Black Country Museum

Yesterday I successfully negotiated the 21 locks in the Wolverhampton flight - 5 hours of locking following a 2.5 hour cruise from the Black Country Museum to get to the start of the locks! So it was early to bed last night.

I spent Tuesday at the Museum. I'm not a great museum person. I tend to walk through them at normal outdoor walking speed and stop to look at one or two things that interest me. The exceptions are the Science Museum in London and, now, the Black Country Museum at Dudley - just outside Birmingham.

The museum represents (is?) a typical Black Country town in the early 20th century.

This was virtually a green-field site (actually a black field as it was covered with sewage sludge) with no buildings.

All of the buildings on the site (including the bridge you can see on the left hand side of this picture) were moved brick by brick from other locations and rebuilt in the museum. But the whole thing has been done so well that I still find it hard to believe. It would have been a wonderful achievement if they had just reconstructed the facades of the various houses and shops so that you could go into the front rooms.





But the real genius is that they have reconstructed everything including the typical junk that collects over many years. And, when you realize that there is nobody actually working in the buildings and sheds to create the junk, the naturalness of the whole thing is magnificent.









Apparently the faded cigarette ad on this building was on the bricks that were part of the building in its original location. When it was rebuilt the image was still there and has not been painted.







The shops and houses have all of the artefacts from the period - it really is like you have gone back in time.

It is a very large site with lots to see. Traditional chain making, a coal mine that you can go down, an old garage and vehicles, and a very early steam pumping engine, and more buildings are being reconstructed.

If you get a chance GO.

Birmingham and Churchill

There is no connection between these two items. Birmingham first.

Sunday night Leopard and I were in the centre of Birmingham - about where the picture was taken from. It was really cool to be so close to the city centre - just 10 minutes walk away. I had never been to Birmingham before and didn't know what to expect. The city centre is quite small, enclosed by a ring road, and it is hilly so a three level shopping centre can be on street level on each level - very confusing. The place is very attractive with some great buildings. I especially liked the Hyatt hotel which is flat glass with some of the higher stories extended a little so they create additional shadows and reflections. It was a thundery evening and the reflection of the changing skies looked spectacular.


This was the first time I managed to get good evening photographs. The camera tries to make them look like daylight and I discovered that telling it to seriously under-expose the image gets the right effect. Of course it is essential to sit the camera on a wall or something to hold it rock steady for the long exposure. (Its too much trouble to carry a tripod around).

And now Churchill.

I am working my way through Winston Churchill's 6-volume history of the Second World War. I got volume 1 in a charity shop for £1 and fiund it so un-put-downable that I bought the rest of the set in a 2nd hand shop. About 2/3 or 1/2 of the books consist of re-printed memos that Churchill wrote before and during the war. I've no doubt Churchill, like anyone else, had a selective memory of events, and another raconteur might emphasise other issues. But I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that there was no one else who could have led Britain to victory. And the story is so much more vivid for being supported by "live" documents. If you have not already read it, try it.

Churchill was 66 when he became Prime Minister in May 1940. And not content with winning the war, he then went on to write a 6-volume history of it - which would have been enough of an achievement in itself for most people.

Kingswood Junction

This junction is where the Grand Union canal meets the Stratford-on-Avon canal. It was raining when I took the photo.

I am on my way towards Chester - though plans might change.

On Wednesday there were 23 locks over a distance of about 4 miles and when I leave here there will be about 20 more. So I am taking a break!

The photo was taken through a railway bridge. The trains are only about a boat length away, and sound like they are coming in the front door. The freight trains sound especially good. First there is a high pitched musical shhhh from the rails. And if you have heard swans flying, imagine large dragons. That's what each container sounds like as it roars past at 70 mph, making the boat shake at 4 am. In the old days of steam engines there would also have been fire.

Just past Warwick I saw three alpaccas in a field behind a house. I'd never seen alpaccas before. They look like live pipecleaners.

Philosophical musings

It took me a while, on the Oxford canal, to realize that the trip was different from a holiday. Usually when you are on holiday you have an agenda to follow - places to get to, things to see, things to do - that keeps you busy each day.

