Glassing and Plumbing

May 17, 2016  Hours spent building to date: 2,505

Last glass goes on

It is all too seldom that the word “done” as in “finished, no more, never again” is used at the Tardis Project, since one task seems inevitably to lead to another.

But as to fiberglass work, it is truly done since there is everything on the boat that can be fiberglassed, has been fiberglassed.  With Ray pumping epoxy and me working up top (where it is increasingly slippery) we put on the last roof panel.  And I must say in the last year we’ve gotten pretty good at it — no spills, no drama, a very neat job.

I am still working feverishly at the Connecticut River Museum trying (with our crew) to get the boats ready for the Season, which cuts down on Tardis work more than I would like.  But I am now into more finish work, which is easier to do in short bursts — such as plumbing.

My goal with Tardis is to rectify some of the shortcomings of Memsahib’s system — to change water tanks you had to crawl up under the bunks and operate rusty, 50-year-old Chinese gate valves with a wrench.   To winterize the hot water tank, you had to take it apart.

So Tardis has a system of valves that with a twist here and a twist there open to a hose barb that will allow easy entry of the antifreeze in the fall, and bypass the hot water system altogether.  And I think I have it arranged so that the main water pump will drain the hot water tank down to the last few inches — although draining a three gallon tank is no big deal.

For those really interested in boat plumbing, the fittings are all the Sea Tech push-on type — although until I learned to use a soap solution to get the pipes past the “O” rings that make everything work, I thought the “pusher” had to be King Kong.   There is no supplier of the complete Sea Tech range that I could find in the marine marketplace, so I got my last batch of fittings from W.W. Grainger.  Much better, commercial grade fittings that are translucent so you can see the pipes go in.  They have Sea Tech parts numbers, but are called “Watts” fittings since that’s who actually makes the commercial, RV and marine fittings.

Roof glassed

Main plumbing manifold

Water heater plumbing under sink

Electrical cabinet is ready for paint