Just linkin three threads

[normspanners]

Two threads made me think of a tenuous link sorry three threads
One was a member wanted to move sumat heavy through a small garage door and then talkin about tight door hinges , then tenuous links thread
I had to get this weighing in at 19 ton and 68 ft long
through a garage door -------it was a little tight so tight I had to---quote Michael Cain, BLOW THE BLOODY DOORS OFF,
this had to done by hand on rollers, my two toe jacks and a trolly jack coz we could'nt get the fork lift in.
we wanted to make it 70 ft but the workshop corner to corner would only let us make it 68ft
if you look I did scratch the bow a little on the corner of the wall

 

[normspanners]

All that was done with two and a half people, Then a crane and a truck driver helped a little, once outside we could get the small crane in the alcove on the left to it,

I could have used my truck but didnt have an extender trailer !
one of the hardest jobs was getting the truck out of the yard after extending the trailer.
I must say I was a little tired but happy at the end of that day when it was sat on its sleepers in the yd 20mls away !

 

[KemppiFrog]

Very impressive Norman
What is it going to be used for? I ask, as it has few openings. I know there are a couple of commercial boats used to sell coal on the waterways.
KF

 

[normspanners]

That is just the shell it is for my mate to live on, the few openings are the safety hatches and the engine room which is at the front.
It will have windows we have them now inside the boat wrapped up I will cut the holes out later but it is safer as it is, both security and from a work aspect, plus the strength for transportation.

 

[chunkolini]

Nice work, a very tight fit.
I bet there was an air of relief when it came out in one piece.

 

[Wallace]

Fantastic build, how long did it take Norm?

 

[normspanners]

There was two, doing the welding, about 4 -5 mths I have not made a boat before, so had to learn the hard way, they (boat builders) usually start with the base plate on the floor and work up,
biggest job was the floor was not flat, prob about 5' out! so I had to think of a way to make sure it was straight and true so made two BIG tressles with slotted holes drilled in the horizontal beam but in the vertical plane, the tressles went across the boat, then welded vert 20mm studs to each of the side plates (which is 8mm thick) at the top corners then I could hang them from the tressles but adjust their position in all planes, including side to side, the base plate 12mm thick was then lifted up underneath to the side plates, tack welded then wedged/shimmed from under to take the weight. The studs could then be relaxed thus it didnt drop at all, then we could move to the next plates line up and level to and off the first set of plates which was now solid. and forming the Hull.
The whole boat is no more than a mm out, if you look along the gunnel on one of the pictures you can get an idea. Very difficult not to allow it to twist with the weld pull. coz its abit big to make a jig!
I was not happy with the crane driver though he turned up with no lifting frame to keep the strops apart and if again you look at the picture how close the strops where to each other. that meant we had about 8ton hanging 28 ft from either bow /stern to the strops, there is a 4cyl lister water cooled engine right at the front that weighs about a ton!, plus a lot of crushing force on the top of the gunnel !! they should have a large rectangular frame to attatch the strops too, then the sets of 'brothers' ( equal length chains)
But thankfully the shell seemed to stand it ok .
It had to because it was all organized to be done on a Sunday when everything was quiet in the yard and town.

 

[normspanners]

I bet there was an air of relief when it came out in one piece.

I dont know about an air of relief but there was a funny smell in the air when he first lifted it to find the point of balance !!coz the stern was still in the building.

 

[ibrooks]

There used to be an outfit in Darwen that took old buses and coaches and re-fitted them as mobile accommodation and the like (tour buses for bands was a common one but they also did some of the mobile libraries). My uncle was made redundant at the time they were working and one of the jobs he got short-term to keep the money coming in was night-watchman at their place. They had got hold of a narrow-boat shell and decided to "have a go". It was delivered whilst they were having a new roof put on the workshop and the crane operator "simply" dropped it through the hole. Bright sparks that they were though they hadn't checked that they could get it out of the doors - they couldn't. It was advertised for sale silly cheap for some years but you had to remove it and make good any damage to the building afterwards.

