Paul’s three small jobs

I’m rather relieved that Paul (the welder) has done three small welding jobs I’d been anxious to see completed.

Together we made a simple mounting bracket which he then welded to Waiouru’s roof just forward of the stern hatch.  After cleaning the bracket with a wire brush it received a coat of primer and the outback mobile phone aerial we’d brought with us from Australia was then fitted.  The aerial has at last reached it’s final destination.  It was one of the early blog posts back in October 2010 that I first wrote about the aerial and our intention to bring it to the UK.

The aerial on the bullbar of our 4x4

Now the aerial resides on top of Waiouru

The mounting can pivot fore and aft to lower the aerial should that be necessary.  I’ve already run a test to see the results of connecting the mobile phone to the aerial.  Inside Waiouru there is no internet signal.  Place the phone in a porthole and the strength meter shows one bar. Plug the phone into the aerial and the meter jumps to maximum strength.

Andy went off and purchased a heavy duty bicycle rack which Paul slightly modified before welding it to Waiouru’s stern.

It’s an idea stolen copied from Sue & Kevin on nb Meander.  We don’t have any current plans to purchase bicycles; rather the top “arms” can be removed and a small circular clothesline fitted into the top of the tube.  Meander also had a couple of lower brackets welded on where Kevin carried his anchor and surplus fenders, go-kart tyres, etc.

The last task was to weld a 1200mm rectangular box section post immediately behind the gas locker water tank hatch.

The photo has a blue tint because the post is under the temporary blue tarpaulin over the cratch.  I’ve drilled the holes and run the wiring through the bow thruster locker to the post.  The top two cables are for the cameras (short range camera points at the bow and long range below pointing at all those blind bridge holes).  Below the cameras will be the headlamp and the horn.  I now need to start thinking about sealing the cable holes as all the equipment is shortly going to be exposed to the elements.

Back to more joinery tomorrow!