A Weekends Work

Friday: Started day off by popping down to Homebase to get sandpaper and a tin of black smooth Hammerite paint. Got down to the boat by about 11.00am and spent the rest of the day down there doing various jobs. Started by fitting the Klaxon to the back cabin slide, looked very nice, then went on to paint the internal exhaust pipe with the Hammerite paint followed by giving the chimbley another coat of paint. While I waited for the exhaust pipe to dry I put the lamp on the Bolinder and ran it up for about an hour. This put some heat in the exhaust pipe which dried it so I gave it a second coat. After the engine had cooled, I set about polishing all the brass fittings/pipe work on the engine so now it looks really smart, seems a shame to start it and dull the brasses! I finally set about making a cardboard template for a cover to the blowlamp.

Saturday: Gave internal exhaust pipe a second coat of black along with giving a coat to the exhaust ‘titch’ after this had dried, I gave the top band of both the cabin chimbley and the titch a couple of coats of white paint. Being as the sun had come out to play, I spent the afternoon rubbing down the last three foot of the top planks as the painted diamonds had become tatty and chipped. High light of the day was a woman fell in the cut off a passing boat!

Sunday: After cooked breakfast at home went down Minnow whilst Dawn set about starting to remove perished varnish from the cabin top, I painted half the engine ‘ole floor plates followed by re-painting the diamonds on the end of the top planks.

Monday: Made bacon and sausage sandwiches to take with us so made quite an early start. Started by wandering over the site to see if I could find something suitable to make a chimbley extention. Found a large empty paint tin which the bottom was cut out of and split down the side. With that done I finished off painting the engine ‘ole floor plates then painted all the ‘red’ bits on the Bolinder while Dawn finished peeling the varnish off the cabin top.

On arrival home, there was a note in the porch off the owner of another Josher motor boat called Lily, inviting us to take Minnow to his 50^th bash next weekend where there’s live music, a marquee, a hog roast and a number of other working boats, so looks like we will not be doing work on Minnow tomorrow, but taking her up to Hoo Mill instead, ready for next week end.