Lee has finished painting Still Dreaming, which is the share owned boat that he has been painting for the last four weeks. It was a big job. The paint hadn't been applied to a very good standard and certainly not keyed between coats so we decided to bare-metal the whole cabin before applying any paint. Mick has fitted her back up - that's putting the windows back in and all the fittings and we have today got her out of the painting dock and she has gone into the dry dock for blacking. Here's what she looks like.

And here is a close up of the sign writing.

We've now put our new hire boat into the painting dock, that's Pandora - so wait to see her transformation.

Until next week.

Regards, David.

What you doing?

People often say to me at this time of year "I bet your job has gone quiet now?" and I reckon that lots of people think the same thing, I can honestly say that yes certain parts of our business go quiet, take the tearoom for example, we reduce the opening hours in the week as there are not so many folk about, but come the weekend it can be just as manic as in the summer, the shop is obviously quieter too, but dont forget that we have a great Ebay shop that keeps the girls busy, we are just about to also launch our own new online shop too, this will have over 20,000 items of chandlery in it, and available for next day dispatch, David is working hard on that to try and get it done by Christmas, however our web designers are slowing the process down a little so it might be in the new year now, but what doesn't slow down is the engineering work and painting, not only do we try and concentrate on refurbishing our hire fleet we also carry on with private work and this winter sees Mick doing a partial refit on a boat as well fitting a new bow thruster and several upgrades, I will get some photos as it progresses, Lee is in the final stages of painting a shared owned boat which David will post some pictures of this weekend, Bernard and Fred have just finished a plating job on the dock, that was a big job! Bernard is now in the 'thick of it' on the fleet winterising them in readiness for the arctic like conditions that have been forecast. That pretty much leaves me, and I don't sit around with nothing to do, I work on promoting the company, advertising, putting deals together, quotes for work, ordering stock, answering the phones, however according to the rest of the staff here I don't do much!

Regards
Simon

It's been another busy week here at Norbury.

The plating work on Sphynx is coming along well. We docked her last Sunday, Mick pressure washed her off and then Bernard and Fred have been cutting plates and tacking them in position. It's been like something out a comedy sketch listening to them this week, but I must admit that I do miss them when they aren't around! Anyway, all the plates are now on and one side is continuously welded. Just the other side to weld up now and the stern gear and rudder gear to finish fitting. We'll then give her a couple coats of Bitumen and will flood the dock.

Lee has been battling on with the preparation of Still Dreaming for painting. I must admit that I think it may be the most difficult boat that we have ever painted. She had endless layers of paint, of which the adhesion was very poor. He also run into difficulty with the filler mentioned last week, but I think we have now over come this and he is now at the stage of apply primer and hopefully later in the week some colour will be added. Here she is bare metalled and with a coat of rust inhibitor applied.

And here she is with her first coat of primer on.

We've also been busy on another regular customers boat. This involved removing a porthole and a window and fitting a new porthole. We managed this; between showers, and here's the result.

We've also completed the sales on Silver Swallow, Silver Dew and Pickles.

Until next time.

Best regards, David.

Firstly please accept my apologies for the lack of recent blogs.

We are now past the end of "the season" and getting ready for winter mode! The hire boats have gone quiet although saying that Summer Wine and Ember are out at the moment and Quince and Phoebe are out later in the week. We've still got a steady flow of customers who are taking the dayboats out no matter what the weather is like. The yard certainly is not quiet. We have just finished painting Armadillo which also included replacing all the portholes with new double glazed units, modifying porthole liners, engine service, docking and blacking and; to finish the job off, a new cratch cover. She's looking very smart and the artwork sets the whole job off. I think you'd agree...

We have now got one of our shared owned boats in for a full repaint. Here's a picture of Still Dreaming when we first put her in the paint dock last week.

We've run in to a few problems, all of which can be over come. The handrails have been "built up" when the boat was new as the owners at the time weren't happy with it, but when this was done the steel used to build the handrail up was just stitch welded on, rather than being continuously welded and then filler was used to fill the remainder of the gap shown here.

We've got a busy week ahead, but more of that next time!

Best regards, David

Norbury News