weather, each coat is taking about three days to dry enough for sanding. Anyway, the resulting surface is terrific - it is very smooth, although not level. That is, any individual spot is smooth, but if you look along the length of the plank, you can see the odd wobble or three from the underlying scarf joints and the like. The top plank will be painted dark ultramarine blue, which as with all dark colours, is like a mirror for imperfections, so it may be that it would be better in white, like the remainder of the hull. I'll take some advice later from someone who knows a lot more about spray painting than I do, and we'll see... When climbing around on the sundeck and galley roofs, I have discovered that they are really quite slippery. They have been painted with two pack epoxy paving paint and then polyurethane gloss. It looks terrific, but the gloss finish should have had some anti-skid powder added. So, having bought some ground pumice powder the other day, I have to make time to put yet another coat of gloss on the roofs. Humph! On the subject of "oversights", I realised another one the other day. I have a two station, electronic gas and petrol vapour detector (Sniffer) ready to be installed eventually and I will connect it directly to the bilge blower system. The intention is that if any LP Gas or Petrol vapour is detected, even when the boat is unattended, it will activate the blowers to clear the bilges automatically. One "sniffer" detector will be in the lowest part of the engine space and the other in a sump under the galley floor, by the gas stove. So far so good. I have fitted three blowers, one by the engine, one at the back of the gearbox, which also clears under the shower and the third blower alongside the main petrol tank. But, what about the galley area? Oops! No blower! Time for another cup of tea and a plan to be able to fit a blower to scavenge the area under the galley floor. I'll leave the subconscious to cogitate about that for a day or two... I've described the sanding processes of the last several weeks in what is probably way too much detail. However, what I haven't mentioned is the dust that it creates. There are sanding machines that essentially have vacuum cleaners attached, which is fine if you have one. Instead, I have a shed full of dust. It is in my clothes, my overalls and even in the car and in my house. It's really fine and white and it's everywhere! And, as you know, the next major process after sanding is painting and the sworn enemy of all successful spray painting is dust. The result is that I've started cleaning the shed - can you believe it? Over the last couple of weeks, I've been taking all the plywood offcuts from twelve years of construction home to put in the wood fire - it is Winter after all and keeping warm at home is a welcome bonus. However, is this the Start of the Endgame? Is the boat really getting ready to leave the womb and face the great big wet world outside? No, I can't believe it either... |
| 31 August 2020 | Tomorrow is the first day of Spring and soon, I suppose,
we'll be complaining that it's too hot. Ah, well! Springtime
in a Pandemic - that's different. At least some of the commercial
boats on the river are moving again even if the State borders,
including the border locks, are still closed. The pandemic hasn't affected my boat building much; it's a solitary process at best, so nothing has really changed. I have still had the usual number of friends dropping in for a responsibly distanced coffee, so all is well. The new and previously overlooked blower required to ventilate the underfloor area of the galley is now installed. It's at the back of the gas stove in what is really a relatively unused area. Unfortunately, it had to be placed above the level of the galley benchtop in order to bring the outlet in line with the others down that side of the hull when viewed from outside the boat. The blower is therefore visible from inside the galley at the moment and so will need to be boxed in at some point. Noise may also be an issue. The necessary 75mm ducting using storm water PVC pipe, will be installed when I can conveniently lift the galley floor again. I have to add another float switch to the forward ballast tank under the galley floor at some point as well, so I will do the two jobs together. There is a float switch to detect when the tank is full of course, but when I actually sat down to design the electrical circuit to manage the ballast tank, I realised that I needed one to check for when the tank is empty as well. Logically, you would think that it should be possible to use the float switch built into the automatic bilge pump but that turns out not to be possible. The ballast tank control panel has a Fill/Empty switch, with a centre position if you want to just leave it half full and three indicator lights. Red for full, green for empty and yellow for somewhere in between. The panel has exactly the same arrangement duplicated for the aft ballast tank as well, of course. I have been making up cables here and there, in readiness for the final wiring of the boat. I am using waterproof plugs and sockets that I bought via eBay, although they are available from Repco as well. I am using mostly the two-pin version, although I do have some bigger ones that will be needed for the engine harnesses. I had to make a cable for the gas on/off solenoid to allow the gas fitter to test the system anyway, so that has now been finished. I was a little alarmed to discover that the solenoid actually gets quite warm after it has been on for a while. It draws 1.5Amps which is nearly 20W, so perhaps it's not so surprising. As an experiment, I decided to leave it on for a full eight hours to make sure that it would behave itself and whilst it did get quite hot, there were no nasty burning smells from its insulation. It was not a cheap device and one would like to hope that it has been designed with 100% duty cycle in mind, but you never know, I suppose. Another cable required in the general area of the gas locker is one to supply the two fog lamps (Hawsehole lights), which is now made up and installed as well. Nearby, will be the 240v connection for the microwave oven. I'm using ordinary 10A mains extension cable for the 240v supply (coloured very bright red), being more flexible than the solid copper cored cable equivalent. DC cables for the fridge, stove, bilge pump and forward ballast tank controls will follow. The outside window alongside the sundeck stairs is not glass, but simply an aluminium grill. It covers the hot water service and on that same