A few shots of my shower/wetroom build from this year.

The boat has a V shaped hull so the showe can't be full width. A drain a each end because the water flows forward when the tank is full and backwards when empty. Construction is 6mm tiles beded onto Evo-Stick WetGrab, grouted with Evo-Stick White For Life silicone (yes, EVERY ONE!).

Underfloor preperation, a fresh paint of blacking and a bit of insulating foam to help with condensation.

The shower base is completed and can be put back into action. It works perfectly. The edge infront of the WC has a 45deg angle put into the floor so the tiles 'flow up and over'. The same is done the other side later.

Some more uprights and grouting. four holes are left for the WC screws as these tiles don't drill so easily. Note the matching bog brush!

WC back in, under-sink started.

Sink removed for tiling, pipes have been adjusted to remove any inaccessible connections behind this panel. the 240v shaver socket has also been rotated and moved slightly. More silicone grouting :(

OK, again, it's been a while with any posts, but not much has happened.

It was a really cold winter, the canal was at least two inches thick with ice.

One of the first jobs after winter was to sort out the stove's temporary chimney. I wanted to move it away from the handrail a bit more and level it off properly. This would require a crank in the flue, so I made a cutting jig.

The flue is cut and welded, it fited first time!

Here I have removed the old plate, filled in the hole and replaced it with a new, larger piece. The collar is being checked for alignment.

All finished, painted and sealed.

A chandelry chimney finishes it off nicely (must buy a chain and padlock!).

A 240v 16A hookup socket was fitted under the gunwale. The cable exits to the inside and emerges under the back deck.

After using a plastic bottle most of the winter, I was fed up with having to constantly re-bleed the Eber. I made up a header tank to go under the gunwale (highest point). It is a shared pump-through tank between the Eber and closed engine loop. The four hoses go below via an oblong tube welded into the deck gully. This keeps the decking watertight.

The header tank has a screw-on filler cap above the gunwale.

The fuel tank was cut down slightly and remounted. The position of the filler and vents pipes were changed.

On one side the tank is bolted to the beams, the other side is bolted at the top.

The same type of through-deck tubes were used here (as in the header tank) to keep the decking watertight.

A new engine control panel was made up. This one is let-in to the bulkhead by about 25mm with three cable tubes exiting in the engine bay. Inside are fuses for the various engine elecrticals.

Next door's cat discovered a new hammock over the summer. He hasn't stayed away since. A really lovely moggy, but he has develped a habbit of bringing me dead mice. One was slightly alive... I found it in the decking channels, pong!!

Carpet was installed in the saloon area, up the walls both sides. Sockets were fitted too. Standard 240v doubles and 5A round pins for the 12v.

Some temporary tiles and a temporary curtain were installed in the shower area so it could be used. A single drain handles the waste, though if the water tank is full the water sits at the far end. Maybe I'll put a second one in the final tiling.

My £40 ebay bargain 12v fridge. All perfectly good, was actually installed in December sometime.

Another ebay bargain, £99 Candy Aquamatic 1000T.

Proper switches for the lights, fan above the shower and shower waste pump were installed. A 10p scrap of aluminiumn makes a great panel. The galley and saloon switches are 2-way with the others just below the end hatch.

A trial planter on the roof with a couple of tomato plants and some salad leaves. The tomatoes didn't do too well, though I suppose I should have fed them :o) Next year...

The Eber and EFOY control panels, next to the door.

Finally, the biggie and most useful bit of kit onboard. I hated having to run my engine for power. It's bloody noisy and inconvenient when you have a 9-5 job. This beauty I installed in January and have never looked back. Near silent, just fit and forget. It runs ALL my electrics except the washing machine as I don't have a suitable inverter. I LOVE IT!

Some shots from the past few weeks.

I made a support for the calorifier to bolt into the engine bay.



The support and tank installed.



All plumbed in, Eber fitted and being tested

The tiller has landed!

The old post was cut & ground off, the hole enlarged and some bolt holes drilled for the top bearing. The lower bearing sticks out on a bracket.
Fastened between the two bearings is the clamp arm pictured in a my last blog post.