But when you really have no time constraint things are very different. When you get up in the morning (I like doing than but I know that others don't) you really don't have to go to the next village today. You could do it tomorrow, or the day after, or next week.

So then what do you do with your time? I think the answer is to distinguish between trip days and other days. What would you be doing if you were not on a trip? Well, do those things on the other days.

This is not as simple as it sounds. It is easy to be distracted by your strange surroundings, which look like holiday but have to be treated as home. And, of course, you may have forgotten to bring some essential item that you cannot easily get within walking distance of Allen's Lock. (I haven't got a bicycle yet, but even that is not ideal for collecting large sheets of plywood - especially if it is windy.)

The cat was in the Severn Valley Railway station at Kidderminster - making sure the visitors did not make off with one of the exhibits. (I went to Kidderminster by car, but it is on a canal, I believe.)

Fish and Batteries

The long delay is only partly due to poor internet access while I was traveling.

The most interesting technical thing on my trip on the Oxford canal was battery charging. After a lot of interesting surmises about complex problems I eventually came to the conclusion that my batteries are no good because they take far too long to recharge. The net effect was that I was running my engine for a few hours each day just to add current to the batteries at a rate of about 20 amps. At about 1 litre of diesel per hour that is expensive electricity. I am now searching for affordable new deep cycle batteries.

Another side of this puzzle is the large amount of power used by my inverter (to operate my 230v fridge freezer) even when the fridge is not running. I almost convinced myself that I should have paid the extra £400+ for a 12v fridge. But if I replace the batteries and need less generator hours the power saving from the 12v fridge will not justify the higher price.







The last few days have been very hot in Braunston and the fish have been swimming near the surface where you can see them. I have been amazed at the huge numbers - not just of tiny tiddlers, but also of medium and large fish. They are very hard to photograph as I don't have a polarizing lens for my camera. And there was one enormous fish - bigger than anything I have seen on a fishmongers slab.

Oxford cruise - Episode 2

I had thought that living on a narrowboat was "laid back" but, compared to cruising it is really hectic.

Cruising on a narrowboat gets you away from it all like nothing else I know. On the one hand, even though you are travelling at walking pace you need to concentrate on steering because the turns are tight and the banks are never far away.







On the other hand you are in open countryside, often with fields that run down to the canal without a fence or hedge. This brings farm animals very close, and you are all the time surrounded by birdsong, and ducks. At this time of the year there are mothers with clutches of tiny puff-balls of ducklings.

Even when you come to a mooring place - for example near a bridge with a pub, or a marina, you are still shielded from what used to be the real world - your world is bounded by the towpath.

So when I stepped up onto the street in Banbury the cars seemed like odd creatures - what are they for? why are they hurrying? where are they going?

While cruising you hardly ever see a car. The only regular transport machine is the train as the railway lines were often built close to the canals.

The village of Cropredy












Banbury Cross and a Squirrel

Oxford cruise - Episode 1

Leopard has started her first 2009 cruise - down the Oxford canal to Oxford and, possibly, up the Thames westwards to Lechlade. It depends on our humour at the time.

The only time constraint is that I want to be back in Braunston for the historic boat rally on 27 June.



The first picture shows us topping up with diesel at Braunston before leaving (on Sunday 10 May).







This is our first view of open countryside after Braunston.







And a view of a busy section of the canal.







Cows enjoying the sunshine. Do cows enjoy? It's not for nothing that "bovine" means what it does!









I have been surprised by the numbers of sheep and lambs in the fields. Coming from Ireland I had an image of the UK having a huge population and very little open countryside. But there seems to be at least as much agriculture as in Ireland.





And this is where we stopped for our first night - out in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually it was just after bridge 123 on the Oxford canal.

Wildlife and unrelated stuff

Here are some recent photos, in chronological order, for want of a better format.



First is Beaumaris Castle in Anglesey. It has a wonderful moate (I think there should be an 'e'). I drove around the north Anglesey coast to pass the time one evening and stopped to eat in Beaumaris. There was a wonderful contrast between the old-world castle - designed and built for military use, and the sinister modern bulk of Wilfa nuclear power station even though it was built for peaceful use.






These wild deer were in my brother's garden.