wall will be the 3Kw 240v pure sine wave inverter and the solar panel controller, both of which need some access to fresh air for cooling. The bottom edge of that area has now been sealed and a 40mm cable entry installed for what will be some quite large cables. A rainwater drain has also been provided via the hot water service locker and the whole area trimmed to allow the aluminium grill panel to fit properly. The sanding of hull is proceeding and the second clinker planks on each side are now finished and ready for painting. These planks have been a bit easier because they were already sanded and undercoated before the hull was turned the right way up and very little has had to be done to them since, with the exception of a myriad of hull fittings being installed. There are still the inevitable glue and paint dags of course, together with some impact damage from steps and scaffold boards etc., all of which have to be removed. The far more important issue has been the twelve years' worth of phone numbers, drawings and plans that have been written all over the planks simply because they are at a convenient height and are a good surface to write on when there's no paper handy. These have all been photographed in case they turn out to be important, although... Sanding of the third planks is next of course, but as with all these jobs it seems that there's something else that has to be done first. In this case it's about access. In order to keep the shed tidy, well at least make it possible to walk around safely, a huge amount of "stuff" has been hidden around and under the boat. So, to be able to reach the lower planks for sanding, all this "stuff" has to be moved somewhere else first. There are now racks built on the walls of the shed to store long planks and roof beam moulds and a plan to get rid of the smaller of the two benches so that machines such as the bandsaw, thicknesser, sliding bevel saw and the like, can all be relocated away from the bottom of the boat. There are also some very heavy duty and business-like dolly wheels lurking around too - but, more of that later. Inside the boat, the hull needs some support horizontally between bulkheads, to prevent side intrusion damage in the event of a serious mooring mishap or collision. So, panels that look a lot like shelves have been installed in the saloon and are underway in the bedroom. Each "shelf" is positioned on the horizontal joins of the hull's clinker planks to reinforce those joints. The result is an "egg-crating" effect much like the keel of the boat, which adds significantly to its durability. The shelves also create a storage opportunity of course and given that there's never enough storage on a boat, it has been exploited. In both the saloon and the bedroom, the vertical plane of the coach house walls is being extended down to meet the floor by the installation of timber trim panels. These trim panels are set vertically and attach to the "shelves" with screws, since they need to be removable for maintenance access. They will be finished with light weight pale grey carpet to contrast with the dark blue carpet on the floors. The trim panels not only very conveniently hide the sometimes ugly timber work, plumbing and wiring on the inside of the hull, but also with the addition of some large elongated holes aligned with the shelves, create a number of "glove box" type storage spots, much like a car. The side decks around the hull vary in depth depending on the shape of the hull at any given point but are generally around 200mm. That determines the depth of the side-intrusion panels and therefore the shelves, which is all very useful space! Incidentally, such vertical wall linings in a boat are more properly known as "ceilings" apparently, for reasons best known only to the boat builders of old, which is bizarre... We finally made the opportunity to glass up the transom hatch mould made so long ago and whilst the finished casting was an absolute beast to remove, it turned out to have a bigger problem. I had not allowed for the necessary lip around the inside of the frame necessary to support the weight of the hatch when it was closed and as a result, the finished hatch size was too small to allow the plastic fuel tanks to pass through. Humph! After a few days and many cups of tea, together with the final realisation that more harsh language wasn't going to fix it, I had to admit that there was no choice but to start again. So, the MkII hatch mould is made and yes, it is a little bigger proving that in the end, size does matter... |
| 6 October 2020 | The new hatch frame has been made and removed from the mould.
As my first attempt without Moose's guidance, it turned out
reasonably well. Releasing the frame turned out to be difficult
and ultimately the judicious application of compressed air through
a hole in the bottom of the mould persuaded it to part company
as it should. "Applying compressed air" sounds straightforward but matching up a set of suitable fittings for the air hose to create an airtight connection with the mould, using just what was in the "oddments" box, turned out to be a very time consuming and frustrating process. To avoid a repeat performance with the next mould, I visited the local tyre shop and asked if he had any old tyre valve housings. That's the rubber bit sticking out of your car's wheel with the brass threaded top that we all use when checking the pressure in our tyres. (We do all check our tyres regularly - don't we?) He looked really puzzled at my request and when I explained what I wanted it for he was so amused he gave me a handful of new ones for nothing. It just pays to ask sometimes. The boat was originally destined to have four hatches across the top of the transom, but since each pair has been merged into a single bigger hatch, there are now only two. The first hatch frame is made and the second is just ready to come off the mould. This will be the first test of the rubber tyre valve, so we'll soon see whether that was a good idea or not! The next step is to make the actual hatch to fit in those frames. This involves modifying the mould and repeating the whole process twice more! Then there are just the two hatches on the foredeck and two more for the sullage outlets to go. As we've said before, "By the time I finish this job, I will have the experience I should have had before I started it". Ah well, that's what hobbies are for. Although it's hard to believe, but I've run out of plywood. I could go back to my purchase records and see how many sheets I've bought for this project so far, but I don't think