Progress on shell

This is the progress of the boat shell as at 3 August 2012 ...

Shell progress of June 2012

Here is the engine attached to temporary engine beds, which will shortly be lowered into position on its permanent hardwood beds (which are built transversely according to the Kelvin requirements).

The above picture shows the dollies and rudder stock.  Note the attention to detail on the dollies and the way that they are mounted through the steel work via the small plinth.
  

Above is the renowned Norton Canes rudder stock cap ... or whatever the official name is for it! ... which looks fabulous.

Here is the boat rudder, which is a huge piece of steel but which is balanced superbly ... and it's no coincidence, this is the result of a great deal of boatbuilding experience and skill.  Note also the solid bar section which forms the skeg.

The engine heads to Norton Canes

The picture on the left shows the engine packed and ready for the journey to Norton Canes, which took place at the end of May 2012.  It wasn't an easy job as the engine hoist wasn't anywhere near big enough, but with the skills of the father-in-law we managed to get the engine to the yard (also courtesy of a trailer from Barlows Trailers)

This shows the gearbox linkage system which Dick has rigged up for the engine.  I tried to find the original casting and rang Seward Engineering but, not surprisingly, they didn't have one in stock!  Dick's arrangement, once painted, will look the part and will do the job really well.

Here's the engine with the gear linkage system, which of course allows the engine to be moved forward and reverse from trad controls at the rear of the boat.

The shell begins to take shape ...

We visited Norton Canes on 28 May 2012 to drop the engine off with Graham and Tony, and to take a look at progress with the shell.  The pictures below show the current state of play, with a nice close up of the counter (and great picture of Tony!):

Engine renovation nears completion

Things tend not to go exactly to plan with Kelvin renovations, and our engine was just the same with some trials and tribulations especially with water leaks from water pipes.  Luckily, Dick Goble had a solution which I sincerely hope will cure the problem and seal the leaks once and for all.  This was to add small spigotted flanges (if that's the appropriate term) to each of the cylinder inlets, in order to replace the damaged and pitted faces.  There are a few pictures below:

The pitted cylinder inlet face

As you can see from the picture, the inlet (or are they outlet?) faces on the cylinders were pitted quite badly, which caused difficulty in achieving a water tight seal.  As well as the small spigotted flanges, we used "milliput" to fill some of the bigger pits in the face, and a decent gasket also of course, to produce a good "sandwich" which will hopefully seal well.

Here are also some pictures of the engine packed up and ready for the transit to Norton Canes, which took place on Monday 28 May 2012, using a hired horse box! from Barlows Trailers and lots of pushing and shoving with the engine hoist!

First shell pictures

This post will be a bit of a catch-up for a few weeks, as we have seen the shell start to be built and the engine renovation having been completed as far as possible.


First for the shell, and it's Norton Canes tug style shell, built by Graham Edgson and Tony Bate at Pelsall, at 60' length.  The early stages of the shell have now been completed as per the first real visit early in May 2012.  Whilst it is early days, you can already see the fine steelwork and super lines of the NC build.  The bow has a 5'6" section, together with an 8' tug deck, you can see that the lines will be wonderful at the front.

  

Recon to gearbox ...

The rebuild and refurb of the engine has progressed in recenrt weeks, with the main jobs being the reconditioning of the gearbox and the removal of the cylinder heads so that they can be cleaned and refurbished.  The gearbox on my J3 is the steel on steel type ... some come with ferodo lining on the facings ... and the work has involved putting new chains within the gearbox which hopefully will last a long time into the future!  The output shaft from the gearbox has also been machined back to the original size (which I believe is 1 and five-eighths of an inch), as in the attached photograph:



The small sprocket in the photograph is, of course, used to connect - by chain - to the forward and reverse gearwheel which will be at the back for the steerer (connected via a rod and rack and pinion).