Arthur Marshall

It's obnly started catching on stuff over the last few years as the CRT maintenance has got worse. Singlehanding I have to pull the boat in at lock moorings, and loads of them have broken piling which catches in the hole. Doesn't help the state of the piling either. I think I'll try the perforated steel plate over the whole intake and if I overheat next outing try something else!

Well, I saw this on the T&M...

When my boat as resteeled, they found some serious corrosion above the air intake for the aircooled SR2 and cut it out and welded a bit in. Last week, coming out of a lock, a bit of broken piling snagged into the air intake hole, the weld went and the bit came out leaving the gap as you can see. Rather then rewelding it up, I was considering cutting down from the end of the break, enlarging the hole and then bolting a piece of perforated steel with 1cm holes across the whole thing. Do you reckon that would still allow enough air in, or should I just bolt some bars across to try and avoid anything else getting caught in the hole?

I get it going with the ashpan door open as normal, but it simmers away quite nicely and will stay in all night with the wheel open a 3/4 turn. Any more than that and you can control how hot you want it - it does burn pretty evenly, though more at the rear of the stove - I presume because that's where the chimney is and so the greater draught. I don't use the baffle at all as I found that it just clogs up with the gunk coming down the chimbley - I did try making one with a cutout section but it seems fine without it at all.

Can someone enlighten me as to how often should you change the oil in the Lister 150 gearbox? I can't find any advice in the manuals.

Sorry - I think (looking at the manual, which is multi-fire) that it's a Heron, not a Puffin. It's the smallest of the multifuel stoves, and an old one at that. The original poster was having trouble with it as it kept going out overnight - the ashpan door is solid with a control handle on a sort of sliding cam, so you can tilt it open, bu there's no real way to just let enough air in to keep it ticking over overnight as it's either on full whack or going out. There's no riddler either. I'd amend the title if I knew how but i was just hoping the OP would spot it.

Do you need the written reminder in order to get the licence online?

Never had any problems with it yet - mine's booked in for next Tuesday if my chemist doesn't do it to me first. I had flu once, and never want it again if i can avoid it!

Sometime back in the mists of time before i went off boating for two months someone on here was discussing the uncontrollable nature of Puffin stoves, because the only way you could alter the air flow was to open the ash door, and either fire fire got too hot or went out if the door was closed. I said I'd post pictures of the control wheel I added to mine but never managed to do it before I went away and now I can't rememebr who was asking and I have never once managed to get the search function on here to find anything. So here are the pictures, and I hope they get found by the right person...

You can phone the lockkeepers when you're on your way and they will usually have the lock ready for you so there's no waiting. There are so few boats on the river that they welcome the exercise.

That's just silly. Someone gets accused of racist behaviour and is then supposed to defend himself without referring to ethnic origins? And I simply don't believe that you don't refer, in the privacy of your head, to some ethnic origination. Everybody does. It's what you then do about it that matters. Implying you don't even notice is of the "protesteth too much" school.

The phrase about English speakers was just an observation of what was found on that evening, not a comment on the place as a whole. And "ethnic" is a fairly value free word to describe people - you have to use some word or other relating to race when defending yourself against a charge of racism.

There's an old Asimov story about someone travelling to the future to bring back knowledge of the technological advances in use then. Turned out to be the bow and arrow.

Just ignore the idiots. In the end they go away - bit like the stonethrowers. Be a shame to dump this whole site with all its useful stuff because a couple of people wanted to stir up some trouble.

Now you're trying to be clever and use racist language at the same time. Just up for a stir, are we?