The rest of the pictures come from Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union Canal, where there is a very interesting museum about the canals. What's really nice is that the whole area is part of the museum. You are given an electronic gadget from which you can hear a description of the items and places as you walk around.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the blossom from this tree created a carpet on the ground and still left plenty for the tree itself.








I was amazed to discover that back in the day people had built a scales that could weigh a whole narrowboat. This device was not used at Stoke Bruerne and now sits in a disused lock. At one time there were a pair of locks to speed up the boat traffic.







This wire fox was one of a number of wire sculptures on the woodland walk.









Sorry, museum, but best of all at Stoke Bruerne were the tiny ducklings. One mother seemed to have about 12. They scooted around so swiftly that they looked like specks of dust blowing in a shaft of sunlight.

Bells and more trains

I have finally installed my Christmas present -- a duck doorbell.






I went to another railway exhibition with a friend last Saturday. These were large models for garden railways at a scale of 16mm to 1 foot or about 1:19 of full size. The exhibition was nearby at Stonleigh Park near Coventry. It was a very pleasant day out. There were many very detailed locomotives and rolling stock with many models of Irish narrow-gauge railways. It seemed strange to me, however, that the models of buildings and people were more like caricatures in contrast to the fine detail in the train models. In particular the stonework on many buildings was much too deeply grooved. When you look at a real stone or brick building, including those that are a couple of hundred years old (there are plenty of examples around here) the surface is almost smooth between the stones or bricks, and if you reduced everything to 1/19th of its size it would be perfectly well modelled by a flat printed surface. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos to illustrate the point.

Trains and Wales

I went to the London Festival of Railway Modelling last Saturday at Alexandra Palace. What a treat. As well as the place being spectacular there were so many wonderful models.




My favourite was a very small 00 gauge layout called Wansbeck Road. The landscaping was so very natural with a lot of trees giving a very rural look. The picture is a little blurry due to camera shake as I was not using the flash. The flash made the trees look very flat and unrealistic.






On the train on the way to London we passed a building with two vertical axis wind turbines, one of which was stationary. I must say I like the look of it and the simplicity of the concept - it does not matter which direction the wind is blowing from.




When I got home Saturday evening I discovered someone is interested in buying my catamaran so I set off for Holyhead on Sunday to see how it had survived the winter. This is the first winter that I was not living on it so I was a bit apprehensive about its condition. However I was delighted to find that the interior was perfectly clean and dry and the engines started without any trouble. Hopefully the buyer will like it when he sees it.





Sunday was a lovely fine day so I decided to go to Holyhead on the A5 over the Welsh mountains. The last time I tried that route it poured rain so it was hard to appreciate the scenery. Anyway on Sunday I made a short detour to see the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct which I hope to cross in Leopard at some stage.







Then towards the top of the mountain pass I came across a recue helicopter flying in the valley well below the leve of the hills. Of course it always takes so long to get the camera ready that you miss the shot you were aiming for.

A name and a fish

I've finally painted a name on my boat. And I have been able to get a picture of the whole boat, now that it's in its new berth.










Before Christmas we noticed a large fish was sleeping (do fish sleep? - well it was stationary, but not dead) in a shallow edge of the marina with its back and dorsal fin actually out of the water. The fish is a good 500mm long with a large girth. Someone said it is a mirror carp.

Interestingly it is back again, and this morning there was another fish alongside it. The other fish was not quite so long and was very slender with a long snout. I wonder if it was a young pike. Just after I got my first photograph it suddenly disappeared in a cloud of mud.

I find it difficult to get a good photo through the glare of the water surface, even though they seem easy to see with the naked eye. These pictures have been tinkered with using PaintShopPro to make the fish as visible as possible.

New view

I have moved to a new berth which is a longer walk from the marina facilities but has a wonderful view.

And I have officially changed the boat name to Leopard. The next problem is to put the name on it. Thankfully the old name (Arkansas) was not on it and does not have to be removed.

Electricity

I have just finished installing my Sterling Alternator to Battery Charger and my Sterling Power Management Panel.

The Alternator to Battery charger (A2B) is a clever device that tricks the alternator into producing more output in order to charge the batteries faster. It does this without any modifications to the alternator. And you can connect two alternators to it provided their total output is less than the max for the A2B.

