A meeting, two successes and a failure

Last night we were fortunate to receive a visit from Kiwi’s David & Makuini Wright.  They are professional entertainers and although UK based for more than 30 years, have worked all over the world.    Makuini sings and David plays a few  instruments.  Makuini (the name means White Queen in Maori) mentioned she has now spent more of her life in the UK than NZ.  They have a website <link here> and will be performing at this year’s Cropredy Fringe Music Festival on 2 August.

A comment from blog reader Don regarding the camera plug reinforced my belief that the pin which needed to be extracted from the plug was held in place by ‘barbs’.  He suggested a thin tube be slid over the pin compressing the barbs.  That got me thinking and I rummaged around in the various spare parts containers to see if I had anything suitable.  The problem with narrowboats is a lack of space.  Usually I’d keep everything “just in case”!  However there is a tendency these days to throw things away.  Fortunately I hadn’t thrown away the small plastic bag containing the spare pins and the bag was also the brass tube for extracting the pins from the plug housing.  Thanks for the reminder Don!

With a little jiggling and by carefully placing my tongue in my left cheek the pin was extracted.

After examining the pin it was obvious the wire hadn’t been properly soldered.  I started the engine and turned on the inverter before using the soldering iron to re-make the connection.  The plug was then re-assembled and the monitor connected to the camera system.  Success…. Both bow cameras are again working properly.

The next job was to make a start on the 12V power socket in the cockpit.  I used the socket to make an outline on a piece of cardboard.  This was then cut to make a template.  I then used the template to mark the proposed location of the socket on the bulkhead below and beside the engine instrument panel.  The next step was to mask the outline of the drawn template with tape.  A 10mm hole was drilled through the steel bulkhead to provide cable access between the plug and the stern node.  The instrument panel had to be removed to assist in the fitting of the cable.

A thin bead of construction adhesive was applied to the join between the socket and the bulkhead before securing the socket against the bulkhead with duct tape.  Once the adhesive has set I will apply a second application of adhesive to make a stronger bond.  The Empirbus stern node is on the other side of bulkhead and it was a simple task to connect the wires to a vacant terminal before using the laptop to reconfigure the software thereby activating the plug.

The failure has been with the new rear door clips.  The locations were all marked out and I started to drill the holes, firstly with a 3.2mm HSS bit and then with a 3.5mm HSS bit.  The problem was the 3.5mm bit was too blunt.  I then attempted to use the secondary (and very cheap) bit.  It promptly snapped. Without a 3.5mm hole I can’t use the 4mm Tap to make the thread for the machine screws.  I’m going to have to find a local Screwfix, B&Q or Homebase <grrrrrr>.