I seem to be getting less and less time on Siskin at the moment and although I am pretty pleased with progress I can’t help thinking where I would be if I had managed to get full time working on her.

Monday of course was a holiday so Chris and I decided to do what everybody else seems to do on a bank holiday and go to the shops. Now normally this would rank high on my list of things NOT to do on a bank holiday but as the object of the exercise was to pick out a fridge and washing machine for Siskin I reluctantly agreed to go . Now heres an interesting story, I’d had a look on the web and sorted out a shortlist of stuff to look at in Currys so off we trot to the Mega store (sic) in Leicester. First problem of course is that they don’t have all the stuff we want to look at although we do manage to choose a washing machine. Second problem is that on the web they are offering a 10% discount on bank holiday Monday and when I ask about a discount in the store there is a lot of shaking of heads until somebody finally finds (and I kid you not) a notice in about 8 point text buried at the bottom of one of their A4 printed sheets that they are also offering this in the shop, but nobody seems to know how to process it. When I ask about the fridge we want to see the guy says “oh you’re better off ordering that from the on line store”. End point of the story is that we don’t buy anything from the store, retire for a cup off coffee and head back home and order it off the web. What a palaver

Tuesdays a great day, for once the sun is shining and the weather is nice and warm, so its actually a real pleasure to be working on the boat.  One of the first little jobs is to fit a couple of the light switches. I have to say that using the cord ends is a far better way of terminating the cables than the crimp on lugs I originally bought. The look so much better as you don’t see the crimp, work well on both single and double wires and take up a lot less room. Oh and as a further bonus are about half the price . Do use them. With a little bit of trimming so that the mounting nuts clear the wood work their on and look splendid.

Next task is to finish off the loo as I had not bolted it down because I wanted to put some little boxes over the chocolate block connectors I’d used so with those in place I could bolt the loo down and it’s ready to go. Another job finished

Next on the list is to make a start on connecting up the cooker. With the panel off I can see where the mains in has to go but the issue is how to connect the other end. The problem is that I’m using the standard wiring panel for a central heating system which is just in reality a load of chocolate blocks in a box. Now in total the neutral and earth will have five wires going into them Just about possible if you are using bare wires but not possible if you are using cord ends which you have to to comply with RCD so a little bit of lateral thinking sees the range and the pump fed into a remote connector which is in turn connected to the wiring panel getting the number of connections down to four which is managable. That prblem solved but I still can’t finish the job because I need some 5 core heat resistant cable which David is going to bring over on Friday. Oh well another day of steady working gone and only two light switches to show for it.

Wednesday and Thursday I spent messing around fixing the brakes on the car so high hopes that when David gets over on Friday we can see some progress again.

Friday and things are starting to come together at last. The heatshrink has arrived so I can finish off the wiring and I’ve just been told the shower tray has finally arrived. David makes a start on plumbing the waste for the sink and I get on with the wiring. Its actually quite therapeutic as for once I’ve got organised properly with a sensible cable numbering system and all the right bits and bobs so a couple hours work see all the 24v cables fitted and network cables shortened / made. The end result looks nice and neat I just hope it works. It’s pretty amazing that this little lot (plus two more of the smaller units under the tug deck) controls  all the electrics ahead of the engine room including lights, pumps, tank level interface etc. and even lets me plug my laptop into the sytem to set it up. I like it (and promise I’ll try to get a bit more of a life)

David in the meantime has been working away on the sink getting the waste all fitted and the seacock on the skin fitting but then we find that the bit of 40mm waste pipe we’ve got is push fitting not solvent weld so I decide to trip into town and pick up some pipe and the shower tray. Yahoo (exclamation of joy not a well known search engine). Now we need approx 175mm of pipe and the shortest length I can buy is 3m. Anybody need 2.8m of 40mm white solvent weld waste pipe . With all the bits to hand we can eventually get the sink waste finished and tested and its fine. A few more minutes gets the hot and cold pipework up and the job is sorted. Isn’t it just sods law however that the  pipes come out directly under the waste so they need to jiggle around it.

Our next job is to mark up for the range flue which is definitely a two man job. With me on the level and David eyeballing it against the bulkheads (given some of my recent attempts at lining things up the is the safest way believe me) we can get the right distance across the boat. To get the right position along the boat we work off a couple of the board joints above the gunwales which I know are pretty accurate and true and a plywood straight edge which will follow the curve of the roof. Pretty soon we have an X marks the spot but decide that we don’t have the correct hole saws so that’s as far as we can go on that one.