I will - it will be depressing! I still have to make the wall linings for the saloon and bedroom, which will need several sheets of 10mm ply, and I also have to make a set of floor panels to cover the main fuel tank in the saloon, which are 12mm. Then of course, I have to finally replace the bed base which is presently only made of chipboard and so on! As we all know, the word boat is actually the acronym "BOAT" that stands for "Bring Out Another Thousand" - dollars that is! Still, is that, just possibly, the last bulk plywood I will need to buy to finish the boat? A rapidly approaching job that is perhaps the "Elephant in The Room" is the need to move the boat. I have to glass and undercoat the transom which, at present, is so close to the doors of the shed that I cannot squeeze into the space to properly reach it. Note to self - "If you're going to try and build a 37' boat in a 40' shed, it serves you right". Still, look on the bright side - it's more useful than a 30' shed would have been, I suppose. Part of preparing to move the boat is the cleaning up of the whole shed. Being a natural "hoarder", scraps and offcuts of plywood are everywhere on the basis that "they might come in handy"! Although, some are now so small as to be unlikely to find a home as part of the boat. The solution has been to start taking them home for the woodstove. The first surprise has been the sheer number and weight of the offcuts and the second rather depressing surprise, is the enthusiasm with which they burn. Not something you want to think about too much! With the new supply of plywood, I have set about finishing the side intrusion frames for the bedroom. These are boards installed horizontally over the joins in the clinker hull planks to reinforce them in case of side impact. They also form handy shelves for storage. The vertical wall lining panels will be attached to them but will be screwed rather than glued to allow for easy access. It's not a good idea to screw into the 12mm edge of a piece of plywood because it will often split, so all the edges have been reinforced with a 19mm x 19mm hardwood batten, Tasmanian Oak in this case. Tedious, but necessary. The wiring of the boat is proceeding. Holes have been made in various bulkheads for cables and either simply lined with epoxy or have had a piece of plastic conduit pipe glued in place. Having drilled a 12mm hole behind the gas stove for the wires I thought were needed for the Starboard side of the galley it seemed reasonable to just make a list of the wires actually required and their relative sizes to check. It very soon became obvious that 12mm was nothing like big enough and it was soon enlarged to 25mm! Even now, I not convinced it's enough. There's a lesson! I have mounted LED strip lights on the roof beams of the galley, saloon and bedroom, and they are all the same type 3528 waterproof LED strips in "Warm White". I had considered that the bathroom might be better served by brighter lighting and at the time the next biggest LED was three times more powerful. The problem with the bigger LEDs is not the brightness but the power consumption. The bathroom requires about 7.5m of lighting strip which would draw over 10 amps! The construction of the boat has taken so long now that technology has improved considerably over what was available when planning commenced. I can now replace the solar panels with the new flexible versions and the TV with one that is able to receive the HD channels! It is the same with LED lighting. There is now a newer, smaller and much more efficient LED called a 2835, which apparently provides three times the brightness of those used elsewhere in the boat, whilst drawing less power. A couple of rolls have been ordered, so we'll see if that's true. It is also interesting to note that ten years ago a 5m roll of LED lights cost around $45. Now, the same thing is $6. The saloon presently has no fitted furniture. I originally planned for a couch that would double as a dining area, but it was subsequently abandoned, and you can read all about that in excruciating detail elsewhere. I have a folding dining table that will seat six and a special storage spot set aside for it. However, for normal day-to-day use, it seemed that a small dinette, just for two, might be a good idea. Fitted furniture is often uncomfortable because it is too big, too small, too upright, too low, too high or just generally badly thought out. So, it was time for another "faux" product. Over time, I have made a faux fridge and a faux stove just to make sure that things were going to fit properly, so why not a faux dinette? Using two existing chairs, I now have a chipboard tabletop held in place on the Port wall of the saloon with G-cramps, pretending to be a dinette. After some changes in table height and distance behind one of the chairs, it seems to be very comfortable. I'm now using it each day to have lunch, so we'll see if it stands the test of time before making it permanent. With so many components for Rhapsody being ordered over the Internet and delivered via my small local Post Office, I have been suggesting to the lady operator that the entire boat is, in fact, coming in bits by post. When she complained recently about the weight of some 400amp copper cables that were being delivered, I suggested that that was nothing and that she should wait until the engine arrived... |
| 7 November 2020 | Both cast fibreglass hatch frames have been taken off the
mould and trimmed to size. The car tyre valve fitting was a
great success, which greatly simplified matters. The frames
have been glued into the aft deck above the transom and look
as though they had been made for the job. (Which they were,
of course). The frames have been glassed with 50mm wide tape
and will soon be ready for final fairing. The underneath of
the frames has yet to be reinforced with fillets of glue to
