Katona

Hello! Happy warm weather again.

This week, more bedroom trim. I’ve now done most of it, but it’s like playing pick-up sticks and I can only do a few pieces each time while the glue dries:

For the lighting coves I was planning to also glue them, but curving and holding those in place is frustrating so I’ve ordered some more screws.

This afternoon I was about to panel the bathroom ceiling to feel some progress, but then remembered I need to run wiring and pipes above it first… focus, Nicholas! Thankfully the bedroom’s almost done; I can feel the pull of starting the next thing.

Yesterday, Saturday, I took a hiatus to check out Katona’s competition at the Southampton Boat Show. Only expecting to find the sea-faring kind, I was surprised near the entrance to find the one-and-only narrowboat!

The rest were indeed yachts and motorboats:

A bowsprit on Katona and I could sink them all, they wouldn’t stand a chance (but I couldn’t stand a wave).

We dallied awhile with the owner of a semi-custom Rustler 42; beautifully fitted-out, he involved himself throughout the 2-year build and knew the boat inside-out. One of the day’s highlights, and I did like the control panels:

And then we found this speedy-looking red yacht, possibly Katona’s cousin:

A “fast family cruiser,” it looked fancy but I wouldn’t call it cosy — inside it was modern and quite minimalist, nothing homely about it. Not even a fireplace.

Back to (narrow-)boating today, and the marina heron taking flight:

Until next Sunday!

- Nick

Sunday already?! Golly, after the flurry of woodwork last weekend, it was another of those “have fun programming” weeks.

Buuut on Thursday my new mattress arrived; 4 inches of Reflex Superior™ foam with a 2 inch memory foam layer on top, super king. It’s a rectangle I need to fit in triangular space, so I’ll need a dab hand with a sharp knife. And frankly it’s still wrapped, clean in plastic while I procrastinate on the next job: wood trim.

The edges and corners needed something for a tidy and to cover the gaps, so I’ve gone with a Scotia beading:

B&Q’s finest pine, and I wanted these in before varnishing. Also the lights depend on them — I have a different moulding designed for skirting boards with a little “cove” for the LED strips, which I’ll run just below the ceiling and gunwale. You can see the hole for the wire below the corner above, expertly drilled from the other side.

It’s been another one of those “Pfft, just an afternoon” jobs which I completely mis-judged; there are 3-way mitre joins everywhere, and at weird angles — this isn’t a square box with neat 90° corners.

Finally, I decided that I’m moving off the boat. Waking up one cold morning in my sleeping bag, for the 8th week in a row, I was overcome by a deep sense of “fuck this”. At first I was planning to find an apartment or house-share nearby, but then on Saturday my neighbours knocked to offer me their boat(!!!).

Travelling from mid-October until early June, initially they planned for friends to look after their cat and turn the heating on each week, but then they discovered I was available on the vaga-bond market. One of those true win-wins: they’re happy their boat sees life with a loved cat and thriving plants; I get a cosy home with my workshop 30 seconds away, one pontoon over.

It’s gonna be a hot guy winter.

Until then I shall wander: house-sitting, Airbnb’ing and a little travelling. After I had the thought and started dreaming about hot running water, a warm bed and sawdust-free clothes, it was game over. Tonight is my last sleep on this dusty floor, and I’m so excited for tomorrow.

Until next Sunday!

- Nick

Hello, and happy September!

Also, happy 52nd blog post; a year of updates, with a winter hiatus. In those terms we’re definitely past halfway — I don’t think I’ll get to 100 posts before finishing. Then again, I’m terrible at predicting timescales so ignore me.

On Monday I spent 2 hours figuring out which lights to get, with the sweet release of closing every tab after ordering. I’m doing cove lighting — LED strips hidden from view — in the top corners and under the gunwales. A space the size of my bedroom would need around 1000-1500 lumens, but indirect lighting needs more. Nerds of the internet have opinions, but somewhere between 15-20k lumens, depending on which nerd you ask.

Because it’s a narrower space I’ve gone slightly under, around 11k lumens across all 4 strips, with a 2700K colour temperature and a 95 Colour Rendering Index (CRI). CRI measures how well light represents colour compared to a natural source, like daylight. 100 is perfect, the same as incandescent bulbs. Most LEDs sit around 80 and make things look a little drab, and could I have gone with 90? Absolutely, but I’m a pernickety fuck. It’ll be vivid, and so cosy.

For internet posterity here’s what I’ve gone with:

• 24V, 2700K, CRI>95 LED strips from Tagra. They also do water-resistant ones which I'll need for the bathroom.
• A 24V, 150W dimmable LED driver. I’ll only need 100W max for the bedroom, but Tagra’s 100W driver only dims between 20-90%, instead of 10-100% for the 150W+ ones.
• A Varilight V-PRO dimmer, with a screwless, matt black faceplate. It has 2 knobs so the other will control the bathroom, with the second switch in the saloon/lounge.

I originally ordered a V-COM dimmer as recommended by the LEDs, but they only support leading-edge dimming, whereas the more modern trailing-edge is supposedly smoother with less flicker and noise. The “silent operation” on VARILIGHT’s comparison page sold me, along with the option to dim from multiple locations.

