About Oakley

This is a record of the restoration of narrowboat Oakley, a large Northwich of the Town class of the Grand Union Canal Carrying Co. Ltd. built in 1936 by Yarwoods in Northwich. Her fleet number was 159, she was registered at Rickmansworth number 98 and her gauging number was 12631. She originally had a Russel Newbury DM2 engine. She was originally paired with butty Oxted. She was absorbed into the British Waterways fleet in 1948. If you have any information regarding the history of Oakley then please contact me.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

knees





Bit behind with the blog, back at work now so too tired in the evening to go on the computer. I have managed now to get all the knees out on one side cleaned and painted on the backside, replaced all the plate behind them and welded them back in. Also in the process of doing this i have managed to get the hull sides pretty flat and the top gaurd is now straight.
I have also posted every photo taken so far on the webshots website (http://community.webshots.com/user/nboakley) so please take a look.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007





Well, the bottom and footings are very nearly done. Once I had all the base plates in position I concentrated on pulling the front sides in just back of the front bulkhead. It was 7' 1" wide on the knuckle. By slitting it just above the top guard I have managed to pull each side in 1", it will now go almost anywhere on the system.

Now all I have to do is 9' of footings, then I can start doing the knees. I hope each one doesn't take too long as I have 16 to take out, replace the bad plate and weld the knees back in.