ensure that they are strong enough to walk on - obviously. The mould was then modified to be ready to cast the hatch covers to fit into the frames described above. That involved attaching 30mm battens all around the edges positioned to make them 3mm smaller than the frame to allow for its thickness. The new mould has been waxed, coated with PVA and gel coated and now has its first layer of glass applied. All the side intrusion frames around the hull have now been finished and their edge reinforcing timbers attached. Each frame has to be filleted and glassed into the hull since they now become structural members. The first two are completed with many more to come. Once the side intrusion frames are completed, the wall lining panels can be made and dry-fitted. The wall linings won't be glued in because they may need to be removed later to access the hidden plumbing and wiring and to gain access to the inside of the hull, should any repairs be necessary. They will ultimately be covered in lightweight pale grey carpet. The evaporative air conditioner on the roof has finally had its 100mm CelDek water bats installed. There is a copper pipe to be made to supply the water required to keep the bats wet and this highlights just another skill I don't have. Still, we blunder on and the first attempt looks quite good, but don't look surprised, it gives the game away. There is a separate water pump to be mounted near the gearbox to lift the necessary water from the river water reservoir to the A/C. It has rubber mounts and is claimed to be "silent", although I tried it in a bucket of water and that seems to be a fairly bold claim, but we'll see! The return water from the bats is piped back to the water reservoir under the floor, to avoid it making a "dribbling" noise all night which can have unfortunate side effects on some of us as we get older and ruin a good night's sleep! I've started installing bits of wiring around the boat, principally in the galley at present. I installed a piece of 12mm conduit to carry the necessary wires through the bulkhead and very soon realised that that was going to be woefully inadequate for the number of wires that were actually required. So, that was soon chiselled out and replaced with a piece of 25mm pipe and on consideration, I'm not convinced even that will be enough. I needed another length of conduit to go along the hull under the entry door, and since it will carry most of said galley wiring, in addition to all the engine cabling to the dashboard, I have gone straight for 40mm conduit for starters! We'll get it right eventually... I have ordered some more cable since I seem to be using it at a prodigious rate. I'm using twin tinned copper cable in either 6 or 16Amp rating (2mm & 3mm) for most areas. However, I now realise that a couple of big items such as the toilet macerator and main domestic water pumps, will need heavier 40Amp (6mm) cable. All of which is nothing compared with the 12v supply to the 240V inverter at 500A of course, but horses for courses. A recent "impulse buy" on eBay was an ammeter rated at 500Amps in either direction, which seemed like a good idea. It relies on induction rather than a shunt, so that there is no unnecessary resistance in the circuit. Also, the sender unit communicates with the display by WiFi, so cutting down on the wiring. It seems to work really well but it's all too clever for me. Some messing around this month changing cars. I've been using a Honda CR-V to commute to the boat shed for the last few years, but it's just ticked over 360K kilometres, so it's time for a change. I now have a Holden Station Wagon, which is only showing 158K so far - but I'll soon fix that... |
| 28 November 2020 | Happy birthday to me! This month has been interrupted by a visit to hospital for a little throat surgery. It turned out well and the potentially scary bits that were removed proved to be benign - which is nice. The first transom hatch is out of the mould. A process made much easier by the judicious use of compressed air and some homemade fittings as described elsewhere and it has now been trimmed to size and fits beautifully - of course. I asked my friend Moose to help me "weight test" the strength of the hatch cover, given that he's somewhat bigger than me, by putting it on the floor and jumping on it! Crude maybe, but effective and the hatch survived, so that's reassuring. The Starboard hatch is now in the mould and should be ready for trimming next week. The whole saga of "hatches" has been going on for many months and like so many things, once it's done and you review what you've learned, it seems relatively simple in retrospect. It's called experience I suppose. The evaporative air conditioner has 100mm CelDek bats fitted and they need to be kept wet to operate effectively. Water from a dedicated pump is distributed across the top of the bats by a 12mm copper pipe. Bending and silver soldering copper pipe fittings to make up the required shape turned out well and then the matter of dripper holes came up. Time for another cup of tea! How many holes are required along the length of the copper pipe to provide the necessary flow rate for the CelDek bats to work efficiently and what size should those holes be? Would the little pump be adequate given that it has to raise water from the river nearly two metres to reach the air conditioner anyway? Ah, the agony of ignorance - familiar territory at least! I decided that the holes in the pipe should be 1mm in diameter simply because that's the smallest size I can realistically drill. Calculating the area of a 1mm hole and that of the 12mm delivery pipe, I could work out that along the approximately 1650mm length of the delivery pipe, I could have a hole every 30mm or so. Also, rather than drill all those holes directly downward, they could alternate slightly sideways at about 30 degrees to the vertical, to better distribute the water. Anyone who has tried drilling 1mm holes will know that such a tiny drill bit is a very fragile and often short-lived device. Anticipating the problem, I ordered a packet of twenty drill bits before starting the job and that turned out to be a good decision. With the help of my son, we managed to drill dozens of 1mm holes and end up with about five drill bits left over, which is a pretty good average. We were then able to connect the newly drilled copper pipe to a garden hose to see the results of our labours. All good! If I could actually find the little 12volt pump that I've put away somewhere safe - I could test it properly. Ah well, it'll turn up! I mentioned sometime back that I had ordered some new model, high output LEDs for the bathroom. These have now arrived and the appropriate wiring harnesses made ready to install them. Whilst I have selected "Warm White" lighting throughout the boat, I decided that "Cool White" might be better for the bathroom. Err - no! Having tested the new LEDs in situ, they are certainly ridiculously bright, but they are also oh, so harsh as well! So much so, that seeing myself in a mirror in the mornings in that cold blueish light is not something I need to inflict on myself. I'm fairly certain my partner might have a view about that too! So, back to eBay to order more LEDs but this time, in "warm white" instead. Whilst finalising some of