cheshire~rose

Yes thank you Laurence, I have the very useful information you gave me. What I do not know is how those sizes and colours translate into what I was looking at when I was at Braunston ( didn't get a tape measure out - I was enjoying looking at the boats and talking to their owners far too much

It would be very helpful for me (and for our signwriter) to have a bit of a discussion about BW Livery in the run up to applying it to Python. I found it very useful to study a few of the boats at Braunston last weekend. I am looking at what I believe is referred to by some as the 1990's BW "Heritage" livery and as the cabin on Python is not traditional it cannot follow chapter and verse of the official format but we have enough photos of Python taken with this livery on to understand how it was applied to her. What I want to be sure of is the details of letter sizing and the colours used for the shading. I took a handful of photos which will not show the actual size but several of the people I spoke to who's advice I trust suggested which of the boats was best to refer to as correct and this was spoken very highly of. This is picture no 1 I have always thought this looks absolutely beautiful too but it is very well polished and the hard edges of the writing and going smooth and it is wearing a lovely "worn in" look rather than the sharp edges of the one above Picture no 2 One more, the think that struck me with this one is that the green looks completely wrong - in fact it looks almost turquiose Picture number 3 One more that I believe to be "correct" is this one. Again it has the lovely lived in look and being on a wooden planked cabin it wears the lines from the movement in the wood really well. Personally I loved to see this as it's the heritage of the boat and did not look too perfect. Picture number 4 I know some of you will be able to identify which boats these photos are of and so please can I ask that any comments are kept as constructive criticism and even if you do know which boat the picture is of please refer to them as 1, 2, 3 or 4. I was very impressed at how helpful people were including one suggesting I did not photograph his sign writing as the letters were the incorrect size! The reason for this thread is simply so I can make sure I have the correct details for our sign writer. Thank you in advance

Just to add to this I have been told by a reliable surveyor that CRT use sand on their decks although it is said to be sharp sand rather than the kiln dried block paving sand. It does have to be dried out and seived though. Another suggestion is to use bead blasting media such as silica carbide as this can be purchased in a coarse grade but the mail order supplies I have seen are either too big for what we need or rather expensive

Yes, I agree. I think the team working on it might have been planning fewer coats and are rather "traditional" in as much as new fangled concepts are treated with suspicion. I may need to take responsibility for doing it myself!

That non-slip stuff looks good Alan. 12 hour curing time when outdoors may be a problem. If you have to keep moisture off that's 2 dry days needed. It doesn't go very far either. I suspect we have 5 metres to cover

Thanks for that. The suggestion about sand not being ideal was a half conversation as part of a rushed phone call about something else. You know when you ponder on it afterwards and wished you had more detail but know the person is busy and you don't want to disturb their day again? That's why I thought I would ask here because there is often more than one way to skin a cat!

The Rother Valley Link has not gone away and is very much waiting in the wings. The restoration of the last 9 miles of the Chesterfield Canal HAS to be first and foremost in the priorities of Chesterfield Canal Trust but there is occasionally some suggestion that it could be an outside organisation that takes on and creates The Rother Link, mainly because it is a very useful thing to have for a variety of reasons. Some time back I heard that the government had charged all water companies to create a means in their area for large amounts of water to be moved quickly to help alleviate potential flooding. A water company "found" the plan for the Rother Link and creating it would tick the box. They were last heard of looking at ways to get grant aid to build it using the build project as a way of training civil engineers. I have heard nothing of this since but I strongly suspect that the grant aid they were hoping to attract may have been EU money and so if they ever thought they might have got some it won't happen now. There is of course some gossip about a little railway project that might happen in the area and if they were to build their railway somebody suggested they are going to have more than a few bucket-fulls of rain water they need to drain ....

I am sorry, for some reason the link I posted just opened a photo rather than taking you to the website where you can download a presentation with a number of maps and "fly-through" images. I will try again http://www.chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/route-refinement-consultation-in-killamarsh/

We are about to apply a fresh finish to the gunwales and rear deck area of Python. This finish will be black. The question is whether to use traditional sand onto the paint or a more modern non-slip finish. I was all set to apply sand but a conversation with someone who's views I respect suggested as a sanded finish wears it can allow moisture to get at the steel and so we would be better to apply a more modern non-slip finish in these areas. There have been many coats of non-slip applied to the rear deck over the years and it's taking a while to take them all off! Views, opinions and suggestions are all very welcome thank you

I think that is why the "fly through" images help so much, certainly for me. I really haven't much knowledge of the area at all. I have friends who live there and met them at the consultation last Monday and even though I could drive to their house with ease when we left the leisure centre I had to ask them where their home was in relation to where we were! At the presentation they had a "rolling" presentation which took tou along the canal and back again as if you were viewing it from a low flying drone which was really helpful. The still images are not as good but still give a good insight. Sadly the file size of the presentation made it very difficult to work with and it took a lot of tweaking by someone techy and a seriously high powered computer for it to run smoothly on the night so the online version is a very good compromise I think

On Monday 5th June, there was a consultation with the people of Killamarsh about a change to the proposed route of the Chesterfield Canal through the village when it is restored. While I doubt there will be that many members of this forum who known of the village of Killamarsh let alone have an understanding of how the land lies I do feel that the information provided in the consultation is interesting to look at and even though we do not live in the area affected I found I had some strong opinions about which I feel would serve the village better and would be more inviting to visit from a boaters perspective. There is a really detailed PDF available to download which shows "fly through" images of the routes which help greatly with visualisation. If you visit the web page here: http://www.chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/wp-canalsite/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/KM4.png There is a link on that webpage you can download the PDF and, should you wish to fill in the questionnaire, there is also a link to that too. I wonder how may of you, as boaters, share my views?

Thanks again folks Oddly after reading this thread I found something to auction - money! That could be an interesting auction lot.

What a good idea! Perhaps that is what I need to do to force myself to get my head around how to read this forum now Thank you

Thank you very much for your kind words Starry. I am sorry I have not been able to easily log on over the weekend to thank you (Whitsunday Pie Weekend!) but I have to say your comments were very welcome even though they are entirely inaccurate! I don't do a large proportion of the work at all, I am just one who tends to open her gob about what the rest of them are doing. As those who know me will testify once this gob is open it's not easy to get it to close! I have to say that, while I appreciate that the news being announced at lunchtime on a Friday in the summer when everyone is busy doing boaty stuff was never going to be conducive to getting a large number of people to read my post but I was somewhat dismayed that something that is such an incredible achievment goes virtually without comment or congratulations from a forum of so many members so the two of you who took the time to post congratulations have got a greenie from me today. I still struggle with the new forum format and do not find it easy to follow threads like I used to and so my presence here is far less prolific than it used to be. Perhaps I need to make more effort

Thank you very much Still as chuffed as a chuffed thing