Category: Chimney

Our false Chimey but will support TV aerial, rain gauge, wind direction and speed, sun light measurer and direction, temperature and humidity plus other equipment that might go up on the chimney!!

Chimney Support Arm Is Done and Mounted

This morning we put together the 3D printed plastic sweep bend and connected it to a length of 38mm diameter black pipe going up the middle of the chimney support arm.

3D-Printed-Bend-on-bracket

We spent yesterday designing and printing the 135 degrees bend in a tight 100mm radius curve, we had to make it in two pieces with two collars to lock it all together nice and tightly.. it took about 6 hours to print all the pieces. We also printed two little gap filler pieces to go up inside the square steel tube to block off the open ends where we could apply a squirt of silicone sealant and glue the black pipe into place and stop the rain water getting inside the pipe or steelwork.

3D-Printed-parts-for-Chimney-conduit-bend

Bend-assembled-and-protected-in-foil-tape

We then mounted the whole thing up on the steel I-Beam with 4 10mm bolts and then drilled a 12mm hole through the bottom flange upwards and into the support arm bracket as well and bolted that section down nice and tight too. The black pipe will eventually extend through the kerb to the inside to allow cables to be connected to the ‘chimney’.

Chimney-bracket-installed

Finally, we put aluminium tape around the new 3D printed (which is made using red PLA plastic) to protect it from the harsh UV radiation from the Sun, while it is exposed to the weather. It will be eventually all covered up by the rafters and roof boards later on.
And just before the rain arrived at 1pm, we mounted up the final plywood covering on the inner surface I-Beam to complete the covering of the full loop of the inner Skylight “hole”.

10 July 2017
Chimney Support Arm Gets Second Coat of Black Paint

First thing this morning, the steel Support Arm for the Chimney was painted with its second layer of the black metal weather proof paint again, outside on the step ladder.

Chimney-Bracket-Painted

This afternoon, after we had finished our other job we had on today, we brought the metal arm, now dry, back to the workshop and looked into inserting a large bore plastic tubing (38mm diameter with 2.5mm thick walls) up the middle pole (the one that will appear above the roof surface) and put a curve in it so we can have a gentle bend to make it easier to thread wires and cables from inside the house to the chimney. But we discovered that just simply heating up the plastic pipe with a hot air gun wasn’t enough. It indeed softened the plastic but it was very difficult to make it bend in a gentle curve without buckling or distorting in funny ways. We knew we needed an interior support to hold the plastic in a round shape but we didn’t have anything to hand. We did wonder whether to use fine sand and pack the tube with it and then heat it up and bend the curve but we wondered that the hot plastic will absorb the sand particles and make it rough or more likely that the plastic being stretched to go around the bend (more than 140 degrees around) would make the plastic wall so thin that it may even break apart or be so weak to not be able to take any pushing of threading rods etc.
So we decided that we would manufacture a specialised sweep bend on our 3D printer instead and have sockets and sealant to join all the pieces together to form the necessary path to guide our wires and cables!!

8 July 2017
Chimney Support Arm Receives First Coat of Black Metal Paint

This morning, we ground, rubbed, and cleaned up the steelwork of our new Support Arm for holding up the Chimney on top of our Roof. We then took it outside and hung it up using our biggest step ladder and painted it the first coat of black metal weather proof paint.

Tomorrow, we will give it another coat of paint, after the required 24 hours delay before repainting.Then on Monday, we will mount it up on the I-Beam and put the final plywood cover over the inside surface of the I-Beam to complete that particular job.

7 July 2017
Steel Support Arm Created to Hold Up Chimney

This afternoon, in the dry and warm workshop, we cut up various steel pieces, for example, 3 lengths of 50mm by 50mm square tubing, a small length of 50mm by 25mm rectangular tubing, some flat 3mm plates and a piece of 6mm thick U shaped channel piece too.

Then slicing a series of angles on 2 of the square tubes (the angle being 32 degrees that matches the angle of the roof) and drilling 10mm bolt holes in the U channel piece, we then welded the whole lot together like a jigsaw into a support arm that will be bolted on both the top and bottom flange of the steel I-Beam, angled downwards to travel just below the roof surface and a vertical pole which will stick up through the roof surface and tiles that has the U shaped steel piece above this surface, ready for the rest of the chimney to be bolted onto.

Chimney-bracket-welded-togther

There is a 40mm hole down the middle for a plastic conduit to be threaded through the steel tubing which will allow for various wires and cables to be pushed through from inside the house to the chimney and the equipment that is mounted on it, like TV aerial, weather monitoring gadgets, lights, cameras and anything else we might think to put up on this chimney – grin!

Tomorrow, we will clean and give the whole steelwork three good quality coats of metal and weather proof paint to keep it in tip top condition for years to come! Then we can mount it up on the steel I-Beam and finally put on the very last plywood panel because it would have hidden the heads of the bolts!

6 July 2017