Category: Build Progress

A Mixed Bag of Tasks and Jobs Done This Week

A week of a mixed bag of lots of little tasks, jobs and errands, with a mixed bag of super-hot days, thunderstorms and a cool damp day to finish the week!
For the first job on Monday was to finish as much as possible the of the ‘P’ section of the roof, putting on several hundred more Slates. We couldn’t finish it as the last few columns need to have access from the other roof surface (the ‘A’ section along the front of the house) so we had to stop there and started the process of tidying up everything off the platform modules, ready for them to be moved.

P2-Slated-as-far-as-we-can-go-now

But first, after almost forgetting to do it, we washed out the finished gutters using the pressure washer and sanded smooth the joints (removing the expanded glue) and surfaces along the guttering. Then we removed all the edging plywood strips off our working platforms, removed all the screws joining the modules (there were eight of them) together and released them from the walls of the house too.
But we couldn’t move them for two reasons number 1 was that we had two crate’s full of Slates were in the wrong position, or rather, they clashed with the need to locate the line of our working platform to go along the front of the house and secondly, the old little covered storage hut (containing sheet materials) was blocking the route when we needed to move the eight modules around to the front.
So the next job was to make a new storage rack inside the house, this time, a four layered construction with room for a large pallet on the concrete floor for the cement boards.
After the external storage hut was emptied, we took it apart and recycled some of the bits and screws but most of it was beyond use and carried away ready for burning or other items put into the rubbish bins.
Now the next job was to empty two crates of Slates and we moved about 3200 of them and piled them on top of our other four crates. We used our large flat bed trolley to help us with that massive heavy job!

Slates-moved

Now at last, we could move the eight modules, one at a time. We made it easier for us by clamping a wooden bar across the legs and carrying each one the long way around the house. The eight modules gave us the scope to work on all the ‘A’ section, all the ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ and the first bit of the ‘E’ sections of the roof, this is nearly all the sections along the front of the house. We will have to move two more modules to enable us the access to the rest of the ‘E’ section to the corner with ‘F’ but we will do that later on.
That was the end of Wednesday and we finished a little early too because it was very hot (our air temperature was 33°C and the ground was reading 40°C on the sandy soil but our slates on the roof was reading 50°C!!

Thursday, we avoided the hot sun by working in our workshop to process the next set of Oak timber planks, to make a series of narrow flat vertical pieces to form the octagon shaped pillars on each side of the windows. We brought in all the 27mm thick by 2metre oak planks, about 75 in total. We will only need some of them as we are making a set of 100mm wide parts and a set of 70mm wide parts, 26 of each (we should be able to get two parts from many of the wider planks). We would like to pull out the nicest quality ones so we try to avoid those ones with knots and twisted grains. We first chopped all the ends, removing any split ends and other defects and got started on slicing one straight edge using our track saw. We managed about 25 planks so far.

Lots-of-Oak-planks-for-window

We had Friday off because of other commitments but we resumed on Saturday and catching a break in the rainy weather, we went out to fix and join all the eight platform modules together and anchor them to the building, also putting on the edge plywood edging strips too.

Scaffold-platforms-along-ABC

Scaffold-platforms-along-CDE

That concludes the mixed bag of things we did this week, but at least, we now have everything ready so we can resume work on the roof, this time along the front of the building where we continue putting on the gutters, fibre-glassing the corners, inserting the rubber and then the membrane and everything else!

27 July 2019
26 Oak Vertical Pieces Produced for 13 Windows

For the last three days of this week’s work, we were in the workshop processing the pile of Oak timber that makes up the vertical elements of the window frames. It is ironic because the weather forecast said rain on all three days but actually the second day (Friday) didn’t have any rain what so ever! But we just got on with the job of planing and cutting the oak.
We went through the usual process of planing one side of the 26 timber pieces and one of the edges, working on the top configuration of the planer with its two long extensions, before transforming the equipment into the thicknessing mode and planing the second side and the other edge, all to a known width and thickness. While doing this process, we realised that some of the current oak pieces were not going to be good enough so we got three more rough timber pieces off the storage rack and included them in all this stage!
When we finished we rejected the worst three pieces (they went back outside to the rack) and so we had 26 finished pieces.

