Here' some photos of the launch, still struggling with my computer.

broken computer

My computer has not been performing at all until today, so unfortunately I am quite far behind with my blog.

In fact so far behind that she is now insulated with spray foam painted in a holding coat of ocean blue and she FLOATS. I re-launched her on May 18th and to my relief none of my welds leaked, but one rivet in the skeg did seep slightly, this rusted up within a couple of Days. once in the water I decided I needed a well deserved break. So a week off and a trip to Angelsey for the bank holiday was taken.

Feeling refreshed but under no pressure I went back to work on her. First job was to load ballast in that i had acquired. So far I have put two and half tons in, which is not enough! Think I need the same again so some bricks shall be ordered.

Also been cutting the excess spray foam back which when the weather is like it is at the moment, is a bloody awful job, but nearly done.

Photos to come.

All the rivets are now on and look good.

The original mushroom vent has been fitted in the back cabin, this was not brass but cast iron and needs to be painted black.

Inside all the tags for screwing the wood to before sprayfoam have been fitted. The floor and bottom six inches have been painted with black bitumen.

Externally almost all the steel work is done, I am in the process of removing all welding splatter and cleaning everything up ready for the first coat of paint.

The stern gear and propellar shaft pretty knacked and I am trying to work out how to remove the old stern gear so i can refurbish, replace it. Any one know how to remove the stern gear? Seems like it might have been bodged at some time.

Still haven't made the rudder stock or rudder but will probably do that this week.

Been very busy on Oakley recently, first jobs were doors and engne room hatches. I have decided to make wooden doors at the front, to the well deck so I can put windows in them. The roof hatches are lift up, but only an inch deep so they are not proud of the hand rail.


The hand rails have been made, this has prevented the problem of everything I put on the roof falling off, it also looks good! Steve, a fellow boat builder, has been helping me alot recently and he has made the pigeon box and air intake for the lister engine. These both look spot on.

Port holes were then positioned and cut out so I could put all the cabin framing in to straighten out the sides, once this was in I could weld. Spent a good week, evenings and weekend, welding and grinding the whole boat. Then I removed the braces from the inside and was very relieved to have no movement, she has stayed straight.

Rivets. Or in my case pressed washes welded on and made to look like rivets. So far I have pressed and fitted 800 and all the cabin sides and door hinges are done. Just the roof to do now thank god! But they have finished the boat off and she definately looks the part.

cabin detail

Still busy on the boat and I don't feel like blogging in the evening, but I do manage it every now and then.

She's beginning to look like a real one now, the roof has been welded and ground to a nice radius, the flat along the top of the cabin is ready for the fake rivets, but I will save this till one of the last jobs.

The slides for the back doors are complete, the engine room and front of cabin roof beams are done. I'm still waiting for my water tank, which should arrive tomorrow then I can complete the front bulkhead. The cut outs for the engine room slides are done but I have decided to make lift up hatches for these doors as they will produce a better seal and will not scratch my paint work every time I open them.

Engine room Bulkheads and all the door way thresholds are done, so next jobs are roof hatches and doors.

Cabin

Well the steel arrived three days late as it does and I had to send one roof sheet back because it was rippled.

Over the last week I have put the front well deck in, fabricated the back bulkhead, all the cabin side and roof sheets are tacked together.

Bulkheads are been made for the engine room at the moment. Then I can start all the detail on the cabin. I am waiting for my water tank which should arrive at the end of the week, until then I am unable to fit the other half of the front bulkhead as the water tank will live under the well deck.

If anyone out there is wondering why I am putting a full cabin on and not the traditional backcabin and engine room with an under sheet conversion, it is because BW shortened the boat in the sixties and I believe that the under cloth conversion would make the boat look stumpy. I have not lengthened the boat back to seventy foot as this will restrict me as to where the boat can go, ie. the Leeds Liverpool canal only has sixty foot locks.

Ps if woz is reading this I may well be interested in working on her sister at some stage please contact me on the above email address.

Front Decks

Been busy on the boat, front deck has been completed. I made the cants and decks out of steel, wood on steel is what they were originally made from, it's a sure sign of rust. The hatch is the original and I had to remove 70 years of paint prior to fixing. The floor has been put in the gas locker which was a horrible job, welding through paint in a tight space means alot of fumes.

I have also fixed the framing for the well deck at the front of the boat, fitted the bottom guards on and I am now waitng for the cabin steel to arrive on Monday.

Engine PaintIng and Back Deck

After getting the engine steam cleaned I sanded any rough bits of paint. Removed or masked off any bits I didn't want spraying. I then sprayed it with a zinc phosphate primer, it is now ready for it's first coat of Brunswick green.

I have also completed the back deck

Uxter Plates and Engine Clean

This week I've completed welding up the base of the back cabin. I have also replaced the uxter plates with 6mm steel on both sides, these were thin especially where the stove used to be in the original cabin.

I have also had the engine steam washed which has brought most of the paint and grime off, I've also taken the plates off the sump, drained all the oil out and cleaned all the internals out as much as I could reach. Also started the process of sanding the engine ready for its new paint job.