The Power Management Panel (PMP) is a device that measures voltage and current and can calculate the number of amp-hours drawn from your battery. (These are pics from Sterling's website - the PMP is much smaller than the A2B).



A few months ago I installed a Sterling pure sine wave inverter-charger to keep my batteries topped up while I am connected to the marina shower power. The inverter-charger works very effectively as an uninterruptible power supply as it automatically starts generating 230v ac from the batteries if the shore power fails. I proved that it works by accidentally overloading the shore power which then tripped off. However I did not notice until the inverter started beeping because it was overloaded. The 2.5kW inverter continued providing over 3kW until I switched off one of my electric appliances. I presume it would eventually have shut down.

The purpose of all this electrical equipment is so I can enjoy 230v ac when I am not attached to shore power. To test my new installation I switched off the shore-power and turned on a fan heater. With the boat engine running it was comfortably able to provide 1kW and spare amps to continue charging the battery. As 1kW is 83 amps at 12v (and more when you allow for inverter inefficiency) it was clear that both 70 amp alternators were contributing. When I turned the heater up to 2kW the alternators could not cope and there was about 75 amp drawn from the batteries. However at that rate I should have enough battery capacity for about 2 hours usage, and I can't imagine wanting as much as 2kW for more than a few minutes a any time. (Needless to say I have no intention of driving the fan heater from the inverter - it was just used for test purposes.)

My main 230v demand will be a microwave, fridge and washing machine. I bought a regular 230v fridge/freezer rather than pay the exorbitant price for a 12v fridge.

I have installed the A2B so that I can re-wire the system back to its original state easily. I must write down how to do it while I still remember!

I also installed the inverter charger so that I can connect the shore power through the inverter-charger (the normal day-to-day situation) but I can also connect the shore power straight into the domestic 230v circuit.

I intend to put some sort of indicator in the saloon/kitchen area so I can easily see whether the shore power is working - so that I don't inadvertently use battery power.

It's in the back of my mind to have a mains socket in the boat that draws directly from the shore-power and never from the inverter. It would be useful, for example, to avoid accidentally heating water with battery power.

IKEA Ugh!

I visited IKEA in Coventry yesterday. I had never been to an IKEA store so I just went along to see if the hype is justified. All went fine while I toured the 6th (showroom) floor. After doing the full circuit back to the lifts I assumed I had seen all there was to see, but there seemed to be no exit. I asked one of the staff who said I had to go down to the next level. The stairs was nearby so off I went, only to discover lots more stuff on floor 5. However I quickly got tired of looking at stuff but I couldn't see any obvious exit. I followed the arrows on the floor for a bit, getting quite angry at this waste of time. Another member of staff pointed me through doors (by-passing some of the shop) to the top of a long 4 section escalator which just brought me to another floor. But at least there was now a lift nearby. After the usual delay the lift arrived - but it only went UP. I was really furious at this stage and had to ask a third person how to get to the exit. I told her I wouldn't be back just because it is so difficult to leave. I think it took about 15 minutes for me to calm down.

Evolution

I'm re-reading "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins. I have a very poor sense of the passage of time - for example did I do something last week or three weeks ago? Nevertheless it is mind-boggling to try to think about something that happened 18 million years ago (when humans and gibbons shared a common ancestor). And this is only a short distance into the book. It's a long book so I'm not sure if I will read it through completely for a second time.








Prior to this I re-read "The Selfish Gene". It seemed appropriate as this is the bi-centenary of Charles Darwin's birth. The selfish gene is a must-read for everyone so that we appreciate our place in the world.

Drawing and planning

I've spent a lot of time searching for suitable software to create dimensioned drawings. All of the CAD programs that I tried were too complex. For the amount of use I would get from them it would not have been worthwhile putting in the effort to learn how to use them. For years I have used Powerpoint to create simple diagrams. I know how to use it and it is easy to make complex shapes by combining simple squares and circles. And, unlike any of the paint programs, I can go back and change shapes at a later stage, and move things around.

