Today, we started off in the workshop to build the combined Top-Plate for Wall “E” which has another extended beam coming out to support the porch we got hanging over our back door beside our Garage. It Is made of 3 layers, just like the front door porch, but much longer as wall “E” is 4 metres long.
While the glue was drying, we went outside, still working in a chilly wind, using our Router to cut extra slots in both the 89mm timber pieces and the 63mm timber pieces, for all our doorways and internal corners that has extra Legs. We also discovered and corrected several misaligned slots on the 63mm bottom-plate that is down on the concrete floor.
After lunch, we went around sorting and cutting another layer of the flat horizontal timber pieces that forms the Top-Plate to sit on top of the Legs. It is the 2nd layer to overlap and reinforces the joints in the first layer. Both layers are glued and nailed together to form one continuous solid framework to hold and lock all the Leg Elements that forms our External Wall structure.
We did the 89mm CLS pieces that goes on the outer post of the Leg and then the 63mm CLS timber pieces for the inner posts.
One little job we did afterwards, was to reduce the width of our ramp we got positioned beside the back door (nearest the Garage) so when the Wall Legs are installed, we still can fit the ramp in place!
Now back in the workshop, we constructed a plump-bob gadget to hook over the outer Leg so we can get a good accuracy in making all the Legs as vertical as possible.
But it was interesting to discover that our best spirit level (a digital £75 device) is actually as good as our plumb-bob gadget! It says on the label that the spirit vials are 0.5mm accurate in every metre. Which we never truly appreciated before so we now can use our spirit level instead – after all that work! Grin!
Tomorrow, we will start the process of adjusting each Leg one by one to get them vertical before we glue and nail them into place, just in case we discover something odd and have to make some adjustments etc.