It now becomes more obvious that the ratchet has been set to "tighten."
In the facility cabin, one of our multi-skilled pair, John D has given the bilge a final sweep out and applied some rust proofer, ready for the coats of finishing paint. (The other of the pair Gill D was kidnapped to paint a trailer chassis!)
Meanwhile, Mathew J continues to develop his plumbing skills on the heating system. He's now waiting for the engine to be turned on - and a few more bits and pieces.
More progress in the engineering shop, where production line techniques are in place to make the 28 new pivot pins. These will have lubrication and rotation facilities built in!
Vince continues adding the third wires to the bilge pump controls and is now taking lessons from Reg G in conduit bending! That'll be for the Solar Panel then'!
Meanwhile, the JCB arm has been noted to have pipes on the jib which are blanked off. It would be useful we thought, if we could use those for other attachments, like a rotator for a clamshell (like Dredger no. 5) or a breaker. So, with Andy J and Les M we traced back the pipes to the cabin and the hydraulic control valve block. Joy of joys, it's already connected up and has a solenoid and switch on the operator's seat arm!!
Hopefully it'll all leap into life when we fire up again with the new pipework we'll install.
Bob Hallam.
"May your bilges always be dry and your anchor always hold."