Stef or Glory

The bathroom has increasingly not been a nice place to be.



The problems are twofold, the skylight leaks when it rains (we had taken the ceiling down around the skylight to see if there was anything we could do but it was just basically rubbish):

and when it got cold huge amounts of condensation formed on the metal deck that forms the roof of the bathroom (it is under the front deck) and percolated down through the rockwool insulation (making it nice and damp) and into the plywood ceiling. There was a moisture barrier in the form of plastic sheet, but it had cleverly had lots of holes cut in it by the previous owners for various reasons (eg. putting speakers into the ceiling) and was only stapled on in sections anyway, so it wasn't actually providing a barrier to any moisture at all.


There are plans afoot to replace the skylight with a vastly improved new one (more of that later) but to fix the condensation problem we needed to rip the whole room apart, re-insulate, and build it back better. This was a situation that called for famous London Rollergirl Stefanie Mainey, so i put in the call and she turned up, grabbed a hammer and started smashing up everything in sight.

Between us we ripped out all the walls and ceiling, helped considerably by the fact that it was all really shoddily built.


Hardly any of the battens was actually fixed in place, they were just wedged in between the ribs, and the insulation fell right out as soon as the plastic was pulled away. We also discovered that part of the problem with condensation was that as the battens were wedged between the protruding ribs that span across the metal roof, those ribs were touching the plywood ceiling itself, and providing a thermal bridge which caused massive condensation. Also, as i mentioned, the vapour barrier wasn't providing a barrier to anything, and the insulation was poor quality, thin and patchy.




Stef and I worked hard all afternoon, and by the end of the day we had a huge pile of rockwool, wood and plastic



and a bare metal ceiling and walls.




To be honest it require a certain amount of imagination to see this as an improvement, but just because we hadn't been able to see the rust and much before didn't mean it wasn't there, and at least now we could see it, treat it, and make it better.

To be continued...

the daily grind

As you can see from the right hand side of the picture below, the back deck was getting into a shocking state, and needed some serious work before it rusted away, or we were shunned by society for having an embarasingly scruffy back deck.

So, rather than kill myself with 8 hour grinding sessions, and piss off the neighbours in the process, i've been doing an hour a day, each morning, in which time i can grind the paint off about a square meter of deck, and over the last couple of weeks i've made pretty good progress, from the very beginning above, gradually covering more area:

...to having nearly half the deck ground down.

I've currently run out of flap discs and am picking more up tomorrow, at which point i will quickly go over everything i've done so far buffing off the surface rust, and then get a coat of undercoat on it all, before then getting on with the other half of the deck.

Then it's on to the front deck, which we got half way through last year before getting distracted. The one hour a day technique is great as a way of avoiding getting bored or distracted with the task, as it becomes a routine and i can just carry on until the whole deck area of the boat is done, now THAT will be a happy day!

Begone!

Ever since we bought the boat there has been a huge, heavy, rusty, ugly, broken welding generator bolted onto the front deck, and a couple of weeks ago we finally got round to getting rid of it.

We had tried to get it working to no avail, and all our welding needs are met by our tiny inverter welding machine, so there was no reason for keeping it, and it was way too heavy to get off the boat ourselves, so we called up Tidy Thames and they came over with their big crane...

...picked it up like it weighed nothing and chucked it in their barge.

Leaving a lovely big spacious front deck for us to caper around on.

Lorna was so pleased she declared a toast.

Hatching a plan part 2

(sorry, the pun was just too good not to use again)

I had noticed that the varnish on the wooden sliding cover of the main hatch was starting to peel a little, and when i picked at it it came off in great peeling sheets leaving sodden wet wood beneath. Not good. So i stripped off all the remaining varnish so that i could let it dry off for a couple of days...

...at which point it then rained solidly for about 2 weeks...

Eventually it eased off for a couple of days, so i could sand it down and dig out the rotten wood from a couple of places where it had gotten rotten.


Before treating it with wood hardener, and then filling the holes with wood filler.


and then eventually varnishing it all.

Stepping up in the world.

Boat Thursday this week and I replaced our rickety old wooden steps up to the hatch with new ones. The wooden steps were almost falling apart and I had all the stuff I needed to knock up a more sturdy solution.





First of all I chopped a piece of batten with the right angles on both ends and used this as a template for cutting the side struts of the steps. Using this batten I marked out the angle iron. I cut the angle iron to size and welded it in place.

I marked up the right level for both of the steps and welded more smaller pieces of angle onto the side struts- these are the supports for the wooden steps.

I cut scaffolding planks to size, planed the underside edge to 45degrees to account for the raised area of weld beneath them. Steve drilled 2 holes in each angle support so that we could screw the wooden steps to the metal support which stops them from moving when stepped on.

The finished steps feel so sturdy. I'm looking forward to painting them to match the current metalwork and hoping they'll look like they are part of the boat rather than something just stuck on.

Hatching a plan (chest)

Last Boat Thursday we carried on with work in the galley. We built the top surface for the planchest that will support our tea+coffee area. We're not sure how we're going to finish it off yet- probably with tiles. We also put in the deep shelves underneath that will house watercolour paper and old paintings. We left space at the very bottom for our mini fridge and a narrower set of deep shelves.







We also finished panelling out the space with plywood everywhere except on the side that will be behind the floor to ceiling shelving unit. This isn't for aesthetic reasons but because we ran out of large sheets of ply. We then filled the countersunk holes with filler and when they are dry we'll sand them down and be ready to paint. It will make a big difference to the space when it's got light walls as it will optimise the light that comes in through the small porthole and window.


This weeks job was making the metal hatch to go over the old skylight in the galley.

The old hatch covering was a window with a wooden frame that leaked a lot. It also made the pathway around the wheelhouse on that side really difficult because it meant stepping over the window.


Steve cut the angle iron to the right size. There was a bit of fiddling to get it to perfectly fit over the gap which is why is much better suited to these initial stages than I am.





And I welded it up into a solid frame. I thought I'd've forgotten how to weld as it has been a while since I last did any, but surprisingly I've started to get a feel for it. I still haven't got close to mastering vertical welding, but the horizontal stuff was looking pretty neat for a change.











Steve then ground the welds flat and I did another pass anywhere where there were small holes. These were mostly on the vertical surfaces- which as we have established- I suck at.


Next step was to attach the frame to the top piece. We found an almost perfect sized top sheet of metal in the engine room with a really nice handle. I welded it in place and Steve cut it exactly to size and then ground down the welds so that it was a perfectly smooth.






When it was all smooth I painted it with 2part epoxy paint.






And that was it. It looks great in place and I'm really proud that we made something like this from scratch. Hurray.

Boat Thursday: Recce.

Boat Thursday was postponed this week because Steve was off shooting in Scotland. As it happens, the shoot was on a giant cargo ship so we still had our eyes peeled for shipy inspiration.