Birmingham Floating Market

This weekend I drove the Welsh band 'Kids in Glass Houses' to The Asylum venue in Snow Hill, Birmingham. Glenda drove her son Nick up to Harper Adams college, north of Birmingham.

This worked out great, as it coincided with the first floating market on the canals around the International Conference Centre, near Gas Street Basin. 

We wandered around the trade boats and met up with John Sloan who had organised it, then went for a pint and a gongoozle at the Canalside Cafe.

Later we took a ride in Victoria, one of the trip boats that run from Gas Street Basin

We came across a group of lunatic 'pirates' on surfboards!

These 'pirates' were paddling surfboards for charity

The girl on the left about to fall in, damn! wish I'd been videoing it. ;o)
In the evening we went The Prince of Wales pub where we met with fellow members of the fledgling Association of Continuous Cruisers and where I was able to put faces to people I talk to frequently on Canal World Discussion Forum

Hired a scabbler

After struggling to scrape the top layers of paint off Freyja, then attack what was left with a wire wheel mounted on an angle-grinder (with not the greatest of results) we decided to hire a scabbler.
This video does demonstrate how noisy it was, so turn the sound down a bit before you press play! (video by Jac)

We had picked the scabbler up from Brandon Hire in Northampton on Tuesday, but wasted a lot of time trying to fit the dust hood, due to a previously damaged thread. So I only got to use it for a half an hour (not supposed to do noisy work after 17.00 hrs) 
We then turned Freyja around so that we could scabble the other side.

My son Jac cleaning off the paint flakes after I'd done the front of the cabin roof the hard way!

On Wednesday I drove everyone crazy with the very noisy scabbler (glad we bought some ear defenders)
I was close to finishing scabbling off all the old paint when Glenda told me that they were forecasting rain for Thursday.

On Thursday I finished the roof and then attacked the side, above the rubbing strake, the stern and tunnel band.

We had treated the roof with Fertan, which had been left to work for 24 hours, this was washed off, suger-soaped and washed again, it was then a mad panic to get a coat of red oxide of the roof before the impending rain arrived, it was dark when I finished painting.

The roof after scabbling ;o)

The first coat of red oxide going on.

After two coats of red oxide, looking good and reasonably weatherproof.

At the same time Glenda & Jac were scraping all of the loose paint off Christina's wooden cabin.

Glenda scraping and rubbing down the loose paint on Christina so we could get some primer on her before Winter

After priming we changed which side of the moorings they are on so that we can get to the other side.

So, was it worth getting the scabbler?

We started out using two tungsten scrapers at £9.50 each =£18.00
6 x spare blades are £7.50                                                  =£45.00
2 x Bosch knotted wire cups at £27.50                              =£55.00
1 x knotted wire wheel at £12.00                                       =£12.00
1 x Bosch knotted wire wheel at £27.50                             =£27.50
Total                                                                                   =£112.50
And days with lot of sweat, aches, pains & blisters to do just a fraction of the total stripping!

Then hire a scabbler at £25.00 a day                                  =£25.00
1 pair of ear defenders @ £6.22                                        =£6.22 
Total                                                                                   =£31.22
To do the other 75% of the boat in one day!
              The results my dear Watson, are conclusive!