Roselea

Category: Roof

  • Finished Off Putting Up Plywood Panels on I-Beams Before Thunderstorms arrived!

    This morning, we went around and finished off mounting the plywood coverings on the Steel I-Beams before the thunderstorm arrives. We did dash in for 15 minutes at around 11:30am but that was only a small fringe effect of a thunderstorm heading elsewhere!!

    We concluded this morning with putting up the seven panels and we have only one more to do when we have created the steel support arm for the chimney.

    Nearly-all-the-plywood-attached-to-kerb

    Nearly-all-the-plywood-attached-to-kerb

    It all went up fairly well in the end and now we can look forward to doing the next stage of building up the Skylight by installing the timber framework on top of the steel I-Beams, and flush against the plywood boards. But first, we are making the chimney support arm this afternoon during the thunderstorms!

  • Inner Plywood Covering Up On I-Beams Starts

    It was a gloriously hot day today and the thunderstorm weather front we were originally planning around wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow so we dashed out there and started the task of putting up all the plywood coverings on the inner surface of the I-Beams, going up to where the Skylight glazing section will be mounted.

    There are a total of twenty-two plywood sections to be installed and we managed to do fourteen of them today.

    5-Boards-at-one-end

    5-Boards-at-one-end

    and-9-at-the-other-end

    and-9-at-the-other-end


    Most of the time, each piece went up quite nicely, applying the special modified silicone sealant/glue on the two lines of support timber already situated on the I-Beams, and screwing down hard the plywood to ensure the glue is firmly squashed flat to maximise strength of the joint.

    We changed our choice of glue for this operation as we knew that there were some locations along the I-Beams where there was a small gap between the steel edge and the support timber pieces and we wanted to make sure that the glue would not break apart inside the glue itself. We bought 4 different tubes of glues yesterday morning, when we stuck together a whole heap of timber and plywood pieces together with all the different glues including our original one .

    Glues-being-tested

    Glues-being-tested

    Glue-Test-pieces

    Glue-Test-pieces


    This morning, we found that the silane modified silicone (Stixall) one proved to be the strongest by far but it costs three times as much as the original one we were using! We just wanted to make sure that the Skylight stayed stuck together long term up on the top of our roof!!

    Tomorrow, because of the forecast of thunderstorm coming into our region for the whole day tomorrow, we are planning to work in the workshop and make the steel support arm for our (fake) chimney!

  • Sliced Up Polystyrene Foam and Inserted in the I-Beams

    Today, we got out our Hot-Wire Cutting Machine to slice up two sheets of our 120mm thick polystyrene foam and also a scrap sheet we had lying around for years, a 100mm thick piece. We first sliced using a single wire on the machine to slice the sheets in the vertical orientation to make 245mm wide strips, ending up with a pile of seven + two strips in total.

    Next, we then had the hot wire positioned much lower down at a distance of 45mm and then push through the machine the 120mm thick strips to produce two new pieces, one being 45mm thick (of course!) and the left over piece being 75mm thick which is just perfect to fill the inner flange of the heavy duty I-Beams. Finally, we added a second hot wire at the 90mm distance and ran through the two remaining 100mm thick strips to produce two equal pieces 45mm thick and a thin sliver of waste.

    Now, taking all the foam strips (a total of 7 thick ones and 11 thin ones) outside with an old bread knife and tubes of the MS special glue and loaded up the scaffolding tower. We then worked our way around the inner circuit of the I-Beams, placing the thin ones in the 100mm wide I-Beams and the thicker strips inside the 160mm wide I-Beams. We used the glue to smear some on the vertical webbing behind the foam strips to make sure they will stay put for the short while before the whole thing is covered up with sheets of plywood later on this week.

    Inside-of-Beams-Insulated

    Inside-of-Beams-Insulated

    It was a good day of work, before tomorrow which may find the day being washed out with thunderstorms, we will carry on in the workshop to make our steel chimney support arm! Good timing that! Grin!

