July 2005 update

We had a minor hiccup in Bluebells progress when Dave, who has done power of work on her, decided to take a  rest form the Society. However, Iain (Street) and Ian (McDougall) formed themselves into a  partnership to take charge of the rest of the  restoration. This meant that Iain moved "inside" and left the engine bits till later, although he did make new deck boards which have been treated and are ready to go down. There was great excitement on the day the exhaust finally agreed to be separated from the engine and a new one is under construction in the Street workshop. Inside , the 12v wiring has been done, the lights fitted  and some less obvious bits and pieces like attaching strapping to attach the front and rear panelling.

We were now at the stage where we needed power to do various jobs and one of our members, Gordon Bow came up trumps by lending us a generator which can produce 110 or 240 power. This has made a big difference to what we can tackle and we are very grateful to Gordon for helping us out again.

It was agreed that the windows should be put in for the last time and with the help of the generator it should have been easier to drill the holes and put in the 20 screws needed in each window. However, this was not as easy as it at first seemed and after struggling with a couple of windows, Peter, a new member, came up with a type of screw which none of us had seen before. it actually drills it's own hole as you screw it in - to metal. Very impressive. Peter was tasked with obtaining a supply of these and hopefully the windows will go in never to come out again. The windows which had been fully screwed in leaked when we were washing the boat and this indicates that the seal is not working properly. Not surprising really, when the windows have been in and out so often. This will be solved by applying silicon sealer after the windows are all in.

I mentioned before that I was speaking to  a team of volunteers from the Volunteer Centre in Bathgate about sanding and painting the outside of Bluebell. We continued to have phone conversations about the job and Paul, the coordinator of the group, came out to see what was involved. Far from being put off by the task, he was keener than ever and we arranged for him and his team to come along for a couple of days. However, before they could come, I had to get hold of 110v sanders etc and at this point I discovered that Keyline hire out equipment.  They have a store very near Bluebells mooring and I have become a regular visitor to them for all sorts of bits and pieces. We have now come to an arrangement about discounted prices!

Paul and his team of volunteers duly arrived and after a safety talk from Billy of British Waterways, we got to work with sanders and angle grinders. Peter and I worked along side and we had a lot of  laughs along the way. After two days, we had sanded the roof and both sides and given it all a coat of primer and the roof a coat of primer and undercoat. Bluebell was now greybell! On the Saturday, the members continued sanding etc and got the bows and stern ready for undercoating. All we needed now was paint but boat paint is expensive. I had started speaking to International Paints, who are one of the biggest suppliers of boat paints some weeks before and they came up trumps. They donated enough paint to paint the boat several times over and still have enough left  to do touch up work for years to come. 

Here are some photos of progress.