Katona

Rebuilding a narrowboat.

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Nick

Nick

Fair weather working

Halløjsa! In what may be a record for my shortest update, this week I managed some varnishing around work work before heading to Denmark this weekend. And the rest of the windows did arrive! Let's hope they fit, but I won't try until I take the

By Nick 23 Feb 2025

You can just weld things

Hello, and happy Sunday! With parts in hand, on Monday I could finally finish those shower drains: You know that feeling of swizzling butter around a pan to cover the base, filling in the gaps? This is just like that, with liquid metal — it's the same little dopamine

By Nick 16 Feb 2025

NO RADIOACTIVITY

Happy Sunday! I've been procrastinating on these shower drains, but on Tuesday I got myself together to finally figure them out. Going through the welder manual to set things up, I looked for the torch, squinted, then looked back at the manual. There in parenthesis, "torch not

By Nick 9 Feb 2025

Mind the gaps

Hello! And happy February :D I remember hearing some advice on project management, something like you should finish the first thing first. And it makes sense — the more you start, the more unfinished things to overwhelm you. This was always my strategy, except I wanted the bedroom and bathroom floors

By Nick 2 Feb 2025

Blood and sweat, oak and steel

Hello! Happy last-Sunday-of-January :) This week I continued with some of the tiling boards: Followed by fitting the bathroom shelves: And they're gonna look so good! After routing some nice edges on the bottom one, I started varnishing it with Epifanes, a mighty-hardy marine varnish, and complete overkill: Because

By Nick 26 Jan 2025

Tidy wiring, happy plumbing

Hello! Happy Sunday. This week I finished the bathroom electrics, and... I went overboard: 48V coming in (because thinner wire for a smaller voltage drop across longer distances, the same principal behind our national grid), then dropping to 12V and distributing to the 4 components via relays — electronic switches triggered

By Nick 19 Jan 2025

The iteration game

Hello! And happy cold, frosty Sunday :) I got something done on the boat almost every day this week, which felt great; I only have ~4 months to go! But jeez I'm making this bathroom complicated — it's a slow iteration, in the "stop every 30 minutes

By Nick 12 Jan 2025

Burning daylight

Hello, and Happy New Year! Inspired by my dad reminding me that 2025 is a perfect square (45², and I hope to live for the next one), I would also like to remind you it's the product of 2 squares (9² x 5²) and the sum of 3

By Nick 5 Jan 2025

In hindsight

Hello! I had a little time on Monday this week to fit the marine ply backboard for the bathroom electronics cupboard (no photo, sorry), but have been away for the rest of the week... To stretch that paragraph a little further, I thought it'd be fun to look

By Nick 29 Dec 2024

Scaling down

Hello! On Tuesday I did the final coat of varnish for the bathroom ceiling, followed by web surfing. It turns out people just cut veneer doors to size, then re-glue them, and... sure why not? I will do that too; it sounds messy but I'll make it work

By Nick 22 Dec 2024

"Not recommended for DIY"

Hello! All over the place this week, but on Tuesday I finished the bathroom ceiling, with a coat of varnish on Thursday: I went to do another coat on Friday, but "3 hours dry-to-touch" expands to 36 in this wet, cold weather. Instead I fitted some Munsen Rings

By Nick 15 Dec 2024

Integration testing

To ensure a system works, you have options: test the individual components ("unit testing"), or test the system as a whole, end-to-end ("integration testing"). Maybe a mix of both, depending on the context. In the case of pressure-testing the bathroom plumbing, I've done the

By Nick 8 Dec 2024
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Katona

Rebuilding a narrowboat.