Thursday 6 June 2013

Sloth Takes Control

Not much to see at the moment. On Trudy-Ann on Monday assembling the corner cupboard in the bedroom and fitting panels to line the back of the shelves to hide the gaps. Tuesday was spent in the garden doing battle with the weeds – forced labour as the car was in for service and I couldn’t escape.  Yesterday working on the bedroom cupboard again but had to stop when I realised one of the doors was flexing when being shut. Bent the frame so that the joints opened up and worked in some glue in the hope that it would hold without dismantling the whole door to tighten the internal screws. To clarify the situation it should be noted that all curved cupboard doors are made with screwed butt joints and the deep screw holes are then plugged with dowel unlike the flat cupboard doors which have already been remade after it was found that they were falling to pieces after apparently being stuck together with expansion foam.
On T-A again today and the cupboard door seems to be holding OK so final fitting made and the varnish brush made another appearance. Only the wardrobe doors to fit and varnish  and that will be the bedroom complete for now. Some time in the future the intention is to fit a bedside cabinet.
It may be recalled that the battery isolation switch for the bow thruster and winch was moved from under the bed to the forward locker. Even so I felt that this was not ideal and felt the same about the main battery switches that could only be accessed by climbing into the engine bay. It has been niggling at me for some time so finally I have given into the urge to install remote battery switches.
Purchased four solenoid switches from Aquafax through the marina.
Once installed any or all batteries can be isolated just by flicking a switch in the wheelhouse. Each has a manual override switch which can also be secured in the off position for servicing. Wired one up to a spare battery and it operates with a reassuring thump, so far they look like the bees knees.
No more scrambling about when we leave the boat, lazy or what.

No comments: