WooHoo! Christina has a new safety certificate.

Julian (Loddon) re-wired Christina, our butty, as the electrics were dodgy in places, also I wanted to be able to use 16amp C-form (blue) type sockets at each end of the boat and to have 12v and 240v sockets in our boatman's cabin.

Mark from Nene Marine fitted a gas bubble tester and Ian Jennings did our safety survey.

The main feed coming into the consumer unit had a wire twisted and taped to another wire which was attached to this tiny crocodile clip by a choccie block! Just one example of the dodgy wiring before the re-wire

3 ways to convert fluorescent tubes to LED

I wanted to improve the lighting in the butty's workshop and in doing so get rid of the power-hungry fluorescent tubes.

I knew of three methods and decided to try all three.

The first, and by far the most expensive method was to replace the fluorescent tubes in my workshop with a pair of Beddazzled's brilliant daylight LED tubes, but at £30 each they were too expensive to use in all five of our lamps. The LED tube is quite heavy as it has an aluminium reflector that runs down the back of it.

Before and after, in the foreground is an original fluorescent tube, behind it is the daylight LED tube (there is a large skylight above them that stops the photo from showing just how much better the LED is). The small inverter in the lamp must be disconnected, but that was a simple enough procedure, following the instructions that came with the tubes.

 The second and third methods involve using a self-adhesive roll of LEDs that can be cut every three LEDS and used as three or groups of three.

As we rarely use the bathroom in the butty I converted the fluorescent tube to LED by cutting off seven sets of three LEDs and then, with a sharp knife, carefully cut back the clear rubber coating away from the two dot contacts (they are marked with + and -) I then used a little dab of flux on each contact and then tinned each dot (solder each one but don't let the dots join up!) then I fluxed the wire tips and tinned them (flux just makes the solder stick easier, many solders have flux already in them). Then carefully solder the red wire's tip to the positive dot and the black one to the negative.

This is how the LED strip looks complete with the positive and negative wires attached to one end. The 5 metre roll can be bought on ebay for about £6.99 (link here)

Cut the strip on any of these lines (between the + and - dots)

Carefully cut through the rubber coating but not the contacts and peel the piece away

Here, I've 'tinned' the negative (-) dot after cutting back the rubber coating.

After tinning the wire tips solder them to the dots.

One red wire (+) will come into the lamp and be connected to the switch, there will be another red wire coming out of the switch, cut this one and join to the positive tail (+) the white wire (-) that comes in through the back of the lamp needs to be cut and joined to the negative tail (-).

I also cut the wires to the inverter, just to be on the safe side.

Let there be light!

The finished lamp ;o)

If you intend to use the self adhesive LED option a lot then it's advisable to get one of these voltage converters to stop them from overheating, they come with a 2amp fuse & holder and cost about £12.

The Chatterbox's day out!

After we had our 'Gentleman's weekend' with the guys from the Brewery Tap, Glenda decided it was time to balance things by taking her friends Lynette and Carol to our boats.

Glenda and Lynette braving our precarious-looking picnic bench on the end of our pontoon.

Carol in 'Me, Me, Me mode' they are all mine, and you're not having any! (actually it's because the very end of the pontoon wobbles like crazy whenever anyone walks down it)

The girls with their, very healthy looking, picnic. Lynette with her camera, she takes amazing and beautiful pics of wildlife etc. but a lot of our usual visiting birds of prey, water birds etc. came over very shy on that day.

A visit from coal boat Bletchley

After I'd cleaned all the water and crap out of our diesel tank, it was time to re-fill the tank, but Clive has stopped selling diesel, so Alan at A.N.A. fuels came to the rescue with his Big Woolwich narrowboat 'Bletchley'.

Alan steers Bletchley into Blackthorne Lake Marina.

Reversing in to the neighbouring pontoon.

Honey I shrunk the marina manager! Barry, looking shorter than normal at this angle.

 

Bob, our neighbour off NB Puffin, helping to manoeuvre Freyja close enough to reach Bletchley's diesel pump

Alan sells coal, gas, loo blue, eggs etc.

The menu

Alan manning the pump

Bletchley gets herself stuck fast!

Kurt of the Rinstead Chapter of ' Hell's Dingies' comes to the rescue, and no, he's not towing him off! Perhaps he thinks he can get salvage rights and use it as a butty!

Winching her off the bank

Brummie John lends a hand. Free at last!

Getting Christina ready for her 4 year safety certificate and cleaning out our 'polished' diesel tank

Christina's safety is due in April, so we are striving to get all the little jobs done so that we can get the surveyor over in March, that way if there's anything we've missed, there'll be time to sort it.

How to reach those awkward corners when painting the gas locker in Christina's bow. A piece of pipe, a jubillee clip and a brush.

While Julian was re-wiring Christina, he came across this gem, the main feed into Christina's consumer unit steps down a few times and is then attached to the terminal with a small crocodile clip!

We've added 16 amp C form plugs and sockets at each end of Christina's cabin and 13 amp 4-ways in the workshop and boatman's cabin. Modernised and tidied all of the 12 volt wiring, which we've run through trunking.

We're also fitting a gas bubble-tester in Christina, Freyja already had one fitted.

The Whalegulper shower pump that we fitted was such a success that I've fitted one in Christina too.
Likewise I replaced the crap & leaking sureflo pump with a Whale watermaster pump, once again, I was very impressed with the build quality so I'm in the process of replacing Christina's leaking waterpump too.

On the way down to the Nene from brokerage, we had huge problems with water and diesel bug blocking filters, wrecking the lift pump etc. We broke down many times, eventually, at the bottom of the Rothersthorpe flight, we were advised by River Canal Rescue to get our diesel polished and that it would probably cost less than £100.
It actually cost nearly £200 with the filters, and we were more than a little miffed when we broke down again with the same trouble after just a short distance to Northampton, we started to run from 5 gallon containers and that's what we've done since.
Because I now had an inspection hatch, I decided to clean out whatever was left in the tank.

Here are some videos showing how much sludge and water came out of our tank after it had been 'polished'!

 

Too thick to go through the funnel

And here you can see why

Yuk! So glad to get this lot out

Now the tank has been cleaned out, I've added this Mechanical Line Solutions centrifugal filter, which will, hopefully, extract any water and traces of diesel bug that develop in future.

A 'Gentleman's weekend'

The lads outside Joe's favourite local watering hole, The Crick Club.

We have been talking about bringing Joe's drinking pals up to see where his body was found and to incorporate a weekend on our boats and in a few watering holes.

Joe's family had made a temporary memorial and mounted it on the bridge where he was found.

They then added this brass plaque.

We drank in the Crick Club and met some of his old drinking pals and also the barmaid who, like the manageress of the Brewery Tap in Sudbury, was also called Sarah, and who he also liked to wind up!

Ray and Pat enjoying a brew on the end of our pontoon.

Andy and Jules chilling with Glenda

Glenda, kindly rustling up a belly-busting brekkie for everyone.

The perfect bicycle for foraging wood etc.

My Scandinavian Long-John beer delivery bike can carry very heavy loads.

Wood, gas, coal, water, toilet cassettes can all be transported to and from the boats using my favourite bike.