That stove is 'cosy warm'!

Had a day off work today and what a day! It started with a drive to B&Q in Halifax! Why? Well it was the only one in the area with the same oak cladding. We have decided to renew a large section which was oiled in Osmo Raw. We tried to sand it back but failed. Only option, get some more oak. Did I tell you that I am oak mad!!!

On our return to Ripon, we set about fitting the Morso Squirrel stove. We had to drill and plug holes to secure the stove. Fit the outside chimney and coolie hat. Fit the flue pipe and seal it all in with stove cement and flue mastic. I then left it to Dawn to prepare and light the inaugural  fire. It was lovely and toastie. Just in time for the colder weather ahead.

Warm....

Squirrel in place

Our new Morso Squirrel stove is now in place on the boat. It wasn't too bad getting it onto the boat. With the help of a couple of mates down at the marina, we got the fire in place. I fitted the 4 legs and fitted 2 brackets to secure the stove down ( BSS check).

We cut off the front of the hearth slab but we are now thinking of putting it back on as it extends the hearth in front of the stove. Not a hard job. Just one of those 'I think we will do it this way because we don't like it that way' type of job!

We'll see....

 

Squirrel has arrived!

Not the furry kind but our multi-fuel stove. We went for the Morso Squirrel. It is a heavy brute and sat in our garage at present:

We also got a chimney, coolie hat, flue pipe and stove cement.

We want to get this all fitted before the really cold weather comes along.

One thing we didn't reckon on was one of our dogs trying to cook himself! We will have to keep an eye on Charlie!

The stove weight's 75kg!

We need a stove.

With the weather now getting colder, especially the nights, our aim to buy a stove have gone up a gear. My first call to Limekiln Chandlers to enquire about the Morso Squirrel. None in stock and they might get a delivery this Wednesday? He sells them as quick as they come in at this time of year!

The tiling and fire surround are complete. Just need a stove.

The area marked out is the size of the stove. Do we need a bigger hearth?

The oak is looking good with the Osmo oil. One major issue is where we previously used Osmo 'Raw', we will have to sand it all back to bare wood. A bit of unplanned work but when we oiled over the 'Raw', the satin just would not soak into the oak leaving it bland and washed out. The knots and grain were 'hidden'.

The pictures below show how the oak looks with Osmo 'Satin. Looks good!

Close up oak detail.

All looking good but we need a stove.

When swans are hungry!

We were busy working down the boat this weekend. The fireboard has been fitted along with the concrete hearth for the stove.

The fireboard.

I have started the tiles for the fireplace. Dawn has started on the oiling of the oak. Initially we went for the Osmo 'raw'oil but we decided it was too raw and the cabin was lacking any colour/character. Therefore we have gone for the Osmo 'clear satin 3011'. Expensive at £68 for a 2.5 litre tin! But it is the dogs b*****s!

At the end of the day we heard this tapping on the hull! Killer Pike? No, our family of Swans with signets. We opened the side hatch and there they were waiting for their tea!

There was some sad news though. There was a mother and father swans with 5 signets. Now though, only 4 signets and the father! We discovered after asking around the marina that the mother and the other signet are in the wildlife rehab centre near Selby. They have ingested lead! Probably from discarded shot! They are in a bad way and fingers crossed that they both recover. Only time will tell.

Anyway, back to the build this Wednesday and possibly a little trip out if the weather holds....

The latest

It's been a while since I posted. Progress has slowed. Most of the 'big' jobs have been completed. We are left with a load of little jobs but all very important.

Jobs completed are:

Rear doors clad in oak and beech surrounds.

Rear step clad in oak.

Battery isolator switch fitted.

We have also fitted the fireboard (expensive at £90 a sheet!). The concrete slab hearth has also been fitted and we intend to start the tiles this weekend.

Still have to sort out the stove but it has to be a Morso Squirrel!

Galley - done!

I believe that we can now say that the galley is complete. Apart from a few minor things. We are pleased with the modern looking and practical galley. The black mono tap has yet to be tested but the water pump is wired and plumbed in.

Only the plinth to complete once we decided on how we want it.

We have mains power

With the weather good, we thought it time to complete the 'hook-up'. The 2.5mm arctic cable was ran in a while ago. I terminated this on an external 'blue' type socket (by MK). It was attached to the control pillar and sealed in. We then had to make up a new extension cable from spare 2.5mm cable. Internally I have wired the AC to a MCB box. I have to purchase a galvanic isolator ASAP.

