Boat painting – Day 2

Dry docked.

2nd day spent painting with primer and undercoat.

These are the paints:-

Jotunmastic 87

It’s an epoxy and a coating mixed together, in what is known as a ‘2 pack’ then applied to bare metal.

Jotun 2 pack epoxy for narrowboats.
Jotun 2 pack epoxy for narrowboats.

It requires 1 coat. We’re giving it 2 with 24 hours between each coat.

Each preparation lasts for 2 hours. If you coat it any later than this, the preparation has already started to react and will become less and less effective as time goes on.

Depending on time constrains, and the size of your boat, you may need to make a number of smaller preparations to get the job done.

We have 5 people painting for about 40 mins each for half the tumblehome of a 45ft boat.

Drying time: 24hrs.
Cost: 4.7litres £42.95 Continue reading “Boat painting – Day 2”

Boat painting at Canal Cruising, Stone

For the next few days, we’ll be painting Bonny Lady, my new temporary home.

It’s a 45ft, wide berth narrowboat, built in 1991.

Having stripped it to metal, it looks as if the previous paint job was 1 coat primer, 2 coats undercoat and one topcoat.

We’ll be doing 2 primer, 2 undercoat 2 top.

Over the next few days, I’ll be recording aspects of this narrowboat painting job on the blog.

Canal Cruising – Stone

This is where the boat is being painted. They have covered sheds we can work under.

Stripped decksThis is the finish we have to achieve for today, Monday 1st August.

Once we’ve got all the metal on the hull to this finish we can begin painting.

1st Days work in dry dock

The first day consisted of

  • Stripping the paint from the gunwales to the water-line

The rims you walk on around the side of the boat are called the ‘gunwales’, the idea of the dry-dock was to allow us to paint these.

Painting from here to the water-line is not possible.

The first job is to remove the paint from this section of boat.

Here are two before and after pictures of the stripping job. Continue reading “Boat painting at Canal Cruising, Stone”

The story of Bad Duck….

Once upon a time, in Barton Marina, there lived a little duck.

Bad duck was the noisiest duck on the pond.

Bad duck formed convoys and patrolled round the boats.

Bad duck and her duck convoy chased off rival ducks. Bad duck would attack them from underwater, like a great white shark.

Whilst I was doing laundry, Bad Duck landed on the roof of my narrowboat, and dug up the plants in my planter.

When I got back, there were 2 eggs in place of the rosemary….

Bad duck's eggs

Mint, duck eggs, Chives, Coriander.

No sign of any ducks or anything, I carried on working.

Soon Bad Duck appeared with her mate and let out a loud and nasty “QUAK! QUAAAAAK!” her eyes flashing with feral duck hate.

Bad duck rose into the air and began circling me like a vulture. All the boaters and people in the Waterfront restaurant could see this spectacle of the duck circling.

Next morning, Bad Duck landed on my roof.

I could hear her webbed feet pattering across the roof…. Suddenly, Bad Duck peeked in through the open hatch!

Bad Duck was staring straight at me!

At the end of my narrowboat, perched on top of the hatch staring in at me on the bed.

I got up and shooed Bad Duck off.

Bad Duck went off, I haven’t seen her again.

She was playing duck chase in front of the boaters this afternoon, she pretended to ignore me.

Really, her eggs didn’t stand a chance on the top of my boat in the planter.

I can’t believe how crazy ducks are. Maybe their funny shape and noise makes them prone to outbreaks of behaviour of  a similarly strange nature.

Anyway, that’s the story of Bad Duck.

All trues.

Taboo?

Why can’t the media tell the truth about the killings in America?

2 Steps from war…

That’s a country that’s always been on the edge, I don’t care what anyone says, and I believe Ice T once said it, “the right to bear arms was the last defence against tyranny, to protect yourself against the police”.

YouTube player

Funny thing is, I think the UK is lining it’s self up along similar lines…

Euroburp

Now don’t get me wrong, I was a supporter of Euroburp until the banking crisis hit…

Funny?

It’s funny how the the largest federal authority, (by population), of those affected by the crisis was not willing to take ANY action against the perpetrators, (banks).

  • They were not willing to instigate any large scale investigations.
  • They weren’t willing to instigate CRIMINAL investigations.
  • They were not willing to prosecute in the name of breached EU regulations.

Rules, what rules?

Where rules are broken, it’s punishment follows…

That’s what rules are all about right?

Well here’s another set of rules….

“I am like God, and God like me. I am as large as God, He is as small as I. He cannot above me, nor I beneath Him be.” Silesius, 17th Century.

Which basically means, each man is onto god.

Especially true in the US, where they are much more religious.

Also, as racial tension goes, they’ve had a civil war on the pretext of racial discrimination. Some say, they have never got over it.

Europe is not the same.

 

Telematics box

So, I’ve got this new Telematics Box. Because I’ve been out of the country so long, the insurers don’t want to deal with me. The best way of bringing my premium down was to agree to the installation of one of these ‘Telematics boxes’.

Telematics

Telematics basically referrers to the transfer of information using Telemetry, similar to mobile phone technology. You can’t expect the unit to transmit in a tunnel, high on a mountain, or anywhere else where you can’t receive a mobile signal. Continue reading “Telematics box”