Table at home

Didn't get out to the carriage this weekend but I did get to work on the dining table at home. You may recall that a few weeks ago I strapped it to my trailer to try and take a warp out of it and to pull in some of the edge pieces that had begun to separate. The strapping seems to have worked taking out most of the warp and pulling the edges in considerably.

The strapping had pulled in the edges and closed the gaps I'd recut the other week

Brass slot-head screws pulled the edges in further and will hold them there

I recut the open joins to even them up a bit

Filled and sanded, the results are pleasing

At this stage I've only sanded the top surface and wiped it over with turps but the beauty of the Silky Oak shines through

That last caption belies the fact that it took two and a half hours of sanding to bring the surface back to fresh timber!

Toplights and table

This last weekend was a short visit on a hot day to finish off the job I had started the week before. I also took some work home with me!

First up, fill the hole from last week where the rot was with builder's bog

 

 

The bog sets quickly allowing sanding off

A new section of 9mm quad is added, held in place by acrylic sealant

Then a good coat of 3-in-1 and the whole area is as good as new!

Some time spent with an old chisel and sander cleaned up the area surrounding both toplights before the whole lot was sealed with 3-in-1.

My home work was taking the dining table out and doing some remedial work on it. I build this table several years ago from a solid slab of silky oak that a mate gave me. Despite some elaborate devices on the underside, it has warped since I installed it. So, as part of the renovations of the dining area, I'm trying to straighten the warp and generally refurbish the piece.

Dewarping by strapping the table top to my trailer with chocks underneath running against the warp.

The warping has cause the edge pieces to come out of shape and open up so I recut the corners and have the errant pieces strapped back into place.

This is just the start of the table refurbishment. After she has been strapped down for a while, I'll screw in the edges to tighten it all up then strip the upper surfaces, refill joints and cracks and revarnish the whole lot.

More rot

It's been a while (again), sorry about that! But I managed to get out to the Old Girl last Sunday and have a bit of a tinker.

The dining area with a freshly painted ceiling and bulkheads wrapped for protection

First up I finished off the ceiling in the dining area and began sanding and repainting the western wall. Then I thought I should investigate a couple of leaks on the other side...

A bit of attention with the sander and the problems were quickly identified

I had noticed on a previous visit after some rain that water had collected on the inside sills of these two windows so I set about looking for where the water could be getting in.

The hole left after the rot was cut out

 The corner of one top light was hiding a nasty bit of rot that had to be dug out.

The cracked drop light

 On the other window the drop light had cracked in one corner and so needed patching up

Sitting in her undies

I was able to patch the minor cracks but didn't have the tools or goo needed to fill the hole where the rot had been so I slapped around some 3-in-one (primer-sealer-undercoat) to protect the exposed timber and glued a piece of plastic over the hole to protect it from damp. Not expecting any rain this week, in fact there's a bit of a heat wave happening, so it should stay all nice and dry until I can get back at her next Sunday.

A quickie

Plans for a full day painting and fiddling around on board were thwarted by hot and not very pleasant conditions. But having driven all the way out to visit Clarabelle, I had to do something to justify the trip. So I plumbed in the waste water pipes for the pull-down sink.

This has taken far too long and too many trips to the hardware store trying to get the bits to fit together and do the job. That's what happens when you try and plumb in non-standard fittings in imperial sizes using modern metric pipework! But all's well that ends well; it works!

OK, I'm not the world's neatest plumber, but it does the job

More ceiling work

My posts have become even more erratic of late because of computer problems not allowing me to post pictures. Now fixed, I can provide an update back-dated by two weeks!

An opportunity to spend the night on board with my son Chester and this is what we woke up to.

Morning from my bed on board

That meant lots of time to work on the ceiling of the dining area, which is where I left off last time I went out. I got to attach the light fitting and get on an undercoat and top coat.

The left half just has undercoat on while the right has one coat of top coat

It's a messy business so lots of drop sheets stuck to the walls to protect them from errant paint.  Here I've started peeling back the drop sheets to paint the brown areas above the bulkheads.

Of course the most important part of this picture is the coffee pot - I don't know where I'd be without good coffee out there!

A completed top coat and the new light fitting - I didn't have the special tool to close the damn thing!

Happy and proud, spattered in paint and with a very sore neck.

Restart the dining area

It really seems I have less and less time for Clarabelle these days but I did manage to spend half of Saturday out at St Kilda having a bit of a fiddle.

I'd decided that I was getting bored with the bathroom so thought I would divert my attention to the dining area for a while. This needs to be finished off so the first step was to strip out the seats and table to clear the area.

The dining area with the seats and table stripped out

I spent quite a bit of time fitting a glass into the right light fitting. This was not as straight forward as I had hoped with there being very close tolerances between the glass and the surrounds so I had to spend some time and effort chipping out some ancient putty that was preventing the whole thing from sitting properly. I left it like this with some new acrylic sealant setting the glass into the surround ready for mounting in the ceiling next time I go out.

Glass fitted to the correct base. These are becoming very difficult to come by and I still need a few more. Please contact me if you have one!

I also took a chisel to the old paintwork in the ceiling. Multiple layers of paint over the years masks some nice detail that can be easily scraped back to an approximation of its former glory. A messy job with lots of flecks of paint flying around the joint but the end result will be worth it.

Detail where I've scraped the paint out of some channels in the ceiling. A messy job but worth the effort.

Finding a short

This weekend was mostly fixing up a mistake from a couple of weeks ago when my mate Sol installed some lights in the bathroom. They looked great but, at the end of the day, somehow we had created a short in the system. There was no time to sort it out then so agreed to meet there yesterday and get to the bottom of it.

... and it was my fault! Turns out that a screw I had used for a light switch was too long and it pierced the wiring behind creating the short. That sorted we were able to tidy up the new lights and switch, almost finishing the installation of the western wall in the bathroom

Finished and tidied up - and looking good even if I do say so myself!