Quick aside: electricity flows as a wave (most of the time), and dimmers work by cutting off part of the wave. The leading- vs trailing-edge above refers to which part of the wave you chop. Specifically why cutting the latter part of the wave is quieter I’m not entirerly sure, something to do with the leading-edge being a sudden jump up in voltage making the components buzz. Ask an electrician or physicist, I didn’t finish my electrical engineering degree.

And finally, a roll of 3-core 1.5mm² cable for the lighting circuit:

Orange, to match the boat. And shoutout to Pitacs — they do really nice cable, with good aesthetics (that drum is from Toolstation). The only thing I haven’t found with them was a 2-core 2.5mm², which I got from Oceanflex.

One potential downside to the above is voltage: these aren’t 12V boat lights, it’s mains 230V, meaning I’ll need the inverter running 24/7 when away from shore power. That was already the plan as I’m getting a mains fridge, and let’s face it: I’m going to over-engineer the electrics anyway because I can’t help myself.

For the fitting finishes my options were black or copper. For now I’ve gone with the matt black because this is a boy boat, but I can always change the faceplates later — there are so many options!

And something I’d forgotten, but luckily my dad reminded me of on inspection: edge trim for the gunwale boards. For that I’d need a router, which I acquired on Monday (capitalism wins again).

Routers had always seemed mystical to me, but now I have one and know how simple yet effective they are, I feel mystical; I want to rout all the things with a nice edge. I started with the boards on the port side:

There’s a ~1mm gap where the 2 boards join with the cladding above because I’m slightly incompetent, but I’ve forced it in my “learn to love” bucket. Your bug is my feature; it’s rustic. And the gap underneath with the lower cladding is fine, I’m covering that with a little pine moulding.

On Tuesday afternoon the extra wood arrived, and after unloading and cutting it open, something… felt wrong? Like, a different size. I got out the calipers and sure enough, it was different — thinner! It was ~11mm thick, and didn’t fit anything in the bedroom which, on inspection, was 15mm thick. WTF?!

Annoyed at first they fucked it up, but not here: this wood was the correct size, but the previous order was the thicker cladding. And without a comparison back then, I assumed it was right and cracked on.

No wonder that wood has been a bastard to bend for the bedroom! I’ve been doing this on bloody hard mode. So I acquired a few more of the thicker pieces to seal it off, and now I know what to look for with the rest of the boat: the thinner stuff that won’t even need bending… god dammit.

In other news, I started Saturday by fitting the water tank overflow pump:

Upside down, but it worked like that when I tested in a bucket. And whether it’s strictly necessary I don’t know; there was one before, and it means I don’t have to water-test all the seals around the tank… 🤷‍♂️

After that I carried on with the bow:

Before cutting out the plug sockets and putting the wiring in place, with some dual-channel conduit to separate 12v and 230v circuits (interference, ya know).

On Sunday, today, I finished off all the panelling:

And that part is done! No more panelling! Although for woodwork, I still have the cupboard to build and the bed slats to cut. Details. And there’s varnish and trim to do, so ignore the rough edges. For the varnish I ordered a tin of Ronseal’s mattcoat — I did look into the water-based stuff, but given I’ll use this in the bathroom I want something more durable.

Flooring, a mattress, the lights… we’re close! And a door.

Until next Sunday!

- Nick

In carpenting a curved boat bedroom (aka the “forward cabin”), you quickly hit the question of symmetry. Namely, to where do you reference the measurements? It turns out the portholes aren’t in the same place, nor are the steel supports, and it doesn’t help that the boat isn’t level.

Anyway, on Monday I drilled the hole for the water tank “sender” (??? weird name), and then tried to tap the ~39mm hole with this beast:

In hindsight trying to do that by hand with a spanner was ridiculous; it’s an industrial tap designed for lathes or tower drills.

Disheartened, but I had a lucky thought: make the hole bigger, and get a locking nut to use on the other side. That arrived midweek, which I fitted on Saturday:

(The copper pipe is the tank outlet, from whence the water pump shall slurp.)

The sensor doesn’t quite reach the bottom, but that’s fine. They don’t come in 582mm lengths; it was 550 or 600mm.

Also during the week I had a few attempts at fitting this one stubborn piece of wood under the port gunwale, which… after a week of “fuck you”s and “god dammit”s, that same day my persistence prevailed:

On Monday I ordered more wood; enough panelling for the bedroom plus bathroom ceiling, and some pine boards for bathroom shelves and a cupboard at the end of the bed. Originally I planned to buy a sideboard, perfectly-sized, but I’ve resorted to making one instead. I also ordered some floor samples — it feels like that’s creeping up on me.

On Sunday morning I continued with the boards under the starboard gunwale, then wired up the tank sensor in my new soldering workshop:

With that done, I started panelling the bathroom wall:

Behold the chaos, it’s coming together!

Until next Sunday,

- Nick

Troubled by my one-track mind, I had a blast programming this week yet lacked the luster to carpent. But then came Saturday and that all changed, in flow and I wouldn’t stop; I couldn’t find the hours to keep cutting wood.

The portholes-on-pine look so damn good, and cutting slits along the backs has made bending pieces a lot easier.

Unfortunately I will run out of wood, but I’ll try to collect more next week, along with some extra pine I need to build a little cupboard for the end of the bed.

Then it’s just… finish the cladding, get some flooring in, build the cupboard, cut and upholster the mattress and install some lights. Details, really. So close.

Until next Sunday!

- Nick