July '18

This month was dominated by preparations for the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service presentation held on 7th August, so it was all hands to make the Old Girl look at her best for the occasion.
Before we got too stuck into things, there was a change of scene and subject as some of us spend the first day of the month at the impromptu Road Run of Steam Engines around the lanes of Cheshire, loosely arranged by the Lancashire Traction Engine Club, which featured Kerne member George Coles’ 1913 Clayton & Shuttleworth Traction Engine and Jonathan Bregazzi’s Stuart Turner-powered ‘Steam Buggy’.
It was soon back to work with paint brushes in evidence, including the Chief’s repainting of the funnel colours, completion of the deck painting and hatch varnishing. Due to our ongoing boiler tube issues, we obviously cannot raise steam, so the WWII veteran tug Seaport Alpha was again pressed into action to move Kerne along the quay to a more salubrious location for the Award Ceremony. The downside to this was the presence of a huge flock of feral pigeons scavenging for grain from the nearby grain store. They obviously don’t like the vessel’s colour scheme as they seemed intent on converting it to a colour and texture infinitely more unpleasant than the usual red, black and buff!
Down below in the Forward Cabin, the absence of the new oak bulkhead (yet to be completed) creates something of an eye-sore as we have stored wood in the forward area, so to tidy this up, curtains were put up, giving the Cabin the appearance of a theatre. We only needed a magician to emerge from behind the curtains to make the illusion complete. One further element of the Forward Cabin restoration is however complete, this being the seating. To achieve this, away from the vessel a group of volunteers formed a production line in order to cut to size the plywood seat-backs, then cut carpeting to fit, glue the carpet to the plywood, add brass-effect edging before returning these to the vessel to be drilled and fitted. The seating now looks good, and the fitting of a new timber facia behind the access steps greatly improves the appearance of the cabin.
Work has started on removing the boiler stay tubes and a new carrier has been fashioned to lift the starboard side steering chains off the aft deck, where they have been rubbing for some time.
As the month drew to a close, Brasso (other metal cleaning products are available) was applied to beading to the engine, pipes, gauges and anything else that could be polished with very pleasing results ahead of our Big Day on 7th August. 

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