During the task of cutting the vertical slots into the cement panels on top of the walls, Shaun ruined the router cutter bit on a nail! He didn’t see it in time or rather feel it and remove it with a crow bar and hammer! The cutter bit now has smashed edges!
Broken-cutter
So an hour was lost while we went off to the shop to buy 5 more bits, some spare ones too just in case!!
This morning, we finished off the task of removing the excess cement boards overlapping the openings. We had another three and half to go to complete all 15 openings. Again, wearing eye protection, dust mask and safety helmet, went long the front of the building to conclude the slicing the cement sheets away from the three Windows and one Door, the front door and the windows for the Kitchen, the little Hall window and Entertainment Room.
This morning, we sliced up one of our cement boards into lots of 110mm wide strips and went around gluing and nailing them under all the windows to complete the covering up of the timber framework.
Strips-added-to-bottoms-of-windows-and-doors
We also did the small vertical bits of the doorways too, two each side of the door right down at the bottom section of the timber framework which was still exposed.
Then this afternoon, we routed the waste overhanging cement boards around all the openings, 15 of them, around the house. Using a straight cutter with a ball bearing little wheel at the tip of the cutter, we ran the machine around the edges of the windows and doors, using the inside surface of the timber framework to guide the little wheel on the cutter.
Bearing-guided-cutter
Shaun-in-Action-trimming-around-window
The cutting generated a lot of dust, Shaun had both a breathing mask and goggles on to protect him. We managed only to do eleven and half of the opening before the end of the day, with a delay of an hour to repair the router machine.
Tomorrow, we will finish off the remaining three and half openings (three windows and one door – one of the windows is half done) and the next job is to cut the slots in the top of the cement panels on top of the walls.
The Bosch router machine suddenly stopped working while cutting the window on the “O” wall of the Great Room. It blew the fuse in the plug back in the garage!
We managed to track down the problem to a capacitor which had blown up! We replaced it with a new one (measuring 0.15 microfarads 400 volts) which we assumed that this capacitor suppresses spikes from the motor when you initially start the machine.
It took about an hour to do the repair job and get it back into working order again!
During the last two days, we continued putting up the cement panels to complete the third line on the external wall. We did Wall M, L, K and J yesterday and today we completed wall I, H, E and finally wall D to finish the whole circuit.
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Wall-M
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Walls-K-L
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Walls-I-J
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Walls-DE-H
It was hard work doing this third line, as a full sheet of the 10mm thick cement panels weighed 38kg each and we had to lift it over 6 feet up! This is why we had our handy wooden mini platform to hold the sheet half way up – phew!
The next job is to do the narrow strips under all the 12 windows to complete the covering of the framework around the window and narrow vertical strips down on both sides of the 3 doorways. Then, we will slice off all the overhanging waste parts of the cement board and we will then complete the wall.
The-amount-needed-to-trim-from-windows
No hold on a minute, we also have to cut slots in the cement boards at the top of the walls where each rafter is coming down from the roof, as it will need to project to form the eves beyond the walls!!
Today under a very hot sun and not much wind, we continued with mounting up the third layer of the full size cement boards onto the external walls.
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Walls-A-B
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Wall-P
Cement-boards-Finished-on-Walls-N-O
We now have completed wall A (the Kitchen and Great Room) and wall B (the side window of the front door extension) which are the walls facing the Loke. We then completed wall P (the long side of the Great Room) and turned the corner to do wall O, now going along the back of the house. We finished off the day’s work by completing wall N which is the side wall with a window in it and still part of the Great Room.
We made a helpful little wooden platform, made of two legs with triangle bracing corners and a 89mm CLS laid flat on top. This tool allowed us to hoist the cement panels up 4 feet and then get the ladders and equipment in place so we can then carry on hauling up these heavy cement boards up the final distance into place (You can see it in the last Photo).
We have used up all our prepared sheets so we will need to cut more grooves into the remaining boards on our pallet, which there are 19 sheets left. We hope that is enough to complete this job!!
Now there will be a short break from any further work while we have to do other tasks for the next few days.
This morning and slightly later stopping due to other commitments, we started putting up the third line of cement panels on the External Wall.
Cement-Boards-3rd-Row-Day-1-1
Cement-Boards-3rd-Row-Day-1-2
These panels were the pre-formed sheets with the groove and tongue on the two long edges and these 7 sheets went up on the Front Door extension and also up in the Conservatory next to the Great Room. These had the extra tongue edge on top so we can put up another line of cement boards to fill in the gable ends of the roof porch and extensions. We put whole sheets across the windows and doors for maximum racking strength to stabilised the building against wind shear forces.
Tomorrow, we will continue around the rest of the building using the 13 remaining sheets with just the groove cut in it. All is working quite well indeed!!
Today, we went around sticking down the second layer of the top-plate on the wall. It is the 89mm wide timber to sit on the outer post that forms the exterior wall structure. We used the 3D printed glue applicator we made last week and it worked very well!
Second-top-plate-glued-on
Then after that, we took 20 sheets of cement boards and one by one, routed a groove into one edge on 13 of them and then did both a groove and tongue edges on the next 7 sheets.
They are all now sitting on our trolley ready for installation tomorrow.
Cement-boards-ready-for-last-row
We had a a surprise discovery this morning when we came across a nest balanced rather wobbly on a small heap of loose planks of timber, high up inside our exterior wall. It was an open twiggy type of nest with one small pure white egg about 15mm long in it. There was no noticeable bird hanging around but we made sure we didn’t disturb the nest too much and left it there. We hope the bird (possibly a Dove) will come back.
These last two days, we have created lots of narrow strip of cement boards, and then nailed and glued them up on the exterior wall to build up the second layer of the weather and fire resistant cement panel coverings.
Cement-board-strips-cut-and-routed-one-edge
Second-row-of-cement-boards-up
We first took 7 sheets of cement boards, sliced them down into 275mm wide strips (producing 28 pieces), and then passed them through the router on both long edges to form a groove and tongue edges respectively. After that, we went around starting at the front of the building in the Utility Room corner, and then worked clockwise round the perimeter of the building, skipping the doors and windows as before. We finished with just one complete strip left over and lots of smaller pieces – that was close!
Tomorrow, we will go around gluing and nailing the second layer of the top-plate timber on top of the wall, both the 89mm width timber on the outer leg and the 63mm width timber on the inner leg, and at last, we will do the third line of the cement panel to complete the whole wall.
With the wind picking up a bit on this clear Monday morning, we resumed going around the steel I-Beams and installing the timber support pieces.
Timber Rafter-Supports-on-other-side
It is virtually the same as the work we did on Saturday and we now have completed the full circuit.
We have a line of wooden timber pieces on top of the steel work and a complete loop of special timber pieces with slots sliced into them, fixed down on the lower flange, ready for the roof rafters to go in.
Tomorrow, we now can resumed doing our cement board wall coverings, first putting up a narrow strip and then the 3rd line of full height 1200mm cement sheets to complete the wall covering and structural racking.