Puddleduck Prep

Spent a part of this GLORIOUSLY unrainy day doing work on our little Puddle Duck Racer "Dharma Duck" for spring.  Over winter, during some of the storms, she had taken a bit of a beating.  The handle on the leeboard had caught on the edge of "Floating Empire" and snapped off, and the rudder had cracked from an impact with one of the pilings.  Sigh...always something.

You can see how we had to move the pintles down due to a crack up by the tiller.

So we cleaned the girl up and made necessary repairs and took her for a short, impromptu paddle up river.

Ready for her mast.

So I've gotten the material to make Dharma Duck a new sail for this summer and we'll be putting on a bit of a taller mast to accommodate a Lateen rig with a bit more square footage.

Stay tuned.  So happy to see the sun.

M

Signed Ebooks?!

Actually, yes, I just discovered a really cool site called Authorgraph that will let you purchased personalized, signed Ebook copies, including of my works:

Signed electronic copies?  Yep.

Interested in a signed copy?  Stop over HERE and we can oblige.

M

YET more galley progress

I know you guys have got to feel this is the "all galley, all the time" blog, but we've been making lots of progress lately.  Yesterday we finally got the center shelves in.  These will hold baskets with our veggies and fruits and also some of the heavier cast iron pots, etc.  The setup is already working well.

Turned out rather better than I'd hoped.

So over the next day or so we'll stain and seal the wood.  Stay tuned for more exciting galley details, along with a selection of galley memorabilia, tee shirts, coffee mugs. . . .

. . .okay, okay, we're almost done with the freaking galley.

Hey, you may have to thumb through the pages of givaways to find it, but the Goodreads site is giving away signed copies of my novel "The Ganymeade Protocol" in an online raffle sort of thing.  You can find the givaways here.  The book will move closer to the front page as time goes on, up to the givaway date of May 31, 2016, so, like I said, you may have to sift through a few pages to find same.  The cover looks like this:

I do like the new cover.

The site is a great place to win free copies of newly released books, btw.  Run over and win yrself a copy.

New stuff at Life, Art, Water, check it out.

More Later
M

Chimney Follies

So, ob cit, as part of our revisions here aboard Floating Empire, we decided to get as far off fossil fuels as we could (and off their expense) by installing a solid fuel stove.

Ranch tent stove in its final place.

Here's a bit better shot during the installation.

So in the course of our recent interminable spate of rainy, chilly weather, we got the chance to test the thing and determined a) that it put out a lot of heat and b) that the water jacket on the back of the stovepipe did a fine job of heating water for everyday use and--unfortunately--c) that it smoked the place up whenever we had a North wind.  Disappointing. (to read our original review of the stove and subsequent modifications and installation, go here)

We tried a number of things, carefully preheating the chimney by placing some tinder in the far back of the stove (which did help), building the fire more toward the rear of the stove, putting a different cap on the chimney......none of it seemed to fix the problem.

Then I finally bit the bullet and got more sections of 3" stovepipe and extended the chimney another two feet over the top of the boat.

No, these aren't the final brackets....just wanted to know if this would work.

Lo and behold, that was it.  The stove began to draw, even in the strong North wind, not a breath of smoke in the boat, and lotsa heat.  I'm sitting here drinking a cup of tea with water boiled on the stove.

Experimentation is a wonderful thing.  Make sure you give yourself the time to do that before you desperately NEED something to work.

In other news, it looks like the endless rain is . . .well. . . finally thinking about ending.  Today is cool, but sunny, and next week looks wonderfully warm.  The new kitchen setup is working well (as in, why didn't we do it this way in the first place?), and the new book is selling well.

Yes, it's available on Kindle Unlimited as well.

So, all in all, not a sucky week.  We're looking forward to warmer weather, more cookouts, and getting to finally mess with the floatation.

Stay Tuned

Hey, Morgainne has new stuff over at Life, Art, Water, with news of our potted duck.  Go have a look!

M

Pretty. . . .