More recently I have been using OpenOffice which is a free equivalent of Microsoft Office and which works with Windows and Linux. As well as having the equivalent of Powerpoint it comes with a Drawing program which works very similarly to Powerpoint (with squares, circles etc) but also allows you to set the scale of drawings, to add dimension lines and to have different layers. This is an example of the layout of my saloon.

This is only a 2-dimensional drawing product, but it's so easy to use. I have used it to do some detailed drawings that show the construction of pieces of woodwork allowing for the thickness of the material. I particularly like the fact that it works with squares or rectangles that represent solid pieces that you can move to different locations.

And, of course, it is free! You can usually find a copy of OpenOffice on the free CDs that come with computer magazines.

Tools, Moble Homes etc.

Last Sunday, 22nd February, I went to the National Boat Caravan and Outdoor Show at the National Exhibition Centre Birmingham. I drove to Rugby and got the train to Birmingham International station. The station is a short indoor walk away from the NEC and the cost of the train £6.40 and parking at Rugby £6.00 was about the same as I would have spent on petrol to drive all the way.

One hall was filled with motor caravans. Its amazing how they can pack them in so closely, but they have no interest for me.

The interesting stuff was on the small stands located around the walls. There were two stands demonstrating Fein tools. My Fein Multimaster does things that are just impossible otherwise - especially cutting access holes in awkward places without taking everything apart. The one in the picture has a sander attached. But the saws, like the one on the left, are really cool. Apart from some food the only thing I bought at the show was a new blade - like the one on the left!

There were a few narrowboats on show as well as a couple of widebeam boats. When you think of the size of narrowboats "a few" take up a lot of space. I was interested to see how the woodwork details were done, such as edges of panels, doors and shelves. Much of it is quite simple but carefully and evenly executed.

The other thing I wanted to look at was mobile homes. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea of buying one as a fixed base. However as I think about it now, the rationale may be less clear cut from my new base on a narrowboat as compared with when I was living on "Orange". I deliberately went in search of the cheapest one and I was amazed at what you get for £18,000. Ok this was a two bedroom version and a third bedroom would be a useful study or workshop for an extra £1,000. Why do people spend huge amounts on regular houses? Yes I know that the price of a house includes the site, and you would expect a house to last longer. But even if you bought a site I suspect you would still have money for a few mobile homes. And why are we paying now for benefits for future generations?

It’s interesting how mobile home parks at holiday resorts are solid well kept middle class enclaves. Whereas if I developed a field in, say, Maynooth as a mobile home park for affordable homes the general assumption is that it would become a dirty unkempt ghetto for the poor. Perhaps most of the attraction of expensive houses is the price rather than the accommodation, because the price excludes poor people. (Poor being universally defined as everyone who can afford less than me!)

There was a wonderful array of men demonstrating miracle products at the show. I have to confess to being impressed with a steam floor cleaner that seemed to clean with very little water. One has to remind oneself that it might just have been cleaning the things it is good at cleaning. There was another demonstration of a brush with rubber bristles that seemed miraculously to sweep hair and broken cornflakes out of a carpet. Another man was demonstrating cobalt tipped drills (or at least the good one he had in his drill) that had a lifetime guarantee. He was selling a box of assorted sizes for £40. I suspect I will have plenty of use for good drills, but £40 seemed too much of a gamble. I could see no sign of the manufacturers name or even a "respectable looking" business name that might lead you to think the guarantee would be honoured in 5 months time, never mind 5 years. On the other hand we all put our blind faith in the pin stripe suited and expensively logoed banks ...

Woodworking

I am quite confident of my ability to design and make functional items with wood. I had plenty of experience while building "Orange". However I have mo experience of the high precision and high quality finishes that are normal even in cheap furniture.

YouTube is a great place for instructional videos. I have learned about drawer and cabinet construction and fitting zip fasteners to cushion covers.

Two things became very obvious from the wood working videos. The carefully matched sizes of cabinet parts are the result of all the parts being cut on a table saw at the same setting or cut with a router working against a template. And achieving quality finished edges involves a lot of waste - for example edges may be cut close to final size and then finished off with a router.


