So out it cam, revealing gaping gaps in the panelling behind, straight through to the outer hull. Note the steering rods which run from the chains connected to the ship's wheel, right down to the rudder at the stern. Also note the wonderful use of ratty old carpet as makeshift insulation, genius.
The first step was to fill the holes in the wall, and insulate them while we were at it. Ever the recycler i used the slats from the sofa to make a little framework to hold a load of rockwool (we have LOTS of rockwool in bags in the fo'castle) before facing it with 25mm celotex. The reason the middle sheet of celotex has tape across the front of it is that the hatch and stairs down into the cabin is too small to get even a sheet this size down, so it had to come in 2 halves.
This was then covered over with a couple of sheets of 3mm mdf (which, fortunately, bends enough to go down the stairs!), meanwhile i measured everything up, got a whole load of 18mm mdf pieces cut to size at homebase, and painted them up in the spare room.
these were then screwed together, after a few trimming adjustments to account for the fact that there isn't a single straight corner, vertical or horizontal, in the room (you can see in the picture below that the top of the shelves, which is horizontal, is at a decidedly different angle to the windows behind it) and voila, a great set of bookshelves sprang into existance, meaning that we can have all our reference and art books in our office, hurrah!
3 comments:
whoop whoop. Love this post with all the step-by-step pictures.
Hi Steve
Good to see you have started a blog about your Barge. I envy you being able to live on board.
Beware using MDF on boats as it doesn't like damp air, it sort of disintegrates and goes mouldy. One trawler I looked at before I bought the Strathspey II had been converted using a lot of MDF ,which after two years looked horrible .It had all gone green and was warping and falling to pieces.
Maybe it was just the sea air ,but I thought I should mention it
Keep up the great Blog
Andrew
yes, i'm always trying to bear in mind what may go wrong a couple of years down the line! I think i'll be fine in the captains cabin as it's actually very dry in their, no damp problems at all (maybe due to the big 3ft high air space under the floor where the prop shaft and exhaust pipe go through from the engine room). Somewhere like the bathroom i'd have to think carefully about!
Love the Strathspey blog, and amazed by the idea of building the inside off site. I don't think i'd trust my measuring skills to ensure that it'd fit in once i'd built it all!
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