Getting a coat of acrylic varnish on the new countertop.  This new layout will get us another two feet of workspace.  Just wanted to pass it along.

Gonna be pretty, eh?

New stuff over at Life, Art, Water.  Also have a giveaway in progress of my nautical scifi novel The Ganymeade Protocol over at Goodreads.

More later
M

New Galley Comes Together

So we're finally making progress--now that the freaking rain has stopped for a day or so--on the new galley set up, so I thought I would give you guys a look.

The new sink platform going in.

This is roughly how it will play out, surface mounting the tub rather than insetting it.

Of course, we have to deal with the pump.

So we disassembled, cleaned, and painted the thing.

And gave the new sink platform a coat of stain and varnish.

Here's the new setup, more or less in place.

Still lots to do, but we're getting there.

Hey more stuff over at Life, Art, Water and at Wild Shore Press.

More later.  At least it's sunny out.

M

More Galley revisions underway

Okay, so with the settee firmly under our butts and the woodstove installed, we begin the next phase on the galley.  Our first rude surprise was in taking down some of the corrugated steel behind the old hearth.  LOADS of mildew, caused by condensation.  Ugh.

Gross

So we cleaned up the black crap, sprayed the area with a bleach solution, and then wiped it down with a boric acid solution.  Hopefully this will forstall this happening again.

We put in more insulation and replaced some of the old tin with stained plywood to which we could attach stuff.

The wood wall let us finally get the spice rack and knife rack close to where we use em.

Pot rack back in place.

Then we re-hung our overhead pot rack. . .which was just as much of a chore as it was the first time.

Gettin There

Now we've got the big hunk of it:  replacing the countertop and moving the sink toward the aft to make for more work space. 

sigh...tomorrow

M

Why we live here. . . .

. . . if I occasionally forget it.

We were out on a friend's boat last night and stopped in at one of the waterfront pubs for a drink.

Sunset at the docks at "Crazy Tuna"

Not bad, hunh?  Just wanted to pass that along.

More later

M

Living in new spaces

This is ever so much more pleasant

So, we're about halfway through the revisions to the boat, and I've got to say, it's a much more pleasant and productive space.  We're really enjoying the more open floorplan, the settee is a much more comfortable place in which to sit and work, and we'll have more storage when we're done--and storage we can get to without crawling like commandos under the counters.

Next up, dealing with this:

Look quickly, it's going soon.

Not that we have a lot of issues with the Galley.  It has served us well, but we laid out the thing based on the kitchen in our old apartment, and, frankly, we don't have the same work flow patterns here on the boat as we did there.  That's what living with a space can teach you.  So the sink is going to the far left and we'll get another two feet or so of counterspace.

Sigh...never ends.

But we did get a great find the other day.  A furniture refurbishing store was tossing out this great little sideboard stand.  Enameled steel top (like our breakfront, also 1930's) nautical theme, et al.  It will fit perfectly with the new galley and sink.  Don't pass up these things when you see them by the side of the road.  They can be great plusses for your space.

Hey, if you've got a kindle reader, there's a giveaway of downloads for my Novella "In the Shade" (caution, some adult content) on Kindle this weekend (April 22-24 2016).  Go grab yrself a copy.

More later

M

Review: TMS Camp Stove

Or:  The great woodstove experiment

How this came about:  Since we began the Floating Empire project, one of our main goals has been to take the whole thing as far off grid as possible, to use little or no fossil fuels and to operate with as much self sufficiency as possible.  In that regard, we produce the bulk of our power from solar, process our own water, and, in general, try to live as lightly on the planet as we can.

But heating and cooking was one area where we were less than green.  Admittedly, using our kerosene stove and heater used very little fuel, but it's still a fossil fuel.  We looked at a number of other options, but kept coming back to wood and charcoal as a greener option for heating and cooking.  Our original design had an open hearth where we could actually have a small fire, but we never really used it.