Mains socket with cable.

I have also purchased one of the cushions for the front seat/birth. 4" thick firm foam from trusted 'eFoam'. I put a temporary cover over it but we will need to get some covers made up.

Somewhere to sleep!

More to come ....

Galley coming together.

The galley (or kitchen in your house) is really coming together. The kitchen units are in. The worktop is in and cut for the sink/cooker. The cooker has been fitted and looks good. It was a bit of a pain getting it in but eventually it went in ok. The gas is still to run in. It has been difficult to find a gas safe registered LPG fitter. We are still looking!

We fitted a couple of the solid oak doors so that we could judge the size. They look good and the galley is almost complete. We still have the sink to secure, gas to do and all the plumbing (taps and water pump).

Cooker going in.

The Thetford Caprice cooker.

And with the solid oak doors. Still deciding on handles...

We have a cooker (or do we?)!

 Well what can I say! Cooker ordered. It is a Thetford (Spinflo) Caprice MK3. We decided to pick it up as we could save £50 off the asking price. We had to travel 45miles but would still save a bit. 

We arrived at Motorcraft Conversions near Doncaster just before lunch. I then made a big mistake! The cooker was loaded into our car still in its protective cardboard box and we zoomed back up the motorway to Ripon. We didn't check it! Epic fail!

We got the cooker onto our boat. It is about 26kg. So quite heavy and awkward to move. We opened the box and low and behold it was the wrong colour. We wanted a black hob and we got stainless! The front was grey but there were a couple of marks on the chassis. We were not happy! Why did I not check it?!

A quick call to Motorcraft and they said we could bring it back and they would get a new one. Alternatively, they offered us a new one that they had took delivery 2 weeks previously for one of their conversions. It has a black hob but black doors. We zoomed down the motorway once again and once we had seen the black cooker, it was what we wanted. It was loaded into the car and we zoomed back up the road to the marina in Ripon.

By this time we were too tired to start fitting it so left it lying on the cabin floor. Phew. Nothing is ever smooth. Next job -fit the cooker!

The cooker 'asleep' on the floor.

And there's more!

Quite a bit of work has been completed this week. Our new work top has been purchased and taken down to the boat. It is 2.5m long and very heavy. Took us a bit of effort to get it into the boat. It also cost us a new windscreen for the car!

Today we fitted the sink and took it out again to seal the work top where we had cut it. We will refit the sink next weekend when the work top seal is dry.

We have also constructed the first part of the rear steps. The AC/DC are housed within.

The rear step with fuse boxes.

We intend to clad the rear step and make or buy 2 oak doors. This will enable us to access the fuses etc.

Dc fuse box almost complete.

AC RCD box still to wire up. We also intend to fit a galvanic isolator.

Coming along fine....

Oak window liners go in

With most of the lining out complete, our attentions move to some of the finer parts. We have fitted the window liners and they add that touch of class. They were not cheap but I couldn't have made the window liners any better. We had to enlarge the recesses as they were a bit small. It took us 2 days to get them in and we still have the porthole to do. Not looking forward to that!

It took us a while to decide how to fix them. Screws? Glue or mastics? Velcro? We decided on brass screws with eyelets. They look good, are secure and we can remove the liners when we need to. Some pics of the liners:

They look great!

The oak detail is perfect. Did I tell you that we are 'oak mad'!

More to follow....

New oak window liners

Our new oak window liners are finished and ready to be shipped to us. They were not cheap but will finish off the windows perfectly. Just hope my measurements were good and they fit ok.

We ordered 4 x window liners and an 18.5 inch porthole liner. We should get them Monday/Tuesday next week.

They only took 9+ weeks to get to this stage! Good thing we had lots to keep us busy...

Partition walls up.

The cabin is really looking like a boat cabin now that most of the oak t&g is done. The partition walls for the shower/toilet are in and cladded. We have made a door for this room. Made from solid oak and my old favourite - t&g.

 I was going to use dowels on the door frame but it all became a bit complicated and time consuming! I therefore went for the trusted glue and screw method which performed very well.

 We now put our attention to cladding the seating area. At first we were simply going to apply clad to the seat frame. I thought this looked a bit plain. A bit more time was spent cutting architrave with mitred 45' cuts. We think the finish looked superb, especially in oak. See pics below.

Top of the door. The darker frame looks good.

The architrave on the rear seat. Makes it look like a quality piece of furniture.

