Monday 18 January 2010

Weekend away

Every month we have a weekend away from the boats and this weekend was one of them.
Andrea catches up on things domestic and family and, I scoot off to the Keighley and Worth Valley railway, this is where I do my thing with steam. Saturday is taken up with the making of copper pipework for the restoration of a Standard Class 4 locomotive 75078, then on Sunday Fireman on the service train and in between a little social drinking to support the local brewery, the Copper Dragon normally.
Working on the boats doesn't stop however, I was up and at it this morning shortening the prop shaft by 12 inches and cutting a new keyway and fetteling the recently acquired bottom tank.
The tank has been in storage at Malcolm's wharf for a few years and has gained quite a bit of green growth along with the white oxide you get from galvanised plate.
After a couple of hours of scraping and wire brushing is was looking new, well.....nearly new.
While cleaning the the tank I did notice that all the bottom corners had been lead wiped, obviously to seal it up and it also look like the flange joints are of lead. I don't know exactly how old the tank is but, riveted galvanised plate with lead wiped joints is certainly before my time.



The coming weekend should see the the tank fitted and the prop shat back in position.
We can then replace the bulkhead and finish the last bit of hold flooring.....weather permitting!


3 comments:

Brian and Diana on NB Harnser said...

Is the tank galvanised on the inside.I always understode that you shouldn't keep diesel in galvanised tanks of pipes.

fmc dove said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
fmc dove said...

Don't know what happend to post but here goes again.

Brian and Diana, you are quite right, oil products and galvanising don't mix. If the tank was galvanised inside it wont be now. Looking at the contruction and the way it's buckled and the rivets having galvanising on them, it could have been hot dipped then the top bolted on, it hard to tell