All going well, The fuel tanks are completed, these were built into the hull using 12mm plate for the sides and 5mm cheuquer plate for the lids. I have pressure tested and made sure there are no leaks (diesel has a tendancy to get through the smallest of holes). Once I was happy with the tanks i made some mounting plates which i bolted to the engine, placed the engine in the right place and welded them to the tops of the tanks. Now I have moved the engine back out to paint the bilge and am also in the process of cleaning the engine down so i can respray it.

So far I have removed all the electrical parts and made blanking plates for the exhaust/air intake. I intend to borrow the use of a steam cleaner so that I can get all the grease and oil removed before respraying in lister green.

Progress is going well During the week off for christmas I have managed to get all but two of the knees completed and I have also welded up the majority of the hull on the inside. I am now in the process of building integral fuel tanks either side of the engine which the engine will sit on creating a sump in the middle. Once the fuel tanks have been pressure tested i shall clean my engine, a lister HA2, respray it in lister green and mount it in its home. Then I can do the final two knees.

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.

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.

Bottom and footings still

Due to sickness I have been unable to work on my boat for the last three days. I have managed to get three out of the four bottom plates fitted into position and the footings are halfway down the boat. Whilst cutting out the footings I have noticed (but also expected) that the plate behind the knees has worn very thin, down to 2mm in some places, this is due to rust been trapped behind the knee. The way to solve this problem is to remove the knees one by one, cut out the bad section and replate it. So I will be doing this job as soon as the bottom is done.

Bottom and footings

Once the gunwhales were tied into the bulkheads at either end I was happy with the shape and decided that it was time to start replacing the bottom. To do this I have lifted the back end of the boat high enough to cut out the bottom 18" drop it down and throw it away. The quickest way to do this job is to use a Stihl saw, but after a few hours of cutting it doesn't feel that easy. I am replacing the base plate with 12mm steel as alot of ballast will be needed once the boat is finished to get it sitting right in the water. The plates have come in a standard size of 2mx4m, this means that i will be cutting out 4m sections of the bottom starting at the back, taking care not to have any joints in the engine room as i will be building integral fuel tanks either side of the engine. Once the old section of bottom was removed i rolled the first plate into position, lifted it on chain blocks and fixed it in the right place.

The swim on Oakley is in remarkably good condition and i have only had to cut out the chime angle. this means only 2" of footings need to be fabricated for the back 8'. I have chosen 8 mm steel for this job as it is closer to the original size of 5/16" but it does make it more difficult to fit these pieces as they do not bend so easy.

Once this is done I am replacing from just above the bottom guard, so the next two plates should be pretty straight forward, leaving me with the front section to do at the end of the week, all going to plan.

straighten hull sides

This week I have managed to get the big dents out of the hull side using a hydraulic ram and a fabricated claw to hook over the excisting angle. Once these dents were pushed out I welded plates to the inside to hold the shape. I then pulled in and braced the sides to a width of 6' 10". Having done this and been happy with the straightness i tacked a strip of 45mm by 8mm down the length of the boat on both sides, this is to build the height of the hull sides upto 4' 9" . On the inside edge of this i have tacked 110mm by 10mm flat, these steel gunwhales will replace the original wooden gunwhales.

Engine Room

I have now cut the engine room cabin off, disconected the engine and removed it. The old engine beds have been cut out and scrapped, this job was not made any easier by the fact that they were covered in 40 years worth of diesel, oil and other grime, making burning a very painstaking job.

Underneath the sterngear BW had poured about 2 cubic feet of concrete, when I started to break this I discovered that instead of stone they had used coins punched out from steel plate upto half an inch thick. I presume this was for extra ballast, what I didn't expect was the 26 tractor weights hidden under the counter, weighing in at one ton.

Strip Down

I have spent the last few days removing all debris ie. Cloths, rotten wooden cabin floor and gunwhales, steel cabins and engine.

The bilge of the boat contained about 1 inch of very smelly water and mud, do not recomend this job.

Why Did I buy Oakley

I spent a long time looking at various modern boats to buy and came to the conclusion that i just didn't like the style. I decided that the lines of traditional working narrowboats appealed more to me. I am in the fortunate position that I work for Roger Fuller Boatbuilders in Stone who specialize in building very traditional narrowboats, a little knowledge helps!

Without this background I would not of undertaken this project.

First Impressions Oakley 17/10/2007

Oakley was found in a farmyard at Welford in Northamptonshire, she has been out of the water for roughly three years. As you can see from the photos below, the hull is in pretty bad shape. Bottom and footings have to be redone, new cabin will have to be fabricated. The engine, a Lister HA2 is in good condition, but does need a good clean and a coat of paint. In 1963 British Waterways shortened the boat to 60' and replaced the original steel back cabin and engine room with a couple of horrible cabins bow and stern, the rear one housing the engine.

Steve standing at the bow.

Oakley's Bow.

Oakley's side.