the wiring plans for the boat and trying to cater properly for possible emergency situations, I began to wonder what would happen if the batteries went flat, particularly whilst the boat was unattended. Naturally, a flat battery will disable the automatic bilge pumps and the gas detectors and so has the potential to sink the boat. Not good! Also, completely flattening a set of batteries can destroy them, which can be very costly. So, it's more usual to provide some form of "undervoltage" protection that simply disconnects the load if battery voltage drops below a pre-determined level, usually around 10.5volts. In normal circumstances the solar panels will generate more than enough power to ensure this doesn't happen however, faults occur, and things go wrong. If you're on board and have had the air conditioner on for a long time, it may be as simple as just sounding an alarm. However, if a fault occurs whilst the boat is unattended, what can be done? Given that it will almost certainly be in a marina when unoccupied, it may be enough to simply try and attract the attention of the other people nearby to raise the alarm. With that in mind I have decided to mount a very bright blue xenon strobe light on the highest part of the boat to indicate that an emergency situation exists. Also, some Internet based remote monitoring is also quite feasible these days as well and that will undoubtedly come along in due course. Another event this month that has affected boat building is a short term "Covid Lockdown" imposed by our caring government - erroneously as it turned out. Whilst some people were furious, I thought the idea of being told to stay home and do absolutely nothing - which made it entirely guilt free - was terrific! |
| 12 January 2021 | Another new year - we can only hope that this one will be
less chaotic than the last one. Boatbuilding has continued at
its usual hectic snail's pace with the concomitant lack of progress.
However, all is not necessarily as it seems. The Hot Water Service compartment has been painted out and a length of 100mm stainless steel flue pipe acquired. Jay, the gas fitter, wasn't able to finalise the fittings for the HWS because it is not approved for use in Australia and the law prevented him from doing that. So, having bought an isolation valve, a suitable brass elbow fitting and some thread sealer, I finished the job myself. Gas is then piped to the heater via a braided flexible gas line. Similar braided hoses are used to bring the water connections into and out of the HWS compartment. The straight flue extension was pop-rivetted to a 90degree fitting and the whole thing mounted in the compartment with two stainless steel mounting saddles from Clamptek. One had to be extensively modified, but the result is excellent. The outside face of the vent has to be trimmed, but because of the odd angles being cut across a round pipe, a special jig has had to be made to make the cut which is actually a parabola. It will be painted bright red in the end to remind anyone (principally me) coming down the side decks that it may be hot. After the successful completion of the hatches, together with their frames, for the transom, next on the list is another set for the black water pump-out connections on the sides of the hull. The base of the mould used for the transom hatches happens to have close to the same curvature as the sides of the hull at that point and so can be used as the base for the new hatches. The "plug" for the mould has been made and the first part of the process of making the frames has been started. Naturally, two frames and two hatches will be required. Now all of the side intrusion frames are installed, they have to be "cleaned-up" and painted. In fact, all the areas destined to be hidden behind the wall linings, despite the fact that they will totally be out of sight, now have to be finalised and painted before the remainder of the wiring and plumbing can be installed. This is true of the bedroom walls as well as those in the saloon, of course. On closer examination, it was very soon clear that the floors also have an extraordinary number of glue and paint drops that need to be removed before they can be carpeted. The dashboard has received some attention recently as well. The routing for the wiring and, more particularly, the TeleFlex engine control cables have to be finalised. The control cables are quite stiff and cannot be bent too sharply. Once a suitable route from the dashboard to the engine is finalised, the required length can be determined, and the cables ordered. A side effect of installing all four sides of the dashboard is that now its final size can be determined. It turns out that it will be about 480mm square and that leads to another planning job to work out the layout for all the gauges and switches. Should be fun! The top cover for the A/C unit has been made. It has battens glassed in it to help hold the CelDek bats in place. The cover has been glassed both sides and painted with Interseal, since it will be almost permanently wet. A raised fibreglass "dam" has been created in the bottom of the A/C cabinet to prevent excess condensation or overspray from the bats finding its way down the trunking at the back of the shower. There is a drain to the outside air, but the fall toward it is quite small. So, the "dam" should not really be necessary, but "better safe than" - well, you know! The wiring for the interior corridor lighting also goes through the A/C area. Some plastic "D" profile ducting has been installed to hide, protect and seal the wiring from damage and moisture. The wiring was included with the fan cabling and was made up into to a single harness that sneaks into the boat through the wardrobe roof. Another "intruder" that has to sneak through the A/C box is a pipe for the bathroom fresh air vent. A decorative grill has been installed in the ceiling which then joins to a 100mm PVC pipe that goes right through the A/C to appear at the top of the cover on the outside. This will be extended in due course to its full height once the boat is out of the shed and will then have a solar powered extractor fan attached. Someone asked me the other day "Why aren't you proposing to use Lithium-Ion batteries?" It's a reasonable question and worthy of a specific answer given that the energy storage density of these batteries is much higher than that of Lead Acid types. So, why not use them? The answer is because their cell voltages are different, and you can't successfully charge Lithium-Ion batteries with the alternator on a car engine. Cars don't use