Narrowboat MLC*

1 Step Forward, Two Back Was on the road this weekend. Primary reason to grace my mother with my presence for Mother's Day, but also fitting in some other things. After a bit of a nightmare start (getting totally lost a couple of miles from home, getting absolutely b@llocked by a policeman after the satnav sent me down a [temporarily] one way road, entering the congestion charge zone for 30 seconds (£15 please) and generally super stressy London driving) I ended up at Oxford to pick up the Triton Workcentre I had bought of Gumtree a few weeks earlier. I was quite expensive for second-hand, but on the other-hand it was being sold by a social enterprise that helps disadvantaged adults, so I wasn't feeling so dinged.  The Workcentre (which is basically a fancy table saw) came with a few 'accessories'. I had no idea that they were going to be so large (a lot of it seemed to comprise of basically scaffold poles) so I really had a job fitting it all in. Only by butting up aga...

Learning New Things   Well, I am just about 'recovering' from the shock of the steel/boat price increase. After receiving the news on Friday afternoon, luckily, I spent the weekend with my friend Chris at his place in the Cotswolds helping him paint the kitchen. I was more than happy to help a dear old friend, but boy, it was hard work - largely the 'prep' as it is such an old place, nothing is square or straight, so it took ages to get everything masked off. Anyway, it kept my mind busy, although I didn't sleep well at all during the night.  Monday I was still exhausted and in a bit of a funk. I got up and, I think for the first time, shortly after I thought to myself "no, I can't face any of this" and went back to bed for most of the day, which isn't like me (I can happily lounge around in bed all day, but generally that's a pleasurable activity, rather than due to feeling a bit defeated and despondent). However a few days later, I have recon...

Rampant Cost Inflation I don't think I could have chosen a worse time in the recent past to do a project like this. With rampant inflation on core items I need (like wood, steel, copper), even thought I did a careful, detailed budget  with plenty of contingency factored in, I am shooting past it before I even start. thanks to the rampant post-covid cost inflation on everything. Mindful of this and aware that there are also shortages of a lot of things, I have ordered quite a few items already, some months before I even need them. The generator and motor are sitting in a warehouse since I purchased them last November. And in the last couple of weeks I have ordered the lithium batteries from China.  Dealing directly with a reseller in China (via Alibaba), who came with a good recommendation on a solar forum is saving quite a bit of money than buying in Europe, but even then, lithium costs are through the roof and the batteries I wanted were out of stock when I enquired and when ...

Finding a Use of Other People's Junk One of the things about living in a council estate is that some of my dear neighbours expect the council to look after everything. Including getting rid of the bulky junk that often you would have to take for the tip. I was walking past the bin area earlier when I saw a load of trashed bedroom wardrobes, with the ubiquitous concealed hinges attached to the parts. Well, those hinges are about £2-3 a set, at least these days and I will need a quite a few. So I went up to the flat and got a screwdriver and a bag and spent 20 mins taking off the hinges. Clearly this was from a child's bedroom and some of the markings on the wardrobe made me chuckle. I wonder what Amir and Layth did wrong? Layth now fallen out with Amir 😄 A quick wash in soapy water and they are as good as new. As a bonus there were the rails for Ikea sliding baskets, which are quite useful. Looking on the Ikea website, annoyingly, when you purchase the sliding rail, it comes wi...

Designing the Layout I had mentioned previously, that following the visit to the boat builders, I've now got a semi-traditional stern boat (rather than the traditional stern) that I had previously ordered. The overall boat length is 60 ft (18.3 meters). This length was chosen because it means you can, at a pinch, get around all the canals in Britain. The length dimensions come into play mainly in the north of England and in particularly on the Huddersfield Broad Canal and Calder and Hebble Navigation. Traversing these allows you to do a nice 'ring' circuit along the Huddersfield Narrow Canal (past Marsden) and then back along either the Rochdale or Leeds and Liverpool.  The locks on the aforementioned canals are 57' 8" long, which is why often you see boats built at than length as "go anywhere" boats. However, both of these canals are broad canals and the locks are wider than normal narrow locks, according to the good people at Pennine Canals dot com (and...

Getting Ready  When I found the boat build slot, reserved since last July, had been delayed from March until April, at first I was disappointed - I mean I want to get on with the actual project. However, seeing how the days are flying by I am now rather glad that I am not faced with the prospect of getting one of these in the next couple of weeks. That photo was taken at the boat builder - Colecraft. It's not mine, but a completed boat waiting for the customer to collect it (strangely, you have to arrange your own transport (a large lorry and crane) to get the completed boat where you want it. I was up at Colecraft in Warwickshire at the start of the month to discuss my boat. I had been before Christmas for the first time, but that visit had been a bit rushed (not on my account) and subsequent emails and drawings were getting things a bit confused. As much as everyone loves(hates) Teams/Zoom etc., I thought I was a good idea to go up and talk about the design. I had ordered what is...