Petestack Blog

27 May 2018

The Cell of ‘Little Ease’

Filed under: Sailing — admin @ 3:00 pm

Long ago, at primary school, we learned of Guy Fawkes being imprisoned in the cell of ‘Little Ease’ (which I recall first hearing as the cell of little ‘e’s!)… a space too small to stand, lie down or even sit comfortably. I’ve thought of it many times while trying to paint Fly’s heads compartment, where relatively quick-drying primer and undercoat have been awkward enough, but sticky gloss unsurprisingly proved more testing yet. Not necessarily ‘torture’ in normal use, but the stuff of nightmares when needing to brace yourself against surfaces you might or might not be able to touch, access a paint tin you might or might not be able to put down, and get past your own body to paint what you might or might not be able to reach or see properly:

So nothing’s perfect when neither physically awkward working conditions nor the impossibility of keeping air, surfaces or brushes 100% particle-free allow it to be, but it looks OK in the photos and at least it’s white in real life unlike that almost pink sunlit glow you see above! Forecabin painting/varnishing’s done too, if no better and not that much more easily than the cell of little ease (the unaccountably missed splash of white paint on the varnished bulkhead will be sorted!):

And the port partial bulkhead and shelf edges are varnished, but not yet the main bulkhead facing (still pending more galley/battery locker work before it can be done in a single sweep):

15 May 2018

Two-man relay team?

Filed under: Sailing — admin @ 10:15 pm

What you’re seeing in tonight’s blog is nav. shelf fitting and cool box construction done by Twig mostly when I wasn’t here, but I’ve also got plenty to do while he’s elsewhere, so still good teamwork!

The new shelves for the navigation area are now fitted and edged, but remember there’s also a folding chart table to shut these off as securely as a cupboard door:

The space behind the (currently absent) sink is now turning into a useful cool box with floor raised above the waterline and drain (visible in the third but not fourth photo) to join the sink outlet before the galley seacock:

And here’s a couple of more general cabin shots to show how the above all fits into the wider picture:

We’ve also got two of the three seacocks apart for overhauling as described on the Impala site (the galley seacock still awaits dismantling), and I’ve still got enough surface preparation, painting and varnishing to keep me busy for, ahem, a while yet… ;-)

10 May 2018

Just doing

Filed under: Sailing — admin @ 8:56 pm

No undoing to report tonight, so just more satisfactory doing…

Twig was here again last Friday, when we had the folding chart table back in the boat to check its pivot points and spent some time adjusting these (clearly not right before!) to get it to sit parallel to the main bulkhead before starting work on new shelves to go behind it. These will be bigger than before because we’ve decided to make the table fold vertically instead of in line with the pilot berths’ folding fronts (which double as settee backs), but that lower shelf’s currently just dry-fitted and not sitting quite right because I knocked the clamp holding its support when I was painting the heads again on Sunday (we’ll sort that tomorrow):

This shot of the galley shows where the cool box will be built (sink fits to left, cool box to right, and cooker to front, all as you look at the photo):

And the satin-varnished wood is looking better now I’ve got to grips with how this particular varnish handles. I’ve got three coats (done Monday, Tuesday and tonight) on the companionway bulkhead facing and engine box since the previous weekend’s ‘undoing’, but note some of the engine box was stripped right back and some wasn’t, so the non-slip area on top (which was) still needs restoring to match the lower one. And the chart table in the background is one of many parts still awaiting stripping and refinishing:

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