Sides-planed-to-size

The next day was building a template to guide the router with a ball race parallel cutter, to shape the end with a 6 degree slope and turning at a certain point to finish off flat. This shape matches the surface of the sills, and lines up at the back where the glass will sit.
The template was made of two pieces of hard cement boards, screwed onto a piece of wooden batten and then sliced in the chop saw with the 6 degree angle. This was then screwed together to a base board and that was screwed to a long double sided rail that holds the oak pieces. Then each piece was inserted into the template and the end routed to shape.

Start-with-square-end

run-router-along-jig

end-up-with-base-of-side-shaped

The last step in this day’s work was to cut all of them down to their required length of 1654mm long, carefully setting up more end blocks and supports, to make sure that all pieces were cut to exactly the same dimensions.
That was day two and we now have a pile of 26 proper length oak pieces, with the special shaped bottom ends.

The last day (Saturday), we had to do the other ends, which in some ways, were more complicated because it has four individual cuts to be made, two across the grain and the other two ripping down the grain. We took thirteen pieces and clamped them all together so we could run the track saw at the precise position, to cut across the grain. Then rip across the end to remove the resultant blocks. The “waste” blocks were quite large, 30mm thick by 34mm long and 46mm high.

Lastly, we put together another template jig, this time to guide the battery saws to cut off a thin slice and that finally made the “pillar” which will fit up into the header frame of the windows. This piece of removal was only 3mm thick by 66mm by 45mm.

Saw-Horizontally

and-vertically

Top-of-a-side-completed

All-sides-done

This concludes all the work on these vertical side pieces of the Window Framework. The next rainy day task is to plane more oak timber but this time, the two sides of the octagon “pillar” that sits in between the sill and the header, on each side of the window. It might be more than a week before we get back to the workshop as there is a hot weather front coming in from Europe next week so we will be getting on with the roof.

20 July 2019
Both Sides of Q and Three Quarters of P Covered in Slates

For the first three days of the this week of work, we were lucky with the weather but also unlucky as we suffered in the heat too! But we did manage to cover both sides of the “Q” Conservatory roof sections, but for only 200 slates for each side, it took us two days to get that done. Very short strips and awkward access getting up and over the gable end slowed thing down.

Q1-slated

For the third day, Wednesday, we doubled checked our earlier procedure of transferring the slate positions on the first half of the “P” roof and make sure it was still lined up with our markings. Yes it was! Amazingly enough! Grin!
We then proceeded with the second half of the “P” roof section, starting as usual at the guttering line and working up the valley, putting slates across the fibre-glass trough. We reached the top of the “Q” roof and .. the moment of truth .. the meeting of the two surfaces! and the slates met together with joyous congratulations of getting it “just right”!

That was the first hurdle pass and we continued up and headed towards the top of the “O” ridge line where it meets the corner of the Skylight. After careful analysis and fiddling with different shaped slates and flashing slates too, we managed to get that lots sorted out too! Hurray and a Big Phew!!

Q2-and-start-of-P2-slated

That was pretty much the end of the work on the roof for this week as the forecast for the next three days were wet, wet and wet!
But next week, apparently, is going to be a sizzling hot hot hot weather all week, with a hot air from Europe rushing in!! Double Phew!

17 July 2019
Nearly 2000 Slates Mounted + Some Work on Window Frames

We started this week with good dry weather in resuming the job of mounting Slates up on to the roof. We finished off the little bit left to do on the “N” roof section and then moved around to then complete the whole of the “O” section in the first couple of days.

N-O-Complete

One of the finishing task was to place and nail the flashing slates along both sides of the Hip and Ridge lines, remembering to do this job each time we got up a strip of slates as the opportunity had only a limited window to practically and safely do the nailing while leaning over across the slates.
We had one small moment of interruption with the forecast of the weather showing an afternoon of sharp summer thunderstorms so we diverted our efforts to the workshop and got on with the task of preparing the next batch of Oak Timber to make the vertical side framing pieces of our 13 windows. We pulled out 26 lengths of Oak timber and after careful analysis of the grain patterns, we swopped six of these planks for another set. The first job was to trim off one edge to make it straight using our track saw. Then after that, we set up our bench saw with the fence guide set at 105mm and proceeded to slice all 26 planks down to this width. Some of the cut-off pieces, the bigger ones, went back on the Oak rack storage for later use, and the smaller pieces went into the garden shed to be added to other left-over pieces, also to be use later on.