Over a cup of tea we discuss what we need to do for the electrics in the engine room and especially the 240v stuff and soon have a plan. David will get that stuff sourced and I can make a start on that soon as well.

Final play of the day is to unpack the shower tray and get it into position so that we can figure out how we are going to sort out the waste. It’s really nice to get it in as it finally shows how much room we have in the bathroom (and it proves it all fits in).

I’ve got a whole heap of stuff I can get on with now. Hopefully I can get a good run at it next week and make some real progress.

Its still raining but I guess you know that so I’m confined to work inside the boat so no wood work.

Made a start on the electrics labeling all the cables and terminating them where I can. I’m surprised at how long this takes. It’s not helped I suppose by the fact that it’s been a long while since I put the cables in and when I labeled them up I had not finalised a numbering system so I had labeled them to where they went so there was a little bit of conversion necessary and as my labeling didn’t seem to be totally consistent it sometimes took a little while to sort out. Also I had not labeled up the mains thinking that it was not necessary (wrong) so despite the fact that the cabling is very simple I had to buzz out each cable to ensure that I had the right one. In the end I’ve settled on a very simple system all ULV (24v) cables start at 1xxx, all LV (240v) start 2xxx and Masterbus signal cables start 3xxx. It seems to work . The cables are labeled up using heat shrink tubing printed on my Dymo which is really neat and has the added advantage that it keeps pairs of cables together. Where cables are joined to other cables I’ve used heatshrink butt joints and where they terminate into a screw fitting or push fitting I’ve used cord ends which keeps everything nice and neat.

There are two main electrical service points. The first is in the center of the boat by the cooking range and the second will be in the engine room. As there is both 24v and 240v in both points so it’s important to keep some physical separation. It’s simple in the service cupboard midships as the 240v is all connected to the heating system so a simple shelf wiuth 24v above and 240v below does the job.  The shelf is 12mm ply simply pocket hole screwed to the cupboard sides. The 24v side has got a Digital distribution module, a Digital Interface for 4 switches and a USB interface so I can plug my laptop in to program the system. All good stuff . First problem is that I run out of heat shrink so I can’t label up all the cables for the Digital Distribution so I cant finish that off until I get some more. Oh well!

I also can’t finish off the 240v stuff because I need some 5 core cable to go from the controller to the wiring center. Things just aren’t going my way.

Still one thing I can do is to make up a little top for the looi in the workshop at home. Same sort of construction, a ply sub base and then some rosewood ply bonded onto the top. I’ve also found a little bit of really nice rosewood for the front moulding so a few minutes work with the router and it’s sorted. The bulkhead is just a little bit out, about 2°, so I cant just put a 45° cut but a little bit of hand work gets it fitting very very nicely.

Another day of doing little bits and bobs, bolting down the range, sorting out the front bulkhead so it is easier to get on and off, sorting out the sizes of the galley cabinet doors etc etc. All of which takes time but has nothing to show for it .

Davids over again on Friday and we’ve got a list of jobs to get done so we just plow on. By the end of the day we’ve made some progress. We’ve got the main power leads to the Digital Distribution, fitted a deck socket for the tunnel light, sorted out the fuel filter and pipework for the range, put the last piece of pipework and tank level sender onto the main water tank and the big one which is to get the skin fitting in for the Belfast sink. There are a couple of very important dimensions here and both of them are measured off the waterline so the first thing we have to do is to find out where the waterline will be underneath the side hatch. We pull a string line from the uxter plate to the place we think it should be at the bow and this gives us an accurate level in the middle. We know that the skin fitting will be too close to the waterline so we’ve already planned to put a seacock on the back of the fitting so it can be closed if necessary but we’re not at all certain if the top of the sink will be the requisite 400mm above the waterline. With a little bit of measuring through the hatch I’m very glad to find that it’s 450mm. Result.

Another week gone, a lot done but not a lot to see

I’m thinking about renaming Siskin the Ark given the amount of rain this week. The only good thing is that if it goes on like this I can get a refund off Mike because I won’t need a crane back into the water I’ll just float off the hard standing .

