Category: Fascia

Missing our morning’s work session to other duties, we resumed after lunch on the task of slicing a slope on the top edge of our Fascia boards to match the angle of each section of the roof. We had 41 x 2 metre planks ready for the rip sawing, divided up into the following set:

• 12 x 32° slope
• 5 x 33° pieces
• 8.5 x 40° planks
• 11 x 45° pieces
• and 4.5 x 60° slope.

Using our table saw, we proceeded to do all but the last one as the table saw cannot do more than 45 degrees.

Tomorrow, we will finish off the last 4.5 planks by using our Bevel Slicing machine we still got lying around and slice the very steep 60 degree angle on those remaining Fascia boards.

Today, under a superb blue sky and brilliant, very hot sunshine, we continued the task of fixing up support brackets to hold up our Fascia Boards at the exact positions.
It was very interesting to appreciate how the liquid level tool is influenced by all sorts of environmental factors. It took at least half an hour for it to settle down and acclimatise to things like air temperature affecting the tubing (making it softer and increasing the internal volume), the liquid expanding because it was getting warmer and the different heights of the barriers we had to go over!

But once we got a handle on its idiosyncratic behaviour, we had full confidence to carry on in doing the task of getting up these “L” shaped wooden brackets, positioned at the 12.550 meter point and we kept on double checking backwards, especially when we had to go out a different window or door.
We arrived back to the beginning, around on the front of the building just past the front door porch and we measured the very first one we did on Saturday and hey presto, it was the same height!! Yippee!

The other little job we did while we had this liquid level device out and working well, we duplicated our reference point we have been using (which is situated on our number 5 steel leg) and went all around the whole internal walls (and the other six steel legs too) copying the reference mark. We now can be reassured that if we accidentally block off our main reference mark, we will have lots of other ones to take comfort from accurate duplicated reference marks.

Today, we unpacked our new liquid level device and spent several hours getting it sorted (putting liquid in the 25 metre clear hose, without any bubbles takes time and patience!!), we proceeded to start work on setting the height of our Fascia boards. We are using “L” shaped wooden brackets made earlier and using this new liquid level to position a pair on all the sections of the roof to the precise Height of 2.55 metres above ground level.
It was very interesting in how this very old technology (the Romans probably invented the technique!) is still useful and how sensitive it is to the slightest changes in where the 25 metre hose pipe was positioned and what obstacles it had to climb over (like windows or doorways).
It was a case of running back and forth between the reference point on our “5” steel leg which had one end of the level mounted up at the exact 2.55 metre point and the other end going across and out to the edge of the roof.

We managed to get six of the fifteen sections we are setting up done, and on Monday, we will continue with the task, until we have done all the way around. We wanted to get ready the whole job of where to position and mount up the Fascia boards, before we actually start putting any up at all. We will (we hope!) see that we arrive back to the start and find everything is nicely aligned up!

A bit of a catch up blog entry for the last few days of work which has been a bit interrupted…

We cut the 10 pieces of fascia for the outside diagonal corners ready to attach to the end cut previously.

We then made a heap of ‘L’ shaped plywood pieces so that we can measure the position of the bottom of the fascia using our laser level and then clamp a ‘L’ Bracket in place to rest the fascia on. We then started by putting up 4 brackets on the E & F eves.

Later we returned to the job and we double checked these ones previously set to make sure that they were still in the right place. We wanted to make sure we could repeat the measurements and get the same results. And No We Cannot!

Further analysis seems to show that the laser can only find the same level within three to four millimetres each time we placed it down in a slightly different place. This would be ok for the more general site surveying tasks and even positioning certain building elements in and around the structure but when our Fascia will do a complete circuit around the whole house, travelling some seventy-seven metres in total, we were not confident that the laser will bring the two ends together within a few millimetres. We didn’t want to take that risk.
So a change of plan and we have ordered an old fashioned liquid levelling system using a long hose pipe and clear plastic tubes at each end and we will set one end at our reference point and move the other end right around the perimeter and fix our “L” wooden brackets everywhere first before putting up a single Fascia board. We will have to make a load more of these brackets but that is a small cost to achieve a consistent and clean result.

Today, in the morning, processed a couple more Oak pieces, one extra 150mm plank to add to our forty we have already, just in case we run out. The other one is much wider at 220mm which will be needed in making the special ten outside corners of the roof and the Fascia, as we wanted to have a 45° angle “chopped-off” the guttering etc.
Then after lunch, we went around measuring every single sticking out rafter (the eves) using our site laser level and surveying equipment. All the numbers got recorded and then transferred to a spreadsheet to reveal that we have a wobbly “random” positions for the ends of the eves (in theory they should have all been the same height), which is where our Fascia boards will be mounted on.