Window-sides-cut-to-size

But when the sun was out and the day was dry, we carried on working on the roof, mounting more Slates, now on the “P” section. This large area has one complex situation to be dealt with and that is the Conservatory roof (the “Q” section) poking out. The way slates (and for that matter, all other types of roofing tiles as well) are installed, one has to always start at the bottom of the cascading nature of these overlapping tiles. This means that we have to start at the bottom at the gutters, on both side of the conservatory and we must get the alignment of the slates the same so when the two sides come up and meet at the middle of the “Q” ridge line, they will marry together “Nice and Neat” and continue up to finish off at the skylight.
So we had to project a couple of vertical lines and then project out sideways over the ridge line and come back down again to the gutter on the other side. We hope this will work but we will double check when we get to work on the other side and compare the positioning of the slates etc.
By the end of the week, we got about half of the “P” roof covered, almost reaching the “Q” Ridge line, which is where we stopped.

P-Half-done

So for this week’s work, we put up about 1800 slates, about the content of one crate, and next week, we will then do the two sides of the “Q” roof and start on the second side of the “P” roof (after making sure we are aligned). We hope the weather will hold good again but if not, then we will work in the workshop on our windows again – No Rest for the Crew – smile!

13 July 2019
Whole of P and Q Roof Sections All Prepared, Flashing Layers Assembled and Ready to Slate!

With a lovely prospect of good weather ahead of us, we got on putting up the final rows, about 13 of them, of the tile battens to finish off preparing them for the slates. But before the slates could go on, there were plenty of other tasks to be performed. The next job was to nail up the flashing battens along the two hips and two ridges, using a string to guide us and keep us on the straight and narrow.
The other job we did was to put up the Skylight kerb flashing strip made of the aluminium metal sheets, with the rubber membrane to actually provide the diversion of the rain water.
After that, the metal mesh went on the gutters, fixed down as usual with the thin oak strips to clamp down the edge of the mesh and rubber membrane on the gutter.
Skipping over a 4 hour job in helping a friend out with a plumbing crisis, we continued in preparing the roof sections, this time in doing the special bull-nose upright flashing strips on the two hips and again the two ridges too. This was made up of the shaped wooden strips with the woven glass-fibre ribbon wrapped over the top of the bull nose, all sitting on the rubber membrane that will provide the protection against the rain water. We put on three coats of resin, the last layer being a grey flexible top-coat to finish it off nicely.

O-P1-roofs-ready-to-slate

Q-roof-ready-to-slate

This concludes the preparation work for these sections of the roof (the “N”, “O”, “P” and “Q”) and we can start slating .. .. but the last day of the week, the Saturday, was lost to rain but we worked inside in the workshop instead.

6 July 2019
Finished off the Oak Sills and Headers for the 13 Windows

On this rainy day, we worked in the workshop on our Oak timber pieces for our window frames.
We carried on with the task of shaping the Sills and the Headers with 45 degree angles at the ends and cut a small bevelled edge on all the visible front edges. Next we routed a drip channel on the bottom, near the front edge of each piece and then sanded all the marks and colourations away to produce two sets of smooth finished pieces, the bottom and top pieces for our windows.

Sills-complete

Headers-complete

Header-edge-details

The next job for the next rainy day, is to grab the pile of Oak timber planks, this time we will use the prime quality ones, to produce the vertical side frame pieces for the windows
And then build the complete window units.

6 July 2019
P and Q All Covered in Membrane and Almost Complete with Tile Battens

We had a very disrupted week of work, losing three and a half days, due to other commitments and meetings. It is just one of those things that happens now and again.
We at least, got all the breathable membrane up on Monday and Tuesday so the “P” and “Q” sections of the roof are both now protected against rainwater, held down with a few vertical battens and some horizontal tile battens.

