Monday 9 July 2012

The Big One (15-2)


Monday 9th July 2012


It's been a quiet day, with very little in the way of rain and reasonably warm. I am trying to motivate myself into tackling some of the jobs that the weather has made me put on hold. Jobs such as touching up the paintwork. It seems that there is some correlation between the onset of rain and setting up everything in readiness. Then everything in the instant weather change is carefully choreographed to the opening of a pot of paint.


So not wanting to prod the god of rain, he has been a bit grumpy of late. As an alternative, I did a few essential outside jobs on the boat like - change gas bottle. However, this obviously prodded into life the god of unintended consequences. I change the bottle and as expected there is a small amount of gas that seeps from the disconnected pipework. So I expected to get the odd whiff of gas. Fast forward an hour or so and I get another whiff of gas in the gas bottle locker- this time it was unexpected. 

I started to check all the flexible gas pipework and joints. All seemed to be fine until I reached the point where the gas pipework connects to the bottle via the regulator. It seems that outwardly the brass gas tap on the bottle is in good order. But a mixture of soapy water shows through the generation of bubbles that there is a tiny leak of gas.  Out with the PTFE tape (the gaffer tape for mechanical pipework joints) and the pipework is re-connected again. Checking back an hour later, there is no smell of gas and there are no bubbles.

It's not the first time this has happened. As bottles get reused over and over again by being returned for re-filling. The point of most wear has to be the brass connector. 


I have a theory as to why.


As the brass connector is a left hand thread (you have to turn it the opposite way to normal to tighten the thread) So I think that people forget and fiddle around trying to force the connection in - whilst at the same time turning the thread the wrong way. Plus most of us know by the muscle memory when we have reach the right point of tightness. We do it so many times. However when we encounter a left hand thread, I think we tend to over tighten and this causes additional wear and distortion on the threads.




Daily Total
Miles: 0.0
Locks: 0
Swing/Lift Bridges: 0
Tunnels: 0
Pump Outs: 0
Engine Hours: 0.0
Diesel: 0




Accumulated Totals
Miles: 972.5
Locks: 722
Swing / Lift Bridges: 119
Tunnels: 9
Pump Outs: 11
Engine Hours: 2250.3
Diesel: 40L (49.57)



Later......

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