Stopped off on the way back. Camouflaged.

Made it without anything falling off, exploding or filling with water. 🎉

Our first night on the boat.

Instagram Vs reality shot

Here's the "after" shot before the new flue gets fitted next weekend.

New door glass fitted and roped (just had weird sealant before that was mostly gone). Put in situ, hooked up to the heating system and all parts put back in. Fixed down to the floor.

And I'm totally ok with that. I never feel disappointed I didn't get all the jobs done that I had planned because I walk away more at peace than when I got there in the morning.

#ukcanals

Spigot, heat plate and bung fitted, roped and sealed with OB1. Boiler connections cleaned, sealed with OB1 and threads pasted with compound. Doors re-roped. Could be better but happy enough for now.

I am now thinking back to conversations with the previous owner and probably should have been a sign when he said "you need to bypass the safety device so you can leave the ash door open". Too naïve to know better back then!

Door ropes were installed but in the wrong position with the ends not finished in the way they are supposed to be. Holder for the grate bars was upside down.

Just for some context about how bad the state of this was, now I know more and have taken it all apart: There was no rope on the spigot and it was the wrong one. No rope on the heat plate either and 2 of the three lugs were broken. No rope on the door glass.

Everything else fits perfectly. Tomorrow it will get a clean and fit this stuff properly. I have polish and paint but both require a curing process which I won't be able to do until it's back in the boat. So aim is just to have it all back together and as smooth as I can make it.

Test fit of new parts looks good. Needs more rubbing down and more cleaning after that, but happy so far.

Switched tack to trying to get the boiler out instead of chiseling the fire brick. It worked! Now I can get to rubbing down the inside 😷

*shot 😂

This little bugger back here is the real pain, just won't come out. Didn't want to remove the boiler if I could avoid it but looks like it might have to come out just to loosen pressure in the remains of the fire brick

Let this serve as a sort of "before" shit from today