Category: Build Progress

Yesterday and today, we continued with the processing of the set of Fascia Boards that has the 32degree slope on them, and sorted them out to form sets for the five sections of roof that are the same angle. These are the “A”, “E” (along the front of the building), “G” (the short sticking out bit on the right hand side of the Side door porch) and finally the “I” and “M” (along the back). The outside corners all have the 22.5degree mitre cuts (all of them except “M” as it is completely an inside job!). and all the intermediate planks have a biscuit joint to help align the faces together. We also had to join pieces together using a multi-finger tongue and groove joint to extend the last board arriving into the inner corners (where the downpipe channels are situated).
We had the “A” and “P” section of the rafters all ready for mounting up the Fascia boards so we took these two sets out and gave it a test run.

We started at the outside corner and positioned the first planks from both “A” and “P” plus the 150mm wide 45degree angled piece and joined them together so all was aligned. We then continued along the “A” putting up pieces and all is fine. Because it was looking good, we decided that we could do the next step of using our drilling template and make the clearance holes in these Fascia boards and screw down the top hole only to keep it all secured.
Tomorrow, we will finish off the last plank on the “A” section and then start work on sorting out the “C” section (Front Porch) and have that ready so we can do these outside corners for both BC and CD, which in turn, will allow us to put up “B” and “D” Fascia plus also the “E” section too! It is coming along! Hurrah!!

Yesterday afternoon and today, we carried on with the task of getting our Fascia Boards up on our eves. Yesterday, we had the last four and half planks that needed a steep 60° angle sliced along the top edge. We made a homemade jig with various pieces of plywood and CLS timbers to help support and hold each Oak plank in place and run our Bevel Slicing machine down the length.

We now have five piles of Fascia planks with all the different angled slopes put in, ready for installing.
Then, starting at the beginning, the PA corner of the roof (the Great Room at the front of the house), we chopped a 22.5 degrees angled mitre so it can join onto the 45degree corner plates. We went outside to put up string between our “L” brackets and temporarily clamp some more of these brackets so we can put up a Fascia board. This would let us position each Fascia board in relative ease and get things connected nice and smooth.
Today, we initially did some preparation work on some tools so we ready to chop and slice the rest of the Fascia boards for each section of the roof. We were adjusting the workbench modules so our large chop saw was balanced and level. It was a bit fiddly but we managed to get there at last!
After that, we sorted out our new biscuit jointer machine and worked out how we are going to cut a slot on the ends of the Fascia boards so the biscuit will be able to help us align each board and be a neat flat transition from plank to plank.

We did another test fitting with our biscuits inserted and it is looking not bad at all. we marked the slopes of each roof, the angle and things, on our little corner Fascia bit and hand saw off the extra bits.

Tomorrow, we will make some template jigs to help us position exactly where we will need to drill clearance holes through the Fascia boards so the stainless steel screws can be driven into the ends of the Eves (the rafters). We are waiting for some stainless steel tiny brad nails and some specialised highly waterproof PVA glue before we can proceed with putting up for real our first piece of Fascia board!

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!