A new use for a dog bowl

Take one 8.5" stainless steel dog bowl, £1.50 from Irthlingborough boot sale

Drill 2 holes

Insert one spotlight and add one brass porthole, then bond three brass strips to the glass to give that vintage look.

A problem with a chimney flue

On a few occasions I've lit the Morso Squirrel in the bedroom and the smoke alarm has gone off. I then noticed a witness mark caused by smoke on the ceiling next to the flue.

After removing the split aluminium dish that slides up to the ceiling I found that somehow the soft aluminium collar under it had become buckled and lodged on top of the flue allowing smoke to escape

After prising the collar back out and pulling it back down over the flue pipe.

The first layer of heatproof sealant, looks messy but it's already sealed and a few more layers will be added before I replace the outer collar.

Working out where to park my bike

Under our tugdeck there was a badly insulated box that allowed the bed to be pushed under it, making more room in the front cabin and turning the bed into a settee.

I will be altering the tugdeck so that my old motorbike can sit into it, but rebuild it all so that the bed can still be pushed back, I'll re-insulate it using better materials and make a panel that can be slotted into the centre of the tugdeck for when the bike isn't onboard.

The tugdeck removed, along with most of the insulated box.

The plan is that the bike will sit in the tugdeck, rather than on it, this puts it lower making the boat less top-heavy, it also means that I won't have to loosen and twist the wide pull-back handlebars down so that they clear the tarpaulins. Doing it this way will also make it extremely difficult to steal my bike.

The bed in night mode

Here the bed is pushed back, normally there wouldn't be the headboard down the side of the bed or so much stuff piled up on it!

Modifying the cratch and top-plank bracket

The newly fabricated foldable steel A-frame

The A-frame folded down, the cratch board hinges have been freed off and a new (possibly glazed) cratch board will be made and new carved hardwood upstands for the hinges. the top planks will be replaced with wider and thicker green oak planks.

Nadolig LLawen a Flwyddyn Newydd DDa!

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

We hope you all have a happy, healthy New Year and a safe year's boating ;o)

A new forepeak 'cabin'

While we were welding the new gunwales it became necessary to move the badly rotted box and cratch board on the bow of Freyja, not surprisingly, it fell to bits!

All that was left of the box that was on Freyja's bow!

The 1st panel tacked into place

The three sides welded in and braced

We have our forepeak box / cabin back ;o)

My motorbike on our tugdeck

Bruce finished off welding the starboard gunwales and crane mount and we mounted the crane.

So, I finally brought my 1939 B.S.A. model G14 1,000cc v-twin down to the boat so that we could try the new crane in anger and also to check headroom and handlebar width in relation to the top plank and the tarpaulins.

Up she goes!

Starting to swing her around

Coping easily with my B.S.A.'s heavy forged steel girder frame

Almost there

Safely in place, but I'll be laying oak floorboards with recesses to help her stand up and to allow her to sit on the frame's underbelly. I'm also replacing the top planks with wider green oak boards which will give more clearance for those wide Indian handlebars (will still have to loosen the clamps and swing the bars downwards methinks.

My old B.S.A., minus it's engine, gets it's first introduction to it's future home. The crane coped easily with it ;o) All of the bow section wood and ply was rotten and has collapsed. We'll fabricate a new section in steel with oak panels to preserve the look. The front cratch board will be able to fold down as will the metal A-frame that we will fabricate to replace the grey one seen here, this will let us to lower the top plank when going under low bridges, tunnels and lock guillotines.