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Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far with this topic.

I have been incredibly busy the last few weeks but much progress has been made.

The weather was not the optimum for painting a boat outside but the lovely Helen managed to get her painted eventually and she now looks like this:

20280656_1470265879663519_46181331180415

 

20229366_1470264469663660_53199513749925

 

Before anyone says anything - yes, I am aware the  yellow stripes on the swans neck are completely wrong! That is what happens when a volunteer thinks he is being helpful and gets on with painting stripes without checking! We will be repainting the swans neck with a single broad band of yellow in the middle.

 

Our graphic designer did a bit of research and decided to use some special vinyl to cut the lettering for the cloths. It was not cheap but he tells me that after 24 hours of applying some sort of chemical bonding process takes place with the vinyl of the cloths meaning it can't peel off. In fact it meant he had to get it right because it will never come off!

This picture was taken by Viviee Barber at Alvecote at the weekend and shows off the letters rather well I think:

21167265_1506962895993817_36871365285943

Note the stuffed snake on the swan neck to cover up the mistake! We also have a deck cloth with the CCT logo on it and an orignal 1929 web address!

We also now have some interpretation panels affixed to the inside of the side hatch so when we are moored up the right way and if the weather is good enough we can open the hatch.

On the inside of the engine room doors we have affixed the logo's of all the companies and organisations who have supported her restoration:

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Now she is on her way "home" to The Chesterfield Canal where we have a couple of weeks to get as many of the outstanding bits of the fit out done as possible and, weather permitting, the sign writer will do his thing.

He has asked me to double check that the details I have for the signwriting are correct so please can those of you who know about these things cast your eye over the following and pass some comment to let us know if we are on the right lines or if there is something that needs amending.

The lettering is yellow block with double shading in apple green and black. The shading is to the left

The letters are 6" high for capitals and 5" for the rest on "British Waterways"

The boats name is all 5" as is the fleet number (these dimensions exclude shading)

The gauging number is in plain black blocks painted onto the top yellow line at the rear of the cabin roughly level withthe chimney collar

All comments are very welcome, we remain indebted to the historic boating community for all the valuable advise we have been given throughout the last 4 years of restoration. Judging by the positive comments and remarks we recieved at Alvecote this year I feel confident we are on the right track and we are now on the verge of scaling back the work of restoration and moving to a longer term view of preservation.

Python now has a clean bill of health and will return to work on 20th of September as we emabrk upon an ambitious schedule of trimming offside vegetation along 32 miles of The Chesterfield Canal this autumn

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Another question - sorry!

I have been pointed in the direction of "Wrights of Lymm" for the signwriting enamel or Craftmaster

Does anyone know what shade would be correct for the green from either of those companies or does anyone have a BS number or pantone number for it?

Jan

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1 hour ago, cheshire~rose said:

Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far with this topic.

I have been incredibly busy the last few weeks but much progress has been made.

The weather was not the optimum for painting a boat outside but the lovely Helen managed to get her painted eventually and she now looks like this:

20280656_1470265879663519_46181331180415

 

20229366_1470264469663660_53199513749925

 

This picture was taken by Viviee Barber at Alvecote at the weekend and shows off the letters rather well I think:

21167265_1506962895993817_36871365285943

 

 

Very good progress - but where's the squiggle? (It wasn't BW code for "condemned", by any chance?)

We were pleased to see you at Alvecote - did you do well on the stall?

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The squiggle is still in the signwriters pot!

Don't worry - it will be replaced!

Yes we had the best ever weekend on the stall we took a magnificent £618 which was only possible because so many people very generously brought so many fantastic donations of stuff for me to sell. There was a good deal of part exchange too - folks bought an item from me then returned to their boat to fetch the item it was replacing so I could sell that!

I also had a very willing little helper on Sunday afternoon. A young lass called Kelsey (aged just 9) had spent so much of her Grandpa's cash on the tombola along with her younger sister that she felt she was an expert on tombolas and asked if she could help me sell the tickets. She proceeded to sell every single ticket in the bucket! Of course folks are far less likely to refuse the request of a very sweet 9 year old lass. I think Auntie Wainwright may have met her match there!

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The boat name and number should be 4" high as can be seen on historic photographs.  Also be careful with the spacing and type style - many people get the Rs wrong!  The boats were originally lettered with a transfer so there were not the wide variations you see on restored boats today.

Have a look at Jim Payler's black and white photos on www.blisworth.org.uk for inspiration!

Paul

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2 hours ago, Paul H said:

 The boats were originally lettered with a transfer

Were they? I think not. A curved stencil guide was used for "British Waterways" based on a GUCCCo cabin side which is why on some boats (FMC) it looks wrong. The house emblem was a transfer both in DIWE and BTC/BW cases.

