Roselea

Month: August 2017

  • Scaffolding Tower Has Wheels Fitted To Its Feet!

    While we waited for the rain to stop, we rescued the castor wheels from some old tool object which served in the past to help move around the massive steel I-Beams. They were unbolted and set ready for fixing on the scaffolding feet, which we went out at the point the rain was almost stopped and took the flat metal feet off the scaffolding tower. Then, we unscrewed the fat pipe section off the threaded rod and the flat plate (we really had trouble with the fourth one! It was so badly rusted inside that it took us an hour of bashing, blow torching, oiling and everything else under the sun to get the damn nut to move! Eek!). Then each plate (10mm thick by 180mm square) had four holes drilled into them and had the castor wheel bolted on, we finished only three of the four before we stopped for the day, .

    Casters-for-scafold-tower

    Casters-for-scafold-tower


    Tomorrow or Saturday, we will do the final fourth foot and then put the new feet with wheels back on the scaffolding tower and this will allow us to easily move this second tower around, just like the other one!

  • The Next Set of 3 LVL Hip Rafters Beginns Construction

    Today, we started on the next three rafters, the corner Hip Rafters that goes in the main corners of the house. They are the Great Room “PA” corner, the Utility Room “EH” corner, and the Bedroom 3 “HI” corner. They should be all the same length from the wall up to the steel I-Beam and their bracket, at 5430 mm. We measured them as follows:

    • PA – 5400 mm – short by 30mm
    • EH – 5380 mm – short by 50mm
    • HI – 5450 mm – over by 20mm

    This is not bad considering the nature of our steel I-Beam being plonked down in the middle of the house when we only had short concrete stub walls at the time!
    We carried on measuring around on the other bracket to corner distances, as follows:

    • IJ – 5780 mm
    • LM – also 5780 mm
    • NM – 5275 mm
    • P11 rafter – 3520 mm

    We then brought into our workshop 8 sheets of plywood boards and sliced them up into sixteen pieces of 433 mm wide strips. We then got a piece of the polystyrene foam board and hot melted this down into 2 x 217 mm wide strips, generating 7 strips ready for filling the internal space inside the rafters.

    Plywood-and-foam-for-beams-PA-EH-and-HI

    Plywood-and-foam-for-beams-PA-EH-and-HI

    At this point, the rain came hammering down and we couldn’t go outside to fetch the LVL timber we needed, until about an hour later when the rain stopped.
    We now have all the parts ready, to make three hip rafters tomorrow while the rain is forecast to hammer down!!

  • The Companion AB LVL Rafter Is Now Installed!

    Today, we carried on configuring and adapting various equipment and tools to help us with the task of lifting these roof Rafters up into place. For example, we reinforced the other winch support arm to stiffen up the vertical pole. We did this by welding on two angle iron pieces on the opposite side of the metal pole so that the bending moment is much stronger in the direction of the winch arm hanging over the side of the tower. The other thing we did, was to extend the cable for the control buttons for this same tower. By adding another 10 metres to the four-core electric cable going from the control box and the winch mechanism itself, now allows us to control the winch motor from ground level and have much better control when we are positioning the ends of the rafter on top of the wall and getting it to slide onto a leg too.
    We then moved both towers to the next position where the AB LVL diagonal valley Rafter will be going, rotating the towers so their ends are parallel to the wooden beam to make it easy to lift up smoothly up the sides.
    The next job was to slice the 41° angled cut off the top end of the rafter (the one fitting into the metal bracket) up on the C Ridge, and then cut out a clearance hole on the webbing at the other end where it fits over and on the top plate of the wall corner.
    We humped this 6metres long piece of work outside and got it up with our winches, did a test fit and all it well.
    The next job was to get the corner leg fitted, by cutting it down to size (exactly 2381mm high) and doing a quick test fit there too.
    After that, we squirted lots of the glue all over the contact areas where the legs fits into, both ends of the rafter and the metal bracket too and then slotted everything into place!

    Beam-AB-installed

    Beam-AB-installed


    This is the second companion rafter fitted, to go alongside the other DE Valley rafter on both side of the big C Ridge forming the Front Door and Entertainment Room Extension portion of the house. This section of the roof skeleton framework is now done! Hooray!
    Tomorrow, we will measure the next three corners (the PA Hip Rafter, EH Hip Rafter and the HI Hip Rafter) which are all the same size rafter (apart from their lengths [which ideally would be the same as well]) before the thunderstorms arrive in the afternoon sometime. Also, we will take in the metal foots of the scaffolding tower and drill holes in them to allow us to fit castor wheels to them for us to pull the tower around so much easier! Phew!