Lithium-Ion batteries (mostly), so their alternators are designed to only charge Lead-Acid batteries and not Lithium-Ion types. Solar panel controllers, on the other hand, are often designed for both Lithium-Ion batteries and Lead-Acid and do the job very well, but if one of your main energy sources for charging your batteries includes an alternator, then you're limited to Lead-Acid. I described the process of drilling dozens of tiny holes in the water delivery piping for the evaporative air conditioner in a previous post. I also mentioned that the recommended number of holes per metre and the best size for the holes were unknowns and could only be the subject of barely educated guesses. It all needs to be tested and given that the little 12v pump destined for that duty had been temporarily misplaced, the job had to be postponed. Happily, the pump has now turned up and the whole set-up was tested with the spray arm at the correct "lift" above the water line (well, the top of a bucket, in this case) and 12volts applied to the pump. The spray arm worked really well and within seconds water was being sprayed exactly as predicted. The time it took for the pump to empty the bucket was measured so that the final flow rate could be calculated. It turns out that the system was moving 3litre/minute with a "head" of 2.2metres. That may be a little lower than ideal, but I'm sure that it will do for now. If a bigger pump is seen as necessary in due course, then so be it. The boat has (or will have), a myriad of switches, indicator lights and buttons all over the place, to activate the various systems installed. (More details of the remote TV monitoring system being accessible via my phone later!) Whilst I know what all these controls do and how they work of course, visitors will not. So, they need to be labelled. (With the inevitable onset of Dementia - it may become a matter of personal interest as well.) I have a Dymo and an electric label printer, but that's not quite the "look" I had in mind. Small, tasteful and shiny engraved brass tags are more the sort of thing to suit a wooden boat - don't you think? So, how to make the label tags? There are services available on the Internet where you can submit your required text and in due course, back comes a nice little brass label. However, that's all a bit slow and expensive, so I've bought a 3D CNC engraver. Hmm - something else to learn - just what I needed. Assembling the engraver machine was like doing a jigsaw puzzle and quite a bit of fun. The software necessary to drive it is a whole new can of worms. After five days of fiddling around (remembering that I worked for many years as a programmer) I can now produce my own labels. Is it quicker? Is it cheaper? Almost certainly the answer is "No" to both of those questions, but it has been fun. As we are getting closer to actually painting the boat, I have decided to "have a go" myself. I may end up sanding off my efforts at applying a top-coat and get the professionals in as was my original intention. However, I've purchased a shiny new HVLP spray gun and I'm now combing YouTube for training videos. Another thing to learn... Watch this space. The job of putting the boat up on its wheels is getting closer. The special wheel plates have been welded up and some very long "U" bolts made to hold the hard wood sleepers in place under the boat. The wheels will raise the boat by 190mm which will just fit under the roof of the shed with nothing to spare... I knew that... |
| 8 February 2021 | Raising Rhapsody's public profile has taken another step
this month with the launching of a dedicated Facebook page.
I had not pursued it previously because the name was already
being used - not for a boat, but by two girls in California
who were showing and selling art works made of glued paper and
material. It is quite possible to create a page with the same
name but decided not to. It didn't seem to be a very active
site and I gave up the idea quite some time back. However, a
recent check showed that the name was no longer in use, which
is great! I will post "stuff" as time and enthusiasm dictates and it will generally be on a much more "micro" level, such as "here's a photo of what I did today". Detailed explanations and rambling descriptions of parts of the project will remain here on the website for you to battle through. Once the boat is launched, I will maintain the Facebook page as a platform on which to describe its journeys and ultimately, its adventures - maybe that should be "mis-adventures". A link to the Facebook page is on the bottom of the Home page of this website. The other really nice thing about having a Facebook page is that it provides a mechanism for you to leave messages, comments or questions for me, which would be most welcome. I will address your comments if I can, but please don't try and sell me anymore Bitcoin currency - because they've been on already! The Hot Water Service compartment has received its final touch, namely a cooling fan. It is closed on three sides, leaving the whole of one side open to the atmosphere, but it is still possible for the temperature to rise significantly whilst in use. So, a thermostat (well, a pair, actually, to provide some redundancy) has been fitted on an aluminium bracket at the highest point of the compartment and it is connected to a 4" fan. This should force some air to circulate and keep the unit cool. Although Rhapsody can carry more than 300 litres of fresh water, I am a tea tragic and so access to packaged spring water may still prove very desirable. The two shelves in the galley, that are at either side of the fridge under the portholes, are an odd shape and awkward to get to, but I recently realised that with a small modification, they would hold a 10 litre cask of water just perfectly. (Or a 10 litre cask of anything else, presumably?) So, the modifications are complete and although the ends of the shelves will have to be re-painted, it seems like a really good improvement. As we all know, "One thing leads to another" and this is really true in boatbuilding. I had recently started painting the inside wall of the hull in the saloon on the Starboard side, realising very quickly that I needed to finish the installation of some cable trunking first. That was done and ultimately that part of the painting was completed. When it came to addressing painting the Port side, it wasn't just trunking that needed finishing! The Port side breather and filler hose for the main petrol tank need to be isolated from the saloon and, of course, some trunking provided for the wiring. It