I don’t have the space for a table saw, even though as with most machine tools, they are relatively inexpensive. I did buy a Wolfcraft Mastercut workbench which is a combination of a wood-working table and a saw table. It can take a circular saw, a jigsaw or a router. I also bought a cheap circular saw. (It was a lot cheaper than going back to Ireland to collect my old saw). The workbench folds to a reasonable size, perhaps not as small as I would have liked. Assuming I make my drawer fronts, and charge the full cost of the workbench to them, they will still be cheaper than bought fronts.

The workbench has proved very useful. It is a comfortable height and very solid when assembled. Its first job was as a sewing machine table for making the cushion covers. And, while it took some time to set up the guide rails to the right size, cutting the under-bed drawer fronts all exactly the same size only took a few minutes.

Style and decoration

The business of making drawer fronts brings up both the question of good quality woodwork and the question of interior style and decoration.

Most narrowboat interiors are finished all over with wood panelling and built-in wooden storage and furnishings. In most cases there is a very high standard of wood-fitting and finishing. The woodwork usually consists of veneered plywood trimmed with solid wood strips. Colours range from dark oak through lighter ash and very pale maple. My boat is mostly panelled with oak faced ply but has no wood trim.

However getting veneered plywood is not simple. It is very easy to get regular plywood from B&Q who will also cut large sheets into manageable, or even final sizes (provided you are content with rectangles). But they don’t sell oak faced ply or oak timber. I have located a supplier of oak faced ply near Northampton (which is about 15 miles away), but they only supply whole sheets. And I have found a supplier of oak (and other good wood) near Weedon which is on the way to Northampton. However they only stock rough boards and cut and plane strips to order.

Part of the problem is that I am not good at detailed planning for the timber I need, nor do I have the space to store large quantities of timber. The marina has a workshop and is quite willing to cut plywood sheets for me if I get them delivered. But it would be expensive to get sheets delivered one or two at a time. And even then there would be a time-lag between ordering and delivery which I am not good at dealing with.

The other part of the problem is that I have not decided what I want to do, and I’m not sure exactly how to achieve a good finish. Which brings me back to the leopard pattern seat covers. They have a nice hint of art-deco and that has got me wondering whether I actually want to develop all the unfinished parts of the boat in wood. Perhaps paint and wallpaper would be more interesting. It’s a long time since I looked at wallpaper and the local Focus hardware store has some spectacular designs that could make great feature panels. One roll would go a very long way.

Due to all this design uncertainty I have decided for now to develop the various woodwork items using B&Q plywood. At a later stage it would not be that wasteful to rebuild the items with oak faced plywood, or to cover them with an additional layer of oak faced ply. (Oak veneer sheets seem to be just as expensive as oak faced plywood, so gluing veneer to the plain plywood is not a realistic option.)

Storage

When I bought the boat there was a serious shortage of storage space. And this seems to be true of most of the narrowboat designs. Of course leaving out essential storage gives a great sense of space for show purposes. I was lucky to get a couple of "as new" Argos type book shelves very cheaply at the Daventry recycling centre and I bought some cheap Argos bedroom drawer units. The reduced kitchen has also freed up a unit for storage in the saloon area, and most usefully it provides a much needed shelf top in the saloon - somewhere to leave down a book or a laptop.

I have a major criticism of the normal kitchen units as sold by B&Q, Homebase etc. The under-counter cupboard units are a very inefficient use of space. They come with one internal shelf that is much shorter than the depth of the unit. So unless you have some very tall items the space at the front of the unit is useless. Also if you do fill as much of the space as you can it is very difficult to reach things at the back.

Drawers solve the access problem very nicely by bringing the items out where you can see them. But the standard drawer layout has one shallow drawer and two deep drawers in each unit. And unless you seek out very expensive drawer units the actual sides of the drawer itself are shallow so you cannot fill them with small items to the full height of the drawer front, The solution seemed to be to buy some extra drawers and convert the two deep drawers to three shallower, but more useful drawers. Life is never so simple however. B&Q sells the drawers individually but the drawer fronts only come in packs of 3 - one small and two large.

So I have decided that I will make my own drawer fronts and matching cabinet doors for the few that must remain as cupboards.

At this stage I have built B&Q drawers under my bed to provide storage for my tools and related bits and pieces. I have used the exercise to learn about making drawer fronts. And the drawers are such an improvement over the plastic boxes that they replaced.