With the weather (which makes it difficult to work at the boat) and other stuff I have to get done it’s another slow week on the boat. I’m looking at things I can do in the workshop rather than at Siskin so a good start is to sort out the galley sink cabinet. The only issue is that I don’t have a a sink so a quick troll on the Internet and I’ve found the ideal sink at the right price (if I pick it up from Rotherham). Sometimes things do come together as I’ve also bought a 1.2 x 1.2m sheet of 10mm tufnol for the electrical service cupboard and I have to pick that up from Sheffield so it all works out.  Day 1 gone

Next day it’s time to make a start on the cabinet. The base needs some cut outs for the waste and an access so you can get to the taps to connect them. I’d thought about using a hole saw but I don’t have one anywhere near the sizes I need so it’s down to routing them out. I’ve got a little jig from Trend which makes routing out rectangles a simple job so some work with the jig a bit more work with the pocket hole jig and some work on the back and cabinet bottom to cut an access slot for the pipes and I’ve got all the components prepared. Putting the cabinet together is the same as the other cabinet but I need to get the base at the right height so that the sink fits properly under the worktop, a little bit of maths and I figure out where the base needs to be so I cut some little legs so I can check that it’s at the right height. Good job that I did because I messed up the maths and made the legs 18mm short (yep I forgot the thickness of the cabinet bottom ). Good job it’s easy to pack the legs up and then reset the sink to check and it all fits just as it should . After that it’s just a case of screwing it all together. Nice thing is that I can use the legs to make certain the base is correctly positioned. With the legs on the only little job left to do is to make a couple of little runners for the top of the sides which will hold the sink in position as it is a few mm short of the gap. Now you might be thinking that this is all a bit organised for me and you’d be right, if the truth is known I originally decided that I would cut the sides down to the top of the sink base and then decided to leave them full height. Only problem is that the sides were cut to the standard measurements which have the top of the cabinet sitting on the sides so this left them 18mm short. Still it’s an ill wind as they say and with the runners in place the sink is well and truely secured Day 2 gone.

Wednesday and I get a call saying that the shower stuff has arrived  so it’s off to pick that up and offload the cubicle and mixer at home and load up the sink and cabinet to get them over to Siskin. Nick from Fandango kindly offers to give me a hand to get everything into the boat which considering the weight of the shower tray is a really good thing. I get the sink all set up and decide that  I’ll unpack the shower tray and set it up. Imagine my my horror when I find out it’s a 800 x 800 square rather than a 800 x 800 quadrant. A quick call to the shop and I’m relieved that it’s their cock up not mine but it means that I have to pack it all up again and drag it back out of the boat. With all of this messing around it’s buggered the day completely so another day come and gone. Day 3 gone.

Thursday and Nicks over at the boat to get some more paint on the engine room. While he’s doing that I’m trying to sort out how to get all of the electrics in the service cupboard by the range. As there is both 24v and 240v I need to get some sort of separating partition between them. After a bit of thought I’ve got a plan and I need to make a little shelf to go into the cupboard. Into the container and trim up some 12mm ply on the bench saw. Now I’ve been woodworking for 35+ years and in all that time I’ve never had an accident so how the hell I managed to poke my finger into the saw blade I’ll never know . Good news is that my fingers still the same length bad news is that the ends a bit mangled and it don’t half slow you down. That’ll teach me to be more careful in future.

Nick however has got the final coat of chalky white and the first coat of red oxide  on the engine room and even if I do say so myself it’s starting to look really good.

Friday - new bed,

no boat

Week done

Well got back to the boat this week after having a break over Easter. Had a couple of days in London to go catch some shows. Saw The 39 Steps absolutely brilliant, so clever and SOOOOO funny. An ideal way to relax.

Back on Siskin it’s a really slow start, with other commitments and the fact that the weather is rubbish (I know we need the rain) All I manage to get done in the first half of the week is to sort out the wood work for round the loo and get a couple of coats of paint on it. Hardly outstanding. It’s back to a bit of plumbing on Thursday running the water feed pipe for the loo, a couple of heating pipes which will be for the towel rail and sorting out the poo pipe getting it properly fixed into place which is a job in it’s own right as it’s really hard to work with. It’s the sort of job that two pairs of hands would breeze through but just on your own it’s like wrestling a giant anaconda while trying to thread a needle. It’s not helped of course by my using stainless screws as of course they are not magnetic and keep dropping off the screwdriver bit .

Friday arrives along with David so here’s a chance to resurrect the week. Davids finishing off the copper pipework un the services cupboard by the range and I’m determined to get the loo sorted out. My first job is to get the pipework in place. I’ve fixed the poo pipe so it’s only the water feed that needs sorting. I’m using a Jabsco loo as it seemed to do all the things I wanted and as an added bonus was cheap (well I use that term in a purely relative sense you understand ). there’s an anti syphon solenoid to be fitted in the water feed which has a ½” inlet and a ¾” outlet, nothing like a bit of standardisation to make things easy:). Still it’s a pretty simple job and doesn’t take long.

Next job is the electrics. Those of you with a nervous disposition should stop reading now and go and lie down in a dark room for a bit.