was soon clear that there were a number of other items on the Port side that also had to be finished before the area could be painted. One of those was the breather pipe for the black tank. The black tank is required by the EPA to have a breather pipe of no less than 40mm diameter that vents to the open air at a higher level than any of the remainder of the system. I installed two possible breather connection points in the black tank during its construction, to provide some flexibility of placement. I subsequently choose the forward Portside connector, although it is amongst the plumbing of the grey water filter unit and a little awkward to reach. However, it does allow the pipe to vent through the roof, away from open windows, the sundeck and the main boarding point. This may prove prudent should the contents of the tank become an olfactory hazard. The EPA requires that the outlet of the vent be the highest point of the black water system and, for preference, the highest point of the whole vessel. To take the vent up to the saloon roof would involve running the pipe internally up the side of the windscreen frame, which I decided would look really ugly and get in the way of visibility and the placement of the curtains. So, I have decided to terminate the vent pipe on the galley roof. That is about 500mm lower than the main roof but still 1.2m above any other part of the system. If the black tank were to overflow, the contents would back up through the toilet long before reaching the top of the breather pipe. (Not a pleasant issue to contemplate!) So, the vent pipe now leaves the connector on the black tank under the floor and passes forward through the bulkhead into the under-sink area in the galley and then rises behind the sink to reach the galley roof. The small insect and waterproof vent will be visible through the windscreen, but whilst the plumbing will be visible from the galley, it will be totally hidden from the saloon. Whilst working under the sink, it also seemed the ideal opportunity to finally connect the sink to the grease trap and particulate filter recommended by the EPA. That unit was installed some time back under the floor, together with its hull fitting, to drain filtered grey water from the galley sink back into the river. Note: Although the boat is not finished, it's "Build Date" for the purposes of applying the EPA legislation is "the date the keel was laid", which was July 2008. They have since confirmed in writing that the new rules from January 2009 therefore don't apply to Rhapsody and grey water does not have to be retained. Plumbing a double sink unit with the curly traps to catch your jewellery when you drop it in the sink is an exercise in convoluted pipe work. You can buy all the bent pipes in kits but it's like a 3D jigsaw to put it together and still have the outlet line up with the grease trap inlet. The job was done sitting on the galley floor surrounded by bits and pieces of bent pipe, washers and sink fittings like my grandkids with their Lego! After much head scratching and drinking more tea for what seemed like an inordinately long time, it suddenly all just fell into place perfectly. So even "Murphy's Law" is fallible, happily! I noted in passing that the sink fitting kits, of which I was using two, because it's a double bowl sink, each come with a connection for a dishwasher. Now where can I possibly install a couple of dishwashers, I started to wonder? Also, would the EPA inspectors remain the nice helpful people they have been to date, do you think, if I put a dishwasher onboard? Hmm - probably not... The making of hatches seems to be an everlasting job - I feel like the "Sorcerer's Apprentice"! The two big hatches and their frames for the transom are finished, installed and ready for painting, so there are four more hatches required. They are for the gas bottle locker, the anchor locker, both on the foredeck, and the black tank pump-out lockers on each side of the hull. The frames for the pump-out hatches are both finished, and the port side hatch itself is just ready to come out of the mould. So, only the hatch cover for the starboard side remains to complete the pair. One of the scary things about finishing those two pump-out hatches is that construction of the outside of the boat is then finished. There's a word I'm not able to use often but the boat is now ready for painting, aside from the foredeck, which is a separate job, anyway. Amazing! My son, James, has followed (and long since overtaken) me in the computer and electronics business. So, a casual conversation with him about empty gas bottles has led to what, for me, are some startling developments. I have two 9Kg gas bottles on the boat, together with an automatic changeover valve. The plumber alarmed me somewhat, when he was installing them, by saying "Oh! We don't fit that type of valve anymore". He grinned and then explained that they are too good and because they change gas bottles automatically and the user can simply forget about it. Which is fine until the second bottle runs out - then, that's it - no gas! The changeover valve turns from green to red when it has finished one bottle and has started on the second, but it still relies on you remembering to go and check it periodically. Thinking about this, I mentioned to James that some kind of alarm would be useful. No sooner said than done. We now have a red/green colour sensor mounted near the gas bottle changeover unit to detect when one bottle runs out and the second bottle starts being used. Not being content with a simple alarm, the detector unit has now been equipped with a baby WiFi transmitter, which allows it to connect wirelessly with a tiny computer called a Raspberry Pi (about the size of a packet of cigarettes) to be located elsewhere in the boat. The Raspberry Pi is connected to a 3G modem and thence to the mobile phone network. So, I can now check the status of the gas bottles directly from my mobile phone. Very tricky and way too clever for me! Still, before visiting the boat for the weekend, you can now check whether you need to take a replacement gas bottle with you. The Raspberry Pi computer has a number of channels and in addition to the gas bottle detector James has added a permanently online remote surveillance camera for the saloon and a house battery condition monitor as well - all accessible from my phone! Fantastic! This is getting out of hand... |
| 19 March 2021 | This month has seen the completion of a couple of items;
this is as rare as it is delightful. The grey water system to
