kevin123

yes it not far from finished just on final fit in side as im going to live on it ,it isnt historically as in your boat as it has full canopy etc as when i bought it but at least she will be back on the water ,

thanks have worked of that have the rgb numbers of the flag colours now and ral numbers thanks

yep im going for red and dark blue border is there any paint spec as in bs or ral or just an red and blue near as bright red and navy blue

does anybody know the colour red used for the grand union canal co also the blue border i have an historic and would like to paint near as to there colour

you are lucky if you have never had porosity with mig , every welder i know of including myself get porosity but just make sure if you do grind back compleatly and reweld , there are many reasons for porosity if you are laying long runs spatter in shroud can stop gas coverage wind is big factor lose of gas, gun kinks contaminats in steel to name few , i have my weld mpi tested regular and to the naked eye you can not see some pin holes but when mpi is carried out they soon stand out ,

like you daniel i to have had the pleasure of welding the main frames of quite a few main frame chassis at jcb and mig is fine as you say most welding is carried out using mig as faster to lay down , and structurally sound , but depending on material you would have to find the right wire for the job and also conditions inside outside flux cored argo etc , great pictures of porosity first one shows 3 small pin hole but if you were to grind that back you would find it would look like a areo chocolate bar upto a least 1" or more either end , just a note always grind start and stops of welds with before next run to make sure of good penetration

iv been welding 30 some years and if i dont weld for while it is like riding a bike on easier welds like horizontal but vertical and overhead you would need a bit of time just to angles and flow rates but you soon back into it ,also depending which rods you use can make a diffrence like iv said iv been using low hydrogen rods 7018 which i took to like duck to water, but one of my work pals carnt use but is fine with standard 6013

depending how big a job and your welding experience , above water line just minor repairs mig will be fine on your boat , if you havent welded before practice iv taught people to weld with mig in about 20 mins and they would be fine to horizontal weld ( thats why they call it monkey wire ) as it can be picked up quite quickly if you have to do vertical and havent had much experence you could pulse weld , meaning start weld with a spot weld and repeat in about 1-2 second intervals moving slowly vertical allow weld puddle to cool then repeat , it will keep weld from dropping away and looking like bird sh.. t i believe the term is lol ,but practice first good luck

i have just over plated my 1936 using both stick and mig , stick for mild to old steel hull, i used 7018 low hydrogen rods as 6013 tend to burn to hot and will laminte / fracture and you have to peen for you life to destress welds , i carried out a few test prior to starting the job to get best match rods in a fracture test 6013 were very brittle whilst 7018 were very ductile , the new base to new side mig welded to save time as my boat is 21.6 mtrs long which is a lot of welding and normal modern day mild is fine with mig , mig in wind over 4-5 miles an hour you will probably get porosity unless you use flux cored wire , concave welding is bad mayby vertical downhand , should be convex , plate size depends on your pockets iv used 10mm base 6mm walls which i believe is the standard used on modern boats now but you could use 8mm depending how bad your base has worn / overplating fully weld , there are diffrent way to weld base you can place plates on floor fully weld top then place boat on to plates put sides on weld then lift v out underside weld overhead , i didnt have that option so on stands fitted base plates welded sides , then v out base underside root run 2 run then capping run full penetration , rather that puddle weld as the boat is 80 years old even though was only a few places where it was 4mm thick , i cut holes in floor welded tubes through to new floor then plated over to sandwhich old floor this allowed me to support the new floor and keep level underside , iv also put 50mm x 12mm flat bar around base to side wall to act as ware plate and triple up on welded joint , if you use stick you can get decent invertor welding sets for £200-£250 200 amp can use 3.25 or 4mm rods np at all

hi what is the age of your boat is it a steel iron or mild steel

having a engineering buissness i use paint on steel all the time if you go to pdi paint in stoke they will give you advise , mix paint to any colour or ral specs you want ,all for steel i use a lot of quick drying paint , hope this helps regards kev

i have the boat out of the water she had 2 holes in bottom some one had post create repaired (now fixed) drove her up from nuneaton np , the main reason for replate was 4mm in places on bottom sides were ok , could have just repaired but as i intend to live on her decided to fully repair with 10mm botttom , am also making a few changes , moved the front bulkhead back so got a bit more sitting out area in the summer , making her a large one bed , also going to fit new windows

cheers all good advise , iv got to put batterns on first as i removed all others as the roof was leaking in places where previous owner screwed through roof and gave it afew leeks also he had put side battens in not fixed correctly so i had leeks have lifted the roof of refitted and sealed all around , not leeking now tested in this rain where having ,

so install electrics water etc then foam , iv plated to water line , along the sides and about 200mm front and rear as the only wear was to the bottom in the middle which went to about 4mm in places so decided to just compleatly plate bottom and hopefully give the boat another 80 years , i did measure before removing d bars and was around 7 in one place , i will check tommorow now to find exact width ,the boat wieght was 21 ton when i took her out , now gutted i would think took at least a 1-1,5 ton out the new plates will add about another 4 ton so she will be around 24- 25 tons empty then balace water tanks fitted out around 27-28 tons i would estmate , but it was an working boat so used to carry around 28 ton of coal so should be ok i would think

is spray foam the best as i was thinking of 25mm board panel insolation for walls , and if so what should the thickness be ,and already feel like sleeping for a month lol