I have never in all my life seen such a shite job of electronic packaging as the control unit for this loo. It is absolute rubbish. The control box is pretty small (about 80mm square) and has a couple of wires that go to the battery, two to the solenoid, two to the macerator motor and a small signal cable to the control panel. First thing is that the feed and return wires for the macerator and solenoid  come out on different sides of the control box. How the hell are you supposed to make a neat job with that. I was so surprised that I actually took the box to pieces to look at the circuit board and was dumbfounded to find that INSIDE the box they are on the same side and practically next to each other. The battery cable is a twin core flex that looks as if somebody stripped the sheath off with their teeth and the control cable comes out on a third side of the box. At least theyv’e got the label on the box the right way up so when the empty side of the box is on the top you can read it. The only way I can get a half decent job is to strip off the sheath on the battery cable and route the -ve’s for the macerator and solenoid round the box with a couple of cable ties to hold them in place and pair them with their respective +ve’s. Next problem is that the bloody cables are so short that I can only just get the box near enough to the solenoid (after I’ve stripped it down and rotated the coil so that the terminals are on a sensible orientation) so I don’t have to extend the cable but I need to extend the macerator pair. Next problem is that all the cables are 3mm². The devil of a job to crimp in a blue crimp but too loose to use a yellow This is turning into a nightmare. Fortunately David has a good range of cord ends with him so we decide to use them with some chocolate block to join the cables properly, althought it’s not my ideal way. The final insult is that the wires from the macerator pump its self are so short that they do not come outside the loo body so you are struggling to get connectors on to them in the confines of the loo. Nothing showstopping in any of the faults but just a little bit of thought would have made this so much better.

At the end of the day I’ve got it as neat as I can and it doesn’t look to bad (so I keep telling myself.

Next step is to fit the loo properly. I’ve made the little bulkhead out of ½” ply covered in the same bead and reed as the walls and it fixes to a couple of battens on the wall with some 6mm brass machine screws into the little brass bushes, which went into the battens a whole lot easier that into the Jarrah floor for the water pump. With the bulkhead in place it’s guess time to try and get the pipe lengths right. I’ve used a little bit of heat from the heat gun to soften the poo pipe and it does make it easier to manipulate. With the length estimated and heart in mouth I cut the pipe to length. If I’ve done this wrong and it’s to short I’m really in the poo . With the loo pushed back to the bulkhead it all looks OK  but when I pull it back out it’s obvious that the poo pipe is still too long as it has kinked close to the hose tail on the loo. With a bit more off the loo slides back and all looks well. Last job is to get four bushes into the floor for the hold down screws and then the whole thing can be bolted down. Just need to make a lid for the boxing and seal between the loo and the bulkhead and the job’s a good un not only does it look alright but it’s a very simple job to pull the loo out for simple maintenance or even take the whole bulkhead out if you need even more access.

David meantime has been beavering away on the plumbing which is quite complicated round the range as all the central heating controls, heating to the calorifier, isolation valves for the heating plus the main water feed are all in this little space. Oh and I need some of it for the electrics.

Still David manages to get everything in and look decent. I’ve still got to change the head on the three way valve for a Sunvic one but I should be able to do that without an issue.

Last little job to round the day off is to fit the horn socket which David manages to do in between showers. All in all a good day with some real progress.

Blimey I moved to a weekly blog entry because I couldn’t keep the daily one up and now I’ve even missed a weekly one. What am I like .

In my defense however it’s been a couple of short weeks so if you count the days I’ve actually been over at the boat it’s equivalent to one week (well nearly, sort of).

The first job I’ve tackled is to build a little ser5vice cupboard next to the range. This will house all the heating pumps and controls and also the midships electrics. It’s just a couple of bits of 18mm ply with the obligatory pocket hole screws holding them together and to the lining and floor. It doesn’t take long to get the components sorted and then painted on the backsides and varnished on the front so it looks a bit more presentable. With the two bits joined together it’s simple to get it fixed in place. The only issue is making certain it’s in the right place so that the subsequent galley cabinets are in the right place. As I line it up it becomes obvious that I’m going to have to make a significant change and reduce the sink unit from a 600mm to a 500mm unit (good job I’ve not bought the sink yet : ) in order to get it to line up with the hatch properly. With that all sorted it’s fixed down with some more pocket hole screws and the jobs a good un. Another thing that becomes apparent during this exercise is that I’m going to have to fix the cooker down to the floor as it now seems to have decide that it will move with the slightest touch . Before it was all I could do to move it at all. Oh well.