  • Lovely Bonfire While It Rained!

    This afternoon, with the rain that is coming, we decided to do a bit of site clearance and have a bonfire in our incinerator! We have been building up trug loads of wooden rubbish from various projects over the months and it was time to finally make a start on getting rid of this collection.

    Fire-in-Incinerator

    Fire-in-Incinerator


    We finally managed to get rid of eight trugs, 6 bags of wood shavings and one huge plastic bag of wooden rubbish!
    Empty-firewood-trugs

    Empty-firewood-trugs


    But we still have not tackled the huge pile of timber that is still lying up there near the incinerator! Phew!

  • New Lifting Mechanism Created and Finally The DE LVL Rafter is Up and In Place!

    We finished creating the new Lifting Support Framework for the winch, with some more welding of reinforcing struts at the top and handles at the bottom to allow us twisting control and something to pull on when we need to take down the arm.

    Strong-new-winch-bracket

    Strong-new-winch-bracket


    We took out our new support arm to the tower, mounted the motor to it and heaved it up and plugged it into the corner of the tower. We then hooked up this rafter (the DE valley Rafter) with both winches and started winding it up again. this time, it went all well and we managed to get the rafter fully into place correctly – at last! This was only a test run as we needed to get the DE leg in place too and glue it all together!
    We trimmed this corner leg to exactly 2385 mm long and smoothed it off with the belt sander until it just fitted nice and smoothly. We then did another dry run with our rafter to make sure it fitted in, this time with the leg there too. Yes is the answer and phew!
    So we went ahead to glued all the joints at the bottom of the rafter, and the top too and all the internal surfaces of the vertical leg. The rafter then came back and slid into place, even easier this time with the lubricant of the glue there to help us.
    Strong-new-winch-bracket-in-use

    Strong-new-winch-bracket-in-use

    DE-Lvl-rafter-in-place

    DE-Lvl-rafter-in-place



    We then fixed a couple of nails into the bracket at the top and screws into the wooden leg and rafter at the bottom to keep it held in place while the glue sets.
    This concludes the very long saga of getting this one rafter into place and thanks goodness at last, it is there – Grin!
    On Monday, we can move over to do the second rafter we have ready, this one being the AB LVL valley rafter on the other side of the C Ridge beam and it will go so much faster after all what we have learnt these last few days! We Hope So! Grin!

  • Lifting Equipment Saga!

    Today, we resumed the challenge of lifting our very long rafter (well there are two of them waiting to go up .. but one at a time – thank you!) and after talking about different types of lifting mechanisms, we decided that the pulley “block & tackle” system wasn’t flexible enough (like for example, when we need to stop hauling, we would need to tie off. but when we need another 6 inches or so, then untie, pull and then tie up again!) so this morning, we abandoned the pulleys in favour of electric winch motors instead. We took the support arm down and adapted them again so we can slide the winches all the way along the arm, back to the vertical pole. We welded a couple of pieces of square 5mm plates on the sides of the support arm so it would lock the winch machines into place and stop them rotating and tripping the safety switch that cuts the motor!!
    We went out with these new versions of our lifting mechanisms, installed them on top of the towers and then started lifting our DE rafter beam.
    But ..
    We didn’t get the tower lined up parallel with where the rafter needed to go so it was too far out and we bent our vertical pole section of our lifting support arm (again!). We took that one down again and straightened it out and tried again but this time, to get the tower lined up better with the rafter right up close to the tower. We were able to lift the rafter all the way this time, at last!
    But ..
    We discovered that the way the rafter needed to be fitted, our winch was NOT high enough to get the rafter clear of the steel I-Beam to allow the bottom end to slide back into the corner! Oh Blow! Drat! Phew!
    Everything goes back down to ground level, disconnect electric, tidy up one winch set and cover it up against the weather and the other set was taken down completely so we could start thinking a new design, using bigger, stiffer, taller metal pole, this time another 1.5 metres taller!!
    We found an old heavy duty pole that was an used for an old washing line and used that as our new vertical pole. It was just the right diameter to slide down inside the scaffolding tower’s poles in the corner but we had to bash out the dents made by the locking bolts. While that was being done outside, the new pole was having bits and pieces welded to it (like the old support arm off the original version).
    Tomorrow, we will finish off welding of extra bits and pieces to this new pole and then we will try lifting our rafter for the fourth or fifth time – We Forget Now! Smile!