A view of the shower room. We used a solid piece of oak for the room edges and sanded the exposed edge.

Looking good but I think I'am OAK MAD!

Stud walls go in..

A good weekend working on the boat. We have constructed the stud walls for the shower/toilet room. The room is about 4ft square. Big enough. We didn't want to lose the open plan feel. We used treated 25mm   

 by 35mm stud and have cladded in oak t&g. We intend to make a door for this room as 'normal' doors are way to heavy. I will make this in my garage this week and hopefully it will be ready to take down this Saturday.

Stud and cladding going up.

Toilet and shower tray to judge the size needed.

Not a bad size. Both stud walls now cladded and door to build.

Charlie, one of our Border Terriers can be seen looking for food!

Next visit to the boat will be this Saturday. We are enjoying the build and we think we are now really progressing well.

New shower cubicle.

We have purchased our new quadrant shower cubicle and tray. It is a reduced height cubicle at 1750mm high (even though box states 1900mm high!). The tray is 130mm high and the height in the cabin is 1970mm. So plenty to spare.

1900mm..no it's 1750mm. I've measured it.

Quadrant tray.

 We paid a good price as well. Only £145  and £7 delivery. Not bad as we had seen others for £500+!!!

 Plumbing starts tomorrow.

Line out complete!

As the title says, the line out is complete. We have used solid oak t&g throughout. It looks and feels very good and we are pleased with the outcome. The architrave and finishing are still to complete.

Also completed:

AC sockets and cabling completed.

All dc LED lights fitted and tested ok.

Kitchen units ready to be fitted.

2 seat carcasses built up and ready for lining.

Next job is the plumbing. Most JG Speedfit bits ready to fit.

Some pics:

Rear seat/bed. A bit high but we had to incorporate the boxed in 'swim'.

Bow bulkhead cladded. The open area on the right is for the fireboard/stove.

More to follow....

Swim boxed in/galley started

Today we spent all day working on the swim. The bit that curves around the stern.We have boxed in the swim on both sides. We used 6mm exterior grade plywood. The 6mm thickness made it easier to bend around the swim. We had to 'butcher' 2 of the kitchen units to fit the contours of the swim but the result was great.

Swim boxed in.

A butchered 500mm base unit.

All kitchen units built up.

Next task is the plumbing. We intend to use 15mm 'JG Speedfit' fittings. Easy to fit, we hope.....

Cladding 95% complete

We really think that we are coming to the end of the oak cladding. About 95% complete. Only a small section on the bow bulkhead and part of this is fireboard.

We have also constructed a fixed lounge seat/birth. We were going to have a sofa bed but this meant no storage and a sofa bed takes up a lot of space. The fixed seating has a load of storage space inside and also extends into the bow area. This was Dawn's idea. A really great idea as it enables good access into the bow area and also gives access to the water tank outlet hose. Always good so that you can keep a check on the jubilee clips within.

Some pics of our new seat:

The seat is 6 feet long.

New AC and dc sockets wired in.

We intend to use oak cladding on the seat.

With the cladding almost complete, our attention will soon shift to the plumbing.

We needed a trip out.

We thought that the oak line out was progressing well. We could finally see an end to all our hard graft and were looking forward to the next stage of the fit out, the waterworks (and galley). We have already got the kitchen units and a 'sink' waiting to go in. 

As the title suggests, last Friday we decided to go for a boat trip. My brother Nigel, was over from Germany with his son and what better reason do you need! And the weather was good! The boat performed well with plenty of power. There was a bit of cavitation but as the fit out progresses, the boat will sit deeper in the water. A few pics and one of a sunken narrowboat on the very wharf where Little Owl was first put in the water. A warning to us all when moored on a river, especially the Yorkshire Ouse and Ure!

A lovely day on the wide River Ure.

Plenty of power from the 45HP Barrus engine.

Always a sad sight!

Once back in the marina, the fit out continues with the AC and DC wiring.

Behind the galley area.

That's all for now but we are all pleased with our progress so far.

Cladding 80% complete...

I think we have now completed 80% of the line out. Cladded completely in solid oak t&g. A bit more expensive but the finish result is spot on. Some pics of the cabin.

A view to the stern bulkhead. The one kitchen unit is to check final galley height.

Looking down the cabin.

One of the brass vent liners and a LED spotlight.

Cladding around porthole and below gun whale.

We can now see an end to the line out. Not too far away. More to follow...