The last two weeks saw the completion of scorching all the Larch cladding timber. A total of 596 planks of varying lengths from 3metres, right up to 5.7metres and different widths of 75mm, 100mm and 125mm. They all had a position in a list that describes how much scorching each had, from level zero (not touched by any flames) to a deep burn at level 5. We eventually, after having to do running repairs and improvements to the Scorching Machine (a new Motor driver heatsink amd replacement snadpaper on the drive rollers), processed all 441 Planks that needed scorching. Our canister of Butane gas, had 19kg of gas at the start. This went down to just 2kg at the end so how about that then?!
Replaced-sandpaper-on-drive-drums
New-Heatsink-for-motor-drive
All-the-scorched-planks
The next task was to do a grand tidy up of the whole area, moving the scorching machine over to be stored away in a corner for emergencies, sweep up the brown “charcoal” dust that was produced by the scrubbing process, probably about good bucket load and a general sweep right across the middle of the building, another 2 buckets of mostly sand.
Pile-of-removed-burnt-wood-dust
Then, we sorted out all the scorched planks into two main piles, one for fire treatment; these planks are destined for the back of the building nearest to the boundary and the side next to the garage too. The other main pile is earmarked for the front of the building and only going to have the single treatment of being oiled. The two piles are quite similar in size.
The last day on Saturday was spent building the basic structure of our dunking trough to apply the necessary treatments. It is a long trough nearly 6metres, 160mm wide at the bottom and the two sides gently fans outwards to a height of 100mm. Then a 4foot wide draining board was constructed all the way along one side so we can position the freshly dunked planks up on the slope and reclaim the dripping liquid and recycle it for the next planks.
Dunking-tank-on-Saturday-13th
Dunking-tank-on-Saturday-13th
Next week, we will seal the trough with plastic layers to retain the liquid and then start treating the Larch timber.