  • Vacuum System Almost Done

    Today, while half the work force is away at a meeting, the vacuum system was continued to be created and assembled. The various holes and boxing were created, the motor units mounted and electrically tested, and each module having rubber draught excluder stuck down around all the edges to seal the various chambers.

    Vacuum-System-Nearly-finished-1

    Vacuum-System-Nearly-finished-1

    Vacuum-System-Nearly-finished-2

    Vacuum-System-Nearly-finished-2

    Vacuum-System-Nearly-finished-3

    Vacuum-System-Nearly-finished-3



    The two boxes are now connected together, the vortex and “big” stuff collection box and the motor units and the “small” stuff collection box as you can see in the photo.
    We have hooked one motor up for a real test run and oh wow, what a suck! Grin! We went around the workshop and vacuumed lots of surfaces, large pieces, dust and wood bits and pieces and all was sucked up. Opening up the final “small” stuff collection box to inspect the filters and what was in there, and it revealed very little stuff! Just a few particles blown into the corners and a little bit on the paper filters themselves and that it! Very good indeed!! Excellent Stuff!
    So to finish off this little project, we just need to put in dampening material inside the motor unit chamber to reduce the bouncing noise and put on a lid with switches to control one or both motors, and maybe need to put a box around the vortex module as well to keep the noise down too. We will see!

  • Vacuum System Continues Construction

    While the rain came down, we went back and continued with the construction of our new workshop Vacuum system. We started building up the boxing and chambers it will need for the two separate filters and non-return flappy valves. We now have the filter box made with two attachments to hold the two paper cylinder filters, a sharing layer so that if one motor is only running, then both filters are always being used to reduce the airflow through each filter and hence reduce the speed which the filters will block up. The next layer is where the non-return valves will be situated but sofar we have just made the boxing and glued it together.
    Tomorrow, holes will be made to let the air through, both up and down, and the motors then can be fitted on top.

  • Troubles With Hauling LVL Rafter Into Place

    This morning, we sliced off the bevel wedge that needed removing off the top end of the LVL Rafter so it will slide and fit tight into the metal bracket. Then, at the other end, re removed a small section of the webbing so it can fit across the 76mm thick top plate on the walls.
    That done, we organised the scaffolding towers so that we could use our block and tackle to lift up the 60kg rafter beam without having to use the electric winch machines and instead use man power on ropes going through two pairs of 2 pulleys blocks to increase by 4 fold the lifting power.
    But, Hey Hoy, we had an incident involving a metal collar on our extending arm at the top of the tower and the fact that it snapped apart into two pieces under the twisting action and dynamic loading on the end of the extension arm.

    Broken-Connector

    Broken-Connector


    Fortunately, nothing came crashing down as it broke almost at the beginning of the lift operation and also we had tied ropes on each separate part to make sure that things didn’t slip off or come apart. Phew!
    So after lunch, we spent an hour or so to adapt our metal poles into a more solid braced design and welded everything together to avoid weak collars and bolts.
    Updated-hoist-arm

    Updated-hoist-arm


    Taking our new support lifting arms back out and set it up again, to only find that the whole vertical pole started bending over under the strain this time!! Oh Drat! Gee Wizz!
    Hoist-arm-bends

    Hoist-arm-bends

    It looked that it really needed a second leg to support the other end of the extended arm so we fetched our old wooden crane legs, reduced the height of where the horizontal pole fits through the wooden section and tried getting it to marry up and connect to our support arm. But it was leaning over drunken and we couldn’t get it to slide all the way into the metal collar!!

    Supporting-hoist-arm-with-a-leg

    Supporting-hoist-arm-with-a-leg

    At this point, it started raining so we abandoned this work and went back indoors to carry on with our vacuum unit instead. PHEW!

  • Making a Workshop Vacuum System

    This afternoon, while we waited for the glue to dry on the rafters, we carried on with the construction of a new vacuum system. It is a non-mobile system, using a vortex separator and twin motors to provide the suction power.
    The first larger chamber has been made using the vortex column and this will collect all the bigger and heavier rubbish being sucked up and then a second chamber to collect everything else down to fine dust size. Today, we were building the second chamber that will have two cylindrical paper filters, two suction motors and a box to collect the smaller particles of rubbish.

    Partially-made-vacuum-system

    Partially-made-vacuum-system


    We will carry on when we have another loose moment in our work schedule to finish it off later in the week and install it into our saw table. We will also buy new quality extension pipes so we can clean the rest of the workshop too.