Membrane-on-P1-Q1

Membrane-on-Q2-P2

The final day, Saturday, we did a solid day of work of putting up all the rest of the counter battens, and got most of the tile battens nailed up too. We had to make a slight adjustment to some of the horizontal battens near the ridge line of the Q (the Conservatory) roof where the two “P” half sections meets together, there was a little 20mm mismatch to the lines of the battens so we “corrected” four lines of battens just below on the right hand side so there wasn’t a sudden “jump” in the line of the Slates.

Most-Tile-battens-on-P1

Most-tile-battens-on-P2-Q2

Next week, we hope that we will get in a full week of work and make solid progress on finishing the “N”, “O” and some of the “P” and “Q” roof sections, putting on thousands of Slates etc.!

29 June 2019
Continuing with P-Q roof and P-A Corner plus Progress on Oak Window Sills and Headers

On Monday this week, taking advantage of the good weather, we proceeded to glass-fibre and resin the two complex junctions and the corner we installed last week. The two Downpipe Channels on either side of the Conservatory, designated P-Q1 and P-Q2, and the outer corner for the P and A roofs, the P-A corner.
These were rubbed down and smoothed off, removing bubbled up left-over glue etc. Next, the glass-fibre matting was cut up to fit the various surfaces and angles and then painted into place with the base resin layer. After rubbing that lot down smooth, the final top-coat black resin layer was applied and left to set overnight.

Q1-downpipe-finished

Q2-Downpipe-finished

PA-corner-finished

The other little job was to complete building up the layers of the plywood strips for the P-A Hip line, up to the kerb.
Upon the next day, in the afternoon (the morning was spent doing an emergency repair in a friend’s bathroom shower unit), we tidied up the fibreglass-fibre coated junctions and also reconnected the drain pipes to the Downpipe Channels too, all before the rain arrived later on.

After that small job, we returned to the workshop to continue with the job of cutting the slope into the other set of Oak timber pieces, this time for the Headers (the top of the windows). We planed the 14 pieces including our prototype piece.

Headers-sloped

Then everything was cleaned up and put away, we had finished with the planer for the time being and generally swept up the workshop.
The next several days, while we waited for the wet weather to go pass, we shaped the ends (both ends) of both the Sill and Headers so they will fit into the 13 window holes already in the house. We built two jigs to guide our circular saw to cut the various lines in a couple of directions, and produce the first step to make these complex shapes.

End-shaping-jigs

Sawing-end-of-sill-with-jigs

The saw cuts were manually finished off using an old-fashioned carpenters saw because it is made of a thicker metal to help slide into the pre-made slots. We also made use of the jigsaw to help.

Small-window-sill-ends-cut

Sills-and-Headers-with-ends-cut

The remainder of the week, Friday and Saturday, we got on with the task of applying the breathable and rubber membranes to the P and Q roofs and building up the counter and tile battens.
The first job was to install the rubber strips into the gutters, on the P roof (both the 1st and 2nd sections, either side of the conservatory) and used the double layer contact glue to stick down the rubber ends to the glass-fibre black surfaces. Then we glued remainder of the rubber that goes up the slope using the rubber glue, again allowing the two surfaces to dry a bit before carefully rolling the rubber membrane up the roof. We wanted to ensure that we don’t get rainwater slipping behind the rubber and into the gutters but on the wrong side (o boy!) as it will take a few days to get the whole P roof all covered in the breathable membrane and the chances are that we will get more rain!!

P1-Gutter-lining-glued-in

P2-Gutter-lining-glued

The last job of Friday, was to stick on the three layers plywood strips along the ridge line of the Q roof and also the outer edge too, all ready for the flashing slates (with its rubber under-skirt) to be applied.

For our last day of the week, we then got the two sets of valley counter battens that will support the glass-fibre trough installed, sitting on top of a metre wide breathable membrane. The two came together at the top, along with the ridge line. We put on excess lengths of battens, just in case we need it all when we sort out the complex arrangement of the main slates and the flashing slates meeting together and maintaining waterproofing etc.
The last task was to lay down the first row of the breathable membrane along the bottom, overlapping the rubber by 100mm and going over the hip and valley ends. This was secured down with the counter battens at each rafter position. We got the P1 section covered as well as both sides of the Q done too.

