Cap'n Spack Jarrow
Brownian motion-type musings on barge renovation, life and other bits of flotsam.
Leaky Wood
Well dear reader, progress has been made on the barge with the foc’sle having been almost completely cleared. The floorboards have been removed and a lot of block steel ballast removed from underneath. The bulkhead needs making watertight, sealing up the pipe and electrical cable holes. I have started the process of wire brushing the areas of . . .
When your stick just isn't big or hot enough...
(I am talking welding here obviously)
Despite my ongoing general rubbish health (cue violins) I have made some efforts to press on with some of the jobs which are still hanging over me. One of the main ones was the removal of the steel grey water tank which was parked at the bottom of the stairs. Having drained it down as best I could and found it was still hernia-inducingly . . .
"Holy Rusted Metal, Batman"
Two blog posts in quick succession - holy rusted metal indeed Batman. Sometimes I think I am too good to my loyal readers.
A week of general hard but very frustrating graft has passed. Essentially the movement of ballast, bilge boards etc has continued but I have been trying to remove items which are cluttering the place up. The oven . . .
A Quick Recap for New Readers
Having recently put a sign on the side of Zeelandia pointing people towards this blog, my Beloved has intimated that possibly I am getting too tied up with the nuts, bolts and widgets of the renovation. This is true as my day generally revolves around solving the myriad of physical and engineering problems which rear their ugly heads with . . .
Scraping the Bottom of the... Barge?
(Yeah, there's only so many bilge jokes you can make, although Trump's Presidency will no doubt increase it exponentially...)
Sunday. A day of rest my ar$e...
With the oil reservoir removed I have given it a bit of a rub down and wire brush, applied Vactan to areas of rust or plain steel and allowed it to go off overnight. Today one of the sides was painted, ironically in British racing green... There was an original off blue-ish sort of colour which would . . .
Battle of the Bilge
Okay, so the video here is a pretty cracking cure for insomnia but it shows quite graphically the problems I am up against in the bilge. Having run out of stuff I can viably do on the engine (apart from niff naff and trivia or repainting the oil reservoir which really isn't the best use of time), I have gone back to the bilge to derust . . .
It Shouldn't Be This Hard, Seriously...
(not a euphemism)
The engine has finally been drained of oil. But it took time. Since the engine was leaking I couldn't fire it up to get the oil warm so had to drain the central reservoir whilst sat in a cold engine room. Yeah, it took a while. Add to the fact there isn't a big sump plug you can whip out and bleed, it all has to come through the small . . .