But finally the expense, smell, and inconvenience of kerosene kind of got to us.  We began to re-address solid fuel stoves as an option.  There is quite a bit of deadfall hereabouts, and a lot of our Marina neighbors are in construction, so there would probably be a ready source of small, dry wood.

Here's the problem:  Woodstoves, particularly for vessels, are expensive, and each has their own eccentricities.  Prices ranged from around $260 for the Fatsco stoves to well over a thousand for other makes.  We were leery of making the investment if we didn't know if we could live with wood as a cooksource.

So we, like all good Americans, went directly to the internet and found the cheapest possible wood stoves.  These are barrel stoves intended for tents, and, on one level, Floating Empire is just a big tent.  We found a Chinese (of course) version for less than $100 which included a stainless steel water jacket, so we went for it.  If we liked it, we could always upgrade.  If not, we'd not be out much.

The rather ubiquitous one we found is marketed in the US by TMS, and generally advertised as :  TMS® Portable Military Camping Wood Cooking Ice Fishing Cook Stove Tent Heater With Water Kettle Teapot.

Okay, lets get real.  This thing is a long way from military grade.  It's a cheap stove made from sheet metal, apparently recycled sheet metal, with iffy welds, bad paint, and meh fitting parts.  The price, was, however, right, so we gave it a whack.

Here's the thing assembled

Checking for size.  We modified the galley to accommodate the little beast.

 Okay, first the bad news.  Everything you've read about the fit and the paint on this thing is true.  The stove comes with a glossy coat of what appears to be automotive paint.

With the first firing, 90% of the paint simply fell off.

Revealing numerous welded patches in the metal, most pretty well done.

We had been warned of this by numerous reviews, so if you get one of these do NOT do your first couple of burns inside unless you like burning paint fumes and smoke (If you DO like breathing paint fumes, I recommend repeatedly telling yourself that the bunnies are not real).  As it was, one three-hour burn took enough of the paint off that it was possible to sand the rest off in only about twenty minutes.

A couple of coats of high-heat woodstove paint and we're good to go.

The second thing is the construction:  While the machine welds along the cylinder of the stove body are precise, anything done by hand is sloppy.  One reviewer commented that they looked like they were done by a bored teenager on some factory floor, and that's not too far from the truth.  Some of the design ideas are just plain odd.  The door, in particular, is kind of odd.  There is no provision for a gasket, and the catch is, well, puzzling.

I mean, what the heck is this supposed to be?

The catch is a tube, welded to a screw, through which a piece of bent rod stock slides.  Why?  It's almost impossible to engage when the stove is hot.  Like most folks, I replaced it with a piece of flat steel, which works pretty well.

This works much better as a catch.  Not sure why they didn't do it this way in the first place.

There is, of course, some good news:  The air control vents are spring loaded and work well, and, though it isn't mentioned, they are on both the front and back of the stove, giving you a fair amount of control.  There is also an ash dump in the back with a sliding hatch, which also isn't mentioned.  The stove pipe is HEAVY.  Actually, I think it's probably automotive exhaust pipe, but it does the job.  The rack with the two circulation tubes fit well on our stove and do their job.

Then there's the water jacket:

Probably worth more than the stove.

Unlike the stove, it's a precisely shaped and welded piece of stainless steel with a metal valve assembly.  Probably cost more to make than the stove, but heats water quickly (it holds about 2.5 L), and is gonna be handy.

In order to create a space for the stove, we extended the stepped hearth we had built for the kero stove and lined the whole thing with concrete board, then with tile to handle the heat.

Tile and concrete board going in place.

We've used the stove a few days now, cooking on it last night...okay, we boiled water... and using it for heat (we've had a bit of a cold snap lately), and it seems to work fairly well.  We'll be needing to extend the chimney (air from a north wind compresses air against the front of the boat and backdrafts the stove a bit)  and doing some prettification on the stove platform, but thus far, so good.  We'll be giving you an update as we experiment with this little tin can.

More stuff at Life, Art, Water, and over at Wild Shore Press.  Give em a look.

More later

M