The analysis shows that most of the individual rafters are a little below optimum level (the construction drawings requires the level to be 2.7metres above ground), the worse one being 25mm low but actually the average was only 3mm too low and most less than 8mm low. There are only a half dozen of exceptional ones being either too low or too high. This led us to feel more confident that we will mount our Fascia boards at exactly the 2.7metre point above ground and make the necessary modifications or adaptations to each individual rafter as required.
The end results of this decision is to allow us a much better control over the positioning of the gutters themselves so each section can have a proper “downhill” slope to encourage the rainwater to flow towards the nearest downpipe in a quick and orderly manner!

Today, we finished off planing the fifteen planks that were glued overnight to get rid of the glue colouring and any slight imperfections. Then we converted the planer machine into the thicknessing mode, connected up the vacuum chipping remover cover and started planing all forty planks for the first time, slicing them down to 38mm thick initally.
After lunch, we continued to slice off a thin layer at a time, millimetre by millimetre until we reached a product with good smooth surfaces.

The end tally was that we managed to plane thirty-five planks down to a thickness of 34mm and the other five down to 32mm thick. The last five had more “features” in the Oak timber which needed more removal. These slightly thinner planks will be used on our shorter sections of eves (like for example, “B”, “D”, “G” and “I” sections).
Next, we sit down with our construction drawings and find out what we will need for doing the five internal corners which has a downpipe to connect the gutters plus also the three oddity ones located with the side door porch and the conservatory. These eight “specials” needs to fit into the Fascia board so it allows the rain water to flow backwards from the Fascia board (which has the guttering fitted on), along a horizontal channel to a hole where the downpipe will be located. The other design requirement needed to be teased out, are the ten outside corners, which will have a 45° angle “chopped” off the them, which applies to the Fascia board and to the guttering too.

This morning, we finished gluing the last fifteen sets of Oak timber, only using 5 set of clamps (as our new ones haven’t arrived yet). We had to wait for the 30 minutes for the PU glue to reach first hardening stage but it wasn’t too bad as we were able to keep a cycle going with new freshly glued ones and be able to unclamp the oldest glued set which was just about at the 30 minute point.
Then after lunch, the five we had glued yesterday, we scraped off the excess glue and then put them through the planer to slice off a fraction of a millimetre to clean off the stain of the glue and any slight imperfections.

You cannot see the actual joint itself, but only by the fact that the two Oak strips have a very slight different in colour and of course the grain do not match up either.
But it is looking good and tomorrow, when we have done the same to today’s fifteen glued planks, we then will be ready to pass all of these twenty glued planks, plus the other twenty single Oak pieces, through the planer in its thickener section and achieve, hopefully, a set of forty Fascia boards with all the same thickness. We will see!

This afternoon, after lunch, we finished off planing the various pieces of the Oak Timber so they are ready for the job of gluing them together to form wide enough Fascia strips (needs to be greater than 150mm wide). Then using our biscuit jointer tool to help align the pieces, we proceeded to glue and join together five planks.

We used a fast acting PU glue so we don’t have to wait eight hours to get maximum strength, this glue will reach working strength after only 30 minutes. We are planning to be able to clamp nine set of pieces together in a session and by the time we have done the last one, the first one will be ready to be unclamped and we can carry on with the tenth set and so on. Hopefully the new clamps will come tomorrow in the post! – or else!
After the twenty sets are glued and cured, we will very slightly plane the finished surface again to remove any trace of glue and any very slight misalignment’s, and then all forty pieces will be put through the thicknesser part of the planer machine (this planes wood to a fixed thickness) to get a final set of finished Fascia boards – at last!

These last few days have been somewhat disrupted with various external meetings and other commitments and the work on sorting out, planing and processing the Oak Timber have been patchy. So far, after today’s full day, we have selected  32 narrow pieces and sawn them to 95 mm wide, then selected 11 pieces just over 180 mm wide. These pieces have now been put away back on the Oak Storage rack outside for later in the project.
The rest are the 40 mm thick oak is being processed into more than 75 meters of Fascia boards, we need 40 pieces of oak  which are 150 mm high, we have enough planks to make 20 pieces from whole wood and parts to make another 20 from two narrower pieces glued together.

All of the pieces have now had one flat surface planed (60 pieces in total). Now we are planing the narrow edges to ensure that they are right angles to the processed face. On Monday, we will finish that task off and then start gluing and joining together strips.