manage the galley sink waste is now complete, as is the breather
pipe for the black tank. The galley grey water system consists of a grease trap and particulate filter from Storm Plastics in Edwardstown, which has been installed under the forward edge of the saloon floor on the Port side. The waste goes from the sink via the filter and back to the river via a new hull fitting. The dual sink unit was recently connected, and so it was time to test the whole system. Having put a 20litre bucket under the outlet in the hull, I then proceeded to pour fifteen litres of water into the sink. The test would have worked a lot better if I had actually tightened all of the unions in the wastewater pipe properly. It would also have been wise to consider more carefully the significant rate and therefore, angle, at which the wastewater would leave the hull fitting. The pipe into the filter unit leaked badly via a union that had not been tightened, and the rush of the remaining water leaving the hull soared clear over the top of the bucket put there to catch it. Not good! The inside of the hull was now swimming in water as was the floor of the shed outside the boat. The shed floor was, of course, covered in sawdust and it, together with so much water, created a mud bath opportunity that I really didn't need! Still, it was a warm day and so I turned out the shed lights and went home. After all, water evaporates - eventually, doesn't it? The 40mm black tank breather was originally going to be placed on the forward Port corner of the saloon roof. That seemed the best position that was farthest from any opening window, hatch or likely to be occupied deck. However, that always involved taking a pipe up the windscreen pillar in the saloon, to reach the roof, which would be an absolute eyesore! Whilst pondering alternatives, I realised that it could be placed on the galley roof and still be high enough above the level of the black tank to satisfy the EPA regulations and getting the pipe there was much easier. The breather pipe now goes up the wall of the galley, beside the sink, and can't be seen from the saloon at all. The cap is also much less likely to get "wiped off" in a careless mooring manoeuvre, although I have made it such that the actual vent cap only pushes into the pipe from outside and is, therefore, easily replaceable. (I have some experience of mooring various boats too close to trees and ripping off odd bits and pieces - not good!) Once the black tank breather's location was finalised (and installed), I had a clear space to plan the cable trunking that was always intended to follow the "A" pillars of the windscreen. The trunk will be used to connect various bits of electrical equipment on the roof. To make the trunk as unobtrusive as possible, I cut a longitudinal section from a piece of 85mm PVC pipe to make a curved cover for the joint between the windscreen frame and the side of the coach house, leaving a very useful gap underneath for cables. It really has worked out quite well. I have duplicated the arrangement for the Starboard side, too, and extended it downwards to the walls of the saloon where all the cables can be hidden. (Thanks, Moose, for the suggestion!) My son, James, is still in the process of refining the boat's monitoring system to be accessible remotely via mobile phone. You can already check the status of the gas bottles and the boat's batteries, but he is looking at adding the status of the bilge pumps and the gas "sniffer" system as well. The equipment to support the remote monitoring system consists of a Raspberry Pi computer, a WiFi modem (now promoted from 3G to 4G) and various other bits and pieces. Naturally, it has to be accommodated somewhere and given that it needs access to a roof mounted cell phone aerial, the options are limited. So, I have made a compartment hidden in the wall of the saloon near the Port side windscreen pillar trunking which can then take the aerial cable to the roof. The pillar on the Starboard side will take the aerial cable for the CB radio and they shouldn't interfere with each other at that distance. Ventilation of what we are laughingly calling "The Computer Suite" may be an issue because it's really quite small and the little Raspberry seems to get quite hot. So, a small fan may be needed - we'll see! The second pump-out connection hatch has been completed and dry fitted with its hinges. A suitable catch, made of nylon, was found at a new marine shop called "Road Tech Marine" and it will hold the hatch closed very nicely. However, some modifications were required to increase the thickness of the hatch lid to take the fixing screws. Having decided that two catches, one each side of each hatch, was the best plan, I quickly realised during dry-fitting and testing, that the flex in the hatch would make closing it a two-handed affair. So, back to a single catch just above the finger hole and that worked much better, although the hatch then needed even more modification to accommodate the screws in different places. "We live and learn - sometimes we just live"... There are two more hatches that remain to be built. One is for the anchor locker and the other for the gas bottle compartment. I am still puzzling over several aspects of the anchor locker hatch which I will discuss another day. The gas bottle hatch is relatively straightforward, however. The blank was made of two layers of MDF and positioned on a fibreglass cast of the foredeck, that I made some time back, to properly mould the curves of the deck. The first part is a frame, which will be glued in to make a neat opening for the actual hatch cover, which comes last. Given that the cover is curved (same as the deck), lining up hinges can be an issue. However, a while ago, I saw an advert for a thing called an "Intelli-Hinge", which, instead of the usual pivot pin, uses a ball joint that can operate smoothly at all kinds of odd angles. They are cast and polished 316 stainless and come from America and although not cheap, should simplify that part of the construction considerably. Being a boat shouldn't mean that the quality of its internal audio system should be any less than the best it can be. Part of the fabrication of the saloon walls has had to cater for some serious speakers and there will be more up on the sundeck. Under the floor, near the TV, is a 200w powered sub-woofer and there are two large stereo amplifiers that will be accommodated in the wall just behind the helm position, to drive it all. You may or may not decide that it's the prettiest boat on the river, depending on your taste, but it could well be the loudest.... |