With the bulkheads in place, the cooker positioned and the service space in the space inside Siskin is now properly delineated and for the first time I can get a good idea of the physical spaces as they will end up. I’m actually quite pleased. I had thought that the spaces would feel very cramped but they actually feel comfortable.

Now that the bulkheads are up I can get the short runs of B&R up in the bathroom which don’t take very long and make a big visual difference. All I need to do is to get the rosewood veneer up above the B&R and the bathroom lining will be complete.

Davids over for another day and the main task is to get the fuel pipe for the cooker fixed in. I need to get a length of iroko fixed underneath the engine room floor bearers so that we have something to clip the pipe to. We get the pipe in pretty easily but the connection at the cooker end is another matter all together. I’ve ordered up some flare nuts and a flaring tool but none of the nuts fit the fitting on the stove. Bummer. While Davids clipping the pipe into place I nip into town to try and get the correct fittings. Now Market Harborough is actually pretty well sorted for places to find obscure fittings but can I find the right ones, can I hell. Even Nick down at HAMS can’t help and to be honest if he hasn’t got the correct fitting then it probably doesn’t exist. Armed with a mixture of bits and bobs I head back to the boat and we manage to figure a way of connecting the pipe to the cooker. Down side is it’s all compression fitting so the 10 quid I spent on the pipe flaring tool was a waste of money but I suppose it could have been worse .

 To finish off the day David and I get most of the outstanding skin fittings sorted (bilge pump, shower sump pump and washing machine) which only leaves the galley sink to do but that needs the sink installed to make certain we put it in the right place.

With the boat to myself the next day I can make a start on the cold water pipework and main pump. I’ve decided that I’ll fix the pump down with 6mm machine screws into brass inserts let into the floor. The inserts, should in theory, need 8mm holes drilled and then simply screwed into the floor. Yeah right, that’s going to work in the Jarrah. The first one simply disintegrates as I try and screw it in and I spend the next 15min muttering and swearing as I try to removed the remains of the insert. Next is to try with a 9mm drill. It’s a little better in the fact that the insert doesn’t collapse but it’s by no means simple. In the end I end up opening the hole up even further and it’s still a struggle to get the inserts in.

Still once the inserts are in the pumps mounts easily and of course can just as easily be removed if it ever needs to be. After the struggle with the inserts getting the pipework sorted is quite easy. There’s a 6m length up to the water tank so that there are no hidden joints and a couple of isolating valves on the pump inlet and outlet. Looks nice and tidy when it’s done.

The following day the weather is awful so I decided to spend some time in the workshop and get some of the galley cabinets sorted. The first one to do is the one which is next to the range. I need to get this one done so I can check that all the clearances for the range doors and the cabinet magic corner work. The cabinet is put together with pocket hole screws and some polyurethane glue which should mean that they last forever. Before I put the top on the cabinet I fit the magic corner as it’s a lot easier. The corner is a German one and it shows. The quality of the bits and the precision of the fit is impressive. With the frames in place it’s a simple job to fit the runners and baskets, as you can see it makes really good use of the dead space (the left hand side of the cabinet will be covered with the range) and yet when you open it everything is nice and easy to get to. I like it .

David’s over on the Friday working on the heating pipework so before he can start I need to get the range position fixed. Good job that I had made the cabinet because when it’s in place it’s obvious that I need to shift the range 25mm to make certain that the doors open fully. I’m fixing the range down with some 25mm aluminium angle screwed to the floor and self tapped into the range. Same old problem with the Jarrah and screws with real problems getting the screws into the floor and it actually takes a couple of goes to get the angles screwed down. While Davids working on the copper piping I need to get a couple of additional runs through the galley for the heating. These cant go above the existing pipework as that would stop the cabinets from going flush back to the hull sides so they need to fit in front of the existing pipework. I make up some back to back clips using 6mm machine screws which clip onto the existing pipework and the new pipework clips into the front. This really works well and the pipes are really well supported.

While Davids working on the pipework it’s loo time as it’s just been delivered. Some time is spent in trying positions checking that the all important clearance is there to ensure that a newspaper can be opened without problem (the FT of course ) and a location is finally decided so I can work on the little bulkhead to go behind it. I had hoped that I would be able to lift the bulkhead out of the way without moving the loo so that I could get in to do any necessary maintenance and repairs but thats not going to happen so I’ll have to go through the hassle of getting the inserts into the floor again. By the end of the day I’ve go the bulkhead sorted and sort of wrassled the pipe into position (I can see this being a problem to get it fitted) and David has just about finished the copper pipework but my phone battery has run out so no pictures (next post honest)