Bulls Bridge had a resident sign writer as did other depots. Transfers were used later on for the castle panels and some rose clusters but that was in the late 1950's for River class boats.

As an aside Bradley used stencils for all their lettering right through until the later light blue BW livery.

Edited by Laurence Hogg
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10 hours ago, cheshire~rose said:

Our graphic designer did a bit of research and decided to use some special vinyl to cut the lettering for the cloths. It was not cheap but he tells me that after 24 hours of applying some sort of chemical bonding process takes place with the vinyl of the cloths meaning it can't peel off. In fact it meant he had to get it right because it will never come off!

When Fulbourne had lettered cloths we made up a stencil (from an offcut of kitchen floor vinyl) and painted the lettering with brilliant white emulsion paint. It lasted surprisingly well, and was cheap and easy to touch up when required.

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  • 7 months later...

Just to finally resurrect this ancient thread. I thought I would let you know that Python has finally had her sign writing done:

30442764_1716848615005243_56707032428377

After getting a couple of quotes last year one guy who does a lot of traditional signwriting but with little experience on boats, Jay Chapman from Newark, came to look at Python to quote us. He was so enthused by the project that he volunteered to do the work for free but then a combination of either very hot or very showery weather last summer delayed the project so it could not be done before we set off to attend events at Coventry and Alvecote. He said he would do it in September but then did another boat moored just a handful of boats along a line from Python instead (a paying customer) before saying he had no time and it would need to be done in spring. I kept in touch through the winter until finally he emailed me to say he didn't have time to do it! I requested we get back onto a level footing by paying him to do the job instead of having a freebie but he said he could not do that because he valued his reputation too hightly! I am still trying to work out how letting a charity project down completely at the eleventh hour is somehow better than agreeing to take money for work on that project but hey ho! 

Back to square one with no signwriter and a very cold wet spring and a deadline looming I starting tyring to find someone else to do the job for me and Steve Evans (better known to many of you as "Signey Steve" came up trumps for us by travelling to do it yesterday. I am absolutely thrilled with the job!

This side is a little more compacted than the other side as the outlet vent is much lower on the other side so it allowed him to use the full space. The threat of rain as the day wore on meant that I do not have any photos of the other side yet as it was done under a huge green tap tent to keep Steve and the boat dry.

All the worrying about the size of the letters and the colours and at the end of the day if you ask someone who has worked on the livery twice before like Steve has (among the many hundreds of different liveries he has done over the years) he just gets on with it instinctively, looking at the space we have available and using it to it's best advantage. That is what experience does.

He has also re-applied Python's signature squiggle on the bow but said he was happier if we call it a wave. Well here is the new wave:

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It is slightly smaller than the one it replaces. Steve looked carefully at the photo we have of Python at Little Venice in her BW applied livery and replicated that as closely as possible

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I don't thnk Steve needs any recommendation among owners of historic narrow boats as having looked at his photo album of work he has done there are so many boats there I know well but if anyone is after someone who will just get on with the job and do it really well then Steve is your man .. but can you please arrange some warm dry weather for him?

 

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6 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

Of course having got it looking so magnificent you now need to crash through a few trees do a bit of bridgework , and fail to mop it down for a while to go from magnificent to authentic...

Close inspection of the photos I posted will show a multitude of little scratches and chips that have already been picked up and, weather permitting over the next couple of weeks our team will be doing some touching in of the various bts of damage picked up when 47 volunteers put in over 1000 volunteer hours  using her to access and trim 155 bulk bags of offside vegetation along 32 miles of canal.

Yes, we were all saying yesterday that she looks far too good to put to work but the novelty will wear off and she already has a date with some local scouts eager to use her for litter picking duties this summer. I said to Steve yesterday that I thought perhaps the paintwork on her was not as shiny as most of the boats he paints but he recognised an authentic working boat and the value associated with it to a community.

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  • 1 year later...

I notice that Sickle had the logo with the British Transport Waterways Circle, which was the logo used in general publicity also until the end of BTW and creation of BW

 

958805.jpg

 

Before ( or even during) the "wave" logo was adopted, BW did have the word Board in place of Transport. Did any boats have that variation of logo ?

 

Edited by Heartland
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The British Waterways Board was set up in 1963 taking over from the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive, part of the British Transport Commission.  As this coincided with the decision to withdraw from narrow boat carrying apart from 2 small contracts, there was no reason to redesign the life belt roundel.

 

Paul

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4 hours ago, Ray T said:

Found several photo's with "Transport."

e.g. but none with "Board."

When rubbing down 'Jaguar's' engine room panel, I found the Roundel impressed in the primer.  Definitely 'Transport'.

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