The red light zone

The red light zone

Email this entry | Print this entry May 16 2007, 01:07 PM

SO we've had a couple of weeks of rain, its been wetter than an otters pocket and all Ive heard is grumbles from people around me that they cant go outside to play.

Ha! well, what they need is a sewing machine, a nice dry and bright cratch area to sit in and a few yards of fancy fabric.

Yes, Ive been busy, beavering away at my latest boaty improvements. While Yann folded himself into two and painted out half of the engine room with a much cleaner looking grey Danboline I set up my workshop up front.

A few weeks ago we had a fabric shopping trip to the boulevard in Southall, its THE place to go for beautiful fabrics, especially silk.
The livingroom is going to be RED. In fact I found some fairly cheap fabric at £7 a meter for the livingroom. It feels lovely and the colour is so rich I feel like I could dive right in there and swim around.
Now cutting fabrics for curtains takes up a fair bit of space so naturally Ive been using the bed as my work bench. being careful with my pins, although I did accidentally throw them all over the bed at one point....

The thing about narrowboats, unlike proper seagoing boats is that their windows are quite uniform. they dont taper, they dont go off at a slant, they just sit there squarely and make life very easy indeed for a curtain maker.

4 identical curtains, make up two windows in the livingroom. I think they must be perhaps some of the easiest lined curtains ive ever made. The silk needs to be protected from sunlight as far as possible so ive lined them with a decent weight cotton in a matching colour.

I put them up on sunday night and the light on monday morning in the livingroom was fantastic, it was a very dark ambient red. A perfect red light zone.

Im planning on a set of yellow ones for the bedroom so it is sunshine start to everyday in there.

then I have a huge curtain ( by narrowboat standards) to hang as a seperating curtain between kitchen and livingroom.

before that though Im off to France for a week of camping. The boat just isn't basic enough, I need to go back to nature for a week to chill out and get away from the smelly world of inner M25 living.

NB... note to self, next time count the pins you put in the curtains and count them as they come out.... finding pins by getting them stuck in your arse as you sleep isn't the best way.

EUREEKA!

There's been lots of singing and dancing. jumping up and down and rejoicing to the sound of the holy Beta marine, puffing the peace pipe of diesel and clinking glasses of bubbly french bevarage, to say thanks dad.

what am I on about?

we only got our bloody alternator working after five months... that's what!

ok, so we only realised it wasn't working when we left our marina mooring a month or so ago, but we've been trying hard to solve the problem since then.
I'm fairly mechanically minded and so is Mr X, but neither of us know much about alternators or how they work. ( or should I say knew, because now I think I'm bordering on hexspert)

So after we discovered it wasn't charging I got on 'tinternet and started researching.
I read quite a lot of useful information and we started to work our way around the system, there was many calls to my dad who is considerably more patient when it comes to problem solving and much much more knowledgeable of electrical systems. Unfortunately he is nearly 180 miles away.

so it started thus:
- I ordered a new alternator, a more powerful one as we want to add another battery and this seemed like the opportune moment to do so.
- after some net research I looked at the warning lamp bulb to make sure it had a good connection, cleaned the contacts and put it back
- Mr X cleaned every battery connection, replaced spade connectors that were loose and cleaned all earth connections.
- we fitted the new alternator
- still no charge
- we put the old alternator back on
- still no charge
- back to the start we checked all the wires, one by one running from the control panel through the loom to the engine.
all checked out ok, except we noticed the start relay wasn't closing. it would sometimes, but not others.
- a new relay fitted
- still no charge
- more calls to my dad and more discussion about the warning lamp bulb. I said it was the first thing i looked at and its seems to be working ok. so he suggested we try to short the circuit across the back of the bulb to give us a shot of un-resisted flow...
BINGO, the alternator started charging.
- Problem solved, all we needed was a bigger bulb! a trip to the nearest motor spares shop came up with a 4watt bulb, priced £2

now we've fitted our new 65amp alternator and this bad boy really does charge the batteries well. So well in fact it's almost like being hooked up to the mains power.

next job on the list: fix the leaking boiler.