P1-start-of-membrane-and-battens

Q2-Valley-and-start-of-membrane

22 June 2019
Gutters and Downpipe Channels Installed for all P and Q and the first Third of A.

The last two days of the week (Friday and Saturday) were nice days so we got on with installing the two Downpipe Channel modules for the P-Q valley that forms part of the extension part of the building for the Conservatory coming in the future.

Then we got all the guttering done, for all the P (first section and second section either side of the Q conservatory) and the first third of the A section along the front of the house.

Finally, we got the layers of the plywood strips installed for the p-A Hip corner of the roof so we could fibre glass all the complicated junctions and corners.

Gutter-on-P1

Gutter-and-hip-on-P2-and-start-of-A

So on Monday (weather permitting) we can fibre-glass these junctions and have them all sealed, ready for the rubber membrane to go on along the two P small sections.

15 June 2019
Making Oak Window Frames Started

Because of the changeable and very wet weather we had this week, we decided to switch over to our backup plan and work on our Windows and sort out the Oak Timber for the framework.
We got 13 windows (9 large, 3 medium and 1 small), each having a Sill and a Header plus a octagon shaped “pillar” vertically on each side, made from three different Oak timber sizes. For this week, we worked on the Sill and Header pieces, using 50mm thick Oak timber planks. We pulled out from storage all those planks that were wider than 160mm. The Sills will need to be 175mm deep and the Headers 145mm deep.

30-pieces-of-Oak-for-window-sills-and-headers

We found 30 planks in all and we have rejected four of them for being too warped or twisted down the length. We may have to use one or two of these rejects if we find ourselves running out.
The next job was to slice a straight edge to establish a base line to work from. We had to use a standard mobile circular saw to get a deep enough blade depth as our Oak timber were, in some cases, deeper than 50mm. The track saw we had, which would have been ideal for this job, could only cut about 48mm thick.

One-edge-straitened

The next task was to pass all the pieces through the big circular saw module in our workbench. We selected 12 pieces for the wider 178mm set and another 12 for the smaller 153mm set plus one left over which we cut in half (for our single narrow window), one each for the two sets. Initially, we had to cut very slowly as the equipment was prone to overheating and the safety protection breaker kept tripping. Also the blade was getting hot too and leaving scorch marks on the Oak. We decided to change the blade to a branded and pleasantly discovered that it started cutting much more cleanly, a little bit faster and no heating at all!! Just shows you that one should really change the original blade that came with the machine to a more professional branded blade!!

After all that fuss, we got our planer equipment out, plus our two extension tables and proceeded to plane one flat side of all the 26 planks plus two spare “test” pieces for prototyping the complicated shapes later on.
After careful analysis at this half way point, we then earmarked which plank would go for the Large windows (9 of these), another 3 for the medium windows and the odd one for the narrow window. We also flipped around each piece to find the best edge for the nicest visual presentation too.
The next stage of operation is to convert the planer machine into thickener mode (we put away the long two extension tables) and got out four roller support stands and using a long straight aluminium bar to adjust the heights of the rollers (we had to do this every time we adjusted the thickener to plane off more material) and got all 28 pieces planed down to a general 46mm thickness. The finished surfaces were not perfect because we knew that much of the “bad” parts will disappear when we cut the slope in, and also there are sections that will be cut away to develop the outer wings of the sill and headers.

Ready-for-slope-cutting

The final job for this week (day 4 of wet rainy weather, we measured that we had 23mm of rain in that time!!) was to build a angled support jig that will guide our oak planks through the planer and cut the slope on them.

Planing-the-slope-on-the-sills

We managed to do all the wider 173mm Sill timber pieces.

Sills-finished-planing-1

Sills-finished-planing-2

We stopped here because the weather changed for the better and we could get on with outside tasks.
When we get wet weather again, we will continue with the job of cutting the slope into the narrower set (the headers) and then cut the fancy shaped ends and round off the edges etc.

15 June 2019