I never did find out if it actually came out or if it might still be there along the back wall of the building.

Iain

 

[KemppiFrog]

The old man used to design and sell kits for small sailing boats in the 50/60s. There were quite a few pictures sent to us of hulls coming out of upstairs windows, often with the window frame having been removed after 'miss culculations'. But nothing on the scale of this.
KF

 

[julianthegypsy]

The guys I rent my unit from make narrowboat shells full time. They shunt them around on an old truck axle at one end and a forklift at the other. They always use the same crane company, all the boaters round here use them, and they neve use a frame to spread the strops, it made me cringe the first time I saw it! They've scaled back a bit recently, but at one point there were four of them knocking out a good quality 70 foot shell every two weeks, that was something to watch!

 

[normspanners]

Yeah I have seen some of the other boats people have made, no disrespect to your landlords but most of them, build them to a price with 6mm sides and 8 or10mm base plates single welded etc etc and hardly a square angle anywhere. If you look at ours it is hard to see a panel join anywhere it was veed and double welded either side of every seam with nowhere for rust lines to get a hold, it is built to last.
Also some of them need a 10 deg rudder angle for the boat to go down a straight cut
there is a lot of time spent thinking about the job.
It is going to have hydrostatic transmission and the engine at the front so that you are 60ft away from the noise and vibration but the engine will only run at just over tickover and the speed will be controlled by the hydraulics, the coupling for the hydrostatic pump can be disconnected and then the 8-10 kw generator can be used for washing heating welding etc without running the pump it will have a smaller diesel generator with 110vac head 240ac head 24vdc and 12vdc outputs just for everyday living and battery charging without running the main engine, we plan to have a forklift type battery bank that can also power the hydraulics for moving through locks etc or if you just need to move up a mooring in stealth mode, the other reason for the disconnecting the transmission is so that generating can be done with red diesel but driving the boat has to be done on white, unless of course it is run on electricity! So it has two fuel tanks.
even the central heating pump runs off compressed air totally silently, you just have to build up the tank during the day for ten minutes and it runs all night on one tank without having to deep discharge batteries that then take hrs to recharge.

 

[ibrooks]

Miscalculations!

A guy in the kit car club built a chassis (possibly a locost) in his cellar. There was much ribbing from friends, family and colleagues along the lines of "you'll never get it out of there". He had done all the measuring and knew how far he could go in the construction and still get it up the steps and through the door into the living room and he did that with no problems. Unfortunately he hadn't accounted for the fact that it wouldn't go past the kitchen units to go out the back door and into the back garden and he couldn't turn it to go down the hallway and out the front door.

He said he did seriously debate taking the window out of the living room and getting it out through there and saying nothing but his wife put her foot down with a firm hand.

It went back down into the cellar to be cut in half before it came back up in two parts to go out into the back garden to be welded back together and completed. Personally I respect him having the stones to admit it - I would have kept quiet until it was out and back together before acting smug and telling everyone it was no problem getting it out.

Iain

 

[Wallace]

A friends Mother told me about her Uncle who built a built a car in his back garden workshop. In the time he took to build the car a whole housing estate had been built in the fields he planned to drive through to the road! Had to be dismantled to a chassis and go down the passageway sideways.

 

[ibrooks]

There was that TV series - kitcar crisis. The guy built a car in a shed in his back garden with the full knowledge that he would need to have it craned over the house to get it to the road. It wasn't that part that got me so much as some of the other stupid things he did.

I wish I could get paid for doing something like that - I know for a fact that I can do a far better job of the end product than he managed.

Iain

 

[MrFluffy]

I had a friend who built a motorbike in his 16th storey flat once. We had to stand it up on end and hold it vertical in the tiny lift to get it out (strictly forbidden, tiny people only lift...) and there was apparently cctv footage with some familiar faces next to a headlight when the tapes were reviewed.