Other things done today include the mounting points for the calorifier support being drilled (my dad did this and had a pig of a time drilling through the C section, it must have been hardened or something!), the Stern Drive was filled with oil and the morse cable connected.

Last weekend.

I collected a twin coil calorifier from eBay.

The engine was started, kettles make excellent header tanks :)

I made up a collar for the base of the tiller. It clamps to the plain bar and the wire rope attaches to it.

Work from today, the steering mounts were welded into the guttering and the base bearings attached to the centre bar that runs around the boat.

Now it all becomes clear! The pulley bracket still needs a little bit of fettling. The top pulley post is not yet on. The pink blob appears to be mu finger :|

Well, it's abeen a long time since I last posted here, but that doesn't mean I've been doing nothing!

One thing I did early on, which I don't have any pictures of is to paint the deckboards black. I use a coat of primer, then a coat of International black floor paint with sand sieved onto it. The sand had been baked before application to remove moisture. Sprinkle to excess and then when the paint has dried, tip the rest off. then a further two coats of paint on top. These look really good and have stood up well throught the summer.

When I bought the replacement engine many months bac, it came with a set of proper mounts. I decided taht I should be using these rather than the crummy mountings I had at the time. This would require I created a new 'drop in' engine frame / oil pan.

The old bearers were completely removed. This involved some grinding very close to the baseplate!

Re-mounting the engine would involve moving it slightly to the right for better propshaft alighment. This meant the exhaust hole had to be filled in and recut about 2 inches to the right!

Initially I liked the idea of having a yellow engine bay, this initial test sploge told me that it was going to be a very bad idea.

I ended up going for a smokey blue with red bearers.

The 'drop in' engine frame was installed...

...along with the engine.

The underside of the guttering was paited yellow, to avoid hitting your head on it, plus I also had plenty of yellow spare :o)

I made up some trellis type cable tidies out of 5mm round bar to attach the cables to. This would keep the cables out of risk for the BSS and would therefore not require me to install conduit.

I found a better quality Stern Drive (Enfield 130) on eBay and decided to replace the current one with it. I had to borrow a pair of waders to remove the existing one.

Because the Stern Drive expects a transom with a greater angle, a wedge chock must be used. The old one was wooden which had rotted, I made a new one out of sheet metal. This wasn't that easy as the back of the boat has a slight curve to it and there were 8 tubes for 8 bolts to get in the right place! In the end it all worked beautifully, I was incredibly chuffed!

Here's the replacement Stern Drive on. I have taken it apart, stripped the paint back and resprayed and give it a general service. I only dropped one machine screw whilst fitting it!

I installed a Dometic VacuFlush VT2500, the waste pipe runs the length of the boat...

...through the rear bulkhead into the engine bay, where it meets the removable cassette and vacuum pump. Also note the red bearers that have been installed to create a platform at the front of the engine bay.

The batteries will live on that platform (not yet lashed down for the BSS). Here, some of the wiring is installed using double-sided velcro tape. The battery master switches are located underneath the deck infront of the cabin door.

All the 12v wiring comes back to a distribution and fuse panel, a panel for each side of the boat (with a couple of temporary take-offs). One of the 240v cables has not yet been pulled through and the whole 240v system is yet to be installed.

The wiring for the engine snakes around under the guttering, dare I say, beautifuly :o)

A change of plan, to put the oven at eye level rather than knee level meant that I had to move a pair of 12v/240v sockets. One of the red/black pairs will be run accross to the over for ignition/light/fan/whatever-it-uses.

Because the Stern Drive uses a wire push/pull system, I needed a way of getting the wires through the deck but keeping the deck watertight. I came up with this system where a 'gutter cup' is welded onto the existing guttering which allows the rain to drain, a tube placed over the tube that sticks out of the gutter cup causes any rain to drip into the guttering. Each tube (top & bottom, only bottom shown here) has a pulley (not shown) that the wire goes around, the wire goes through the middle of the tubes. I'm sure once it's fitted, all will become obvious!

The cabin ceiling came a little close to completion with the installation of lights.