  • Production of Bits and Pieces for the Skylight Continues

    Today, we carried on in our workshop to prepare and create all the bits and pieces we will need for our Skylight framework. We sliced up the plywood strips we made yesterday (744 mm wide by 2400 mm long) into 10 unique sized pieces ranging from 1165 mm to 2385 mm lengths, a total of 20 pieces. We labelled them A to J in pairs of two, and the two large end pieces labelled as “3” and “6”.

    Then, we cut a series of square notches on some of the boards which are needed to avoid the steel tie cross bars, so everything is now a jigsaw and will (hopefully) fit all together smoothly and tight like a glove!

    They are now lying on our trolley and covered up with tarpaulin.

    20-Strip-of-Ply-for-inside-of-Kerb

    20-Strip-of-Ply-for-inside-of-Kerb

    Then, we took the two piles of 327mm lengths of timber pieces, one is 63mm wide by 38mm and the other piece is 31mm by 38mm wide. We glued these together to form a T shaped composite piece. We made 52 of this T shape and 4 L shaped ones.

    Kerb-Piece-glued-together

    Kerb-Piece-glued-together

    And finally, to close off the day and while waiting for the glue to set, we set up four trestle legs outside on the driveway, and sliced down the middle of 4 lengths of 89mm CLS timber to make 69mm wide pieces. But we had trouble with the circular saw machine and it produced wider and angled pieces so on Saturday, we will put them through our planer / thickener machine to square them back up again and get the size back to 69mm too!

    It is a very fiddly list of parts for our Skylight and we haven’t finished yet, for example, we need various thickness of Foam insulation to fill in the void inside the framework etc. – phew!

  • All Day in Workshop Slicing and Chopping Timber

    Today, to avoid the rain and wet afternoon, we worked in our workshop, slicing and chopping lots of timber. But first, we made a quick solid sound barrier for our doorway that leads into the kitchen at the back of the workshop. We made it using a spare 12mm thick cement board and cut it down to a size (800mm wide by 2080mm high) to fit the door hole. We then taped on strips of an old towel to soften the edges and to plug the gap to reduce the noise being generated into in the workshop. Mum really appreciated this!

    Then, we went to our timber storage and collected 15 lengths of the 63mm CLS timber and brought them inside. Setting up the saw table to rip down 4 lengths making 31mm wide pieces which are needed to fill in as a spacer in the framework design of the Skylight.

    Next, we got out the chop saw and proceeded to chop up all the remaining timber lengths as follows:

    • 56 lots of 327 mm long pieces (63mm CLS)
    • 72 lots of 277 mm long pieces (63mm CLS)
    • and 56 lots of the 327 mm long pieces of the newly made 31mm wide timber.
    Four-trugs-of-framing-pieces

    Four-trugs-of-framing-pieces

    After lunch, we went back to our storage and loaded onto our trolley, 20 sheets of the 12mm thick plywood and 5 sheets of 18mm OSB boards. We then reset our work table back to the big circular saw and then sliced these sheets as follows:

    • 15 strips of 366mm wide of the 18mm OSB
    • And 20 strips of 745mm wide of the 12mm plywood
    15-Strips-of-OSB-for-outside-of-kerb

    15-Strips-of-OSB-for-outside-of-kerb

    20-Sheets-of-plywood-for-inside-of-kerb

    20-Sheets-of-plywood-for-inside-of-kerb


    Tomorrow, we will slice the 12mm plywood pieces into a collection of different sizes that each will fit between the steel tie bars (these stretch across from one side of the I-Beams to the other), with cutouts to fit around the ties and then we glue and nail the 327mm pairs of timber pieces into a T shape composite piece. After that, we will go out and up to the top of the Steel framework and start assembling all these pieces together to form the Skylight framework.

  • Finished off Lower Wooden Support on I-Beams

    The other half of mounting a series of wooden support timber pieces on the lower flanges of the I-Beams, on the inside of the Skylight was completed today.

    Lower-Kerb-support-finished

    Lower-Kerb-support-finished

    This is now ready for the vertical plywood sheets to be glued and nailed up on the inside of the skylight module and then the kerb framework to be built to this plywood. But first, we need to slice up 20 sheets of plywood tomorrow and chop up loads of 63mm CLS timber as well!

  • Analysis and Parts List Completed

    Over the last three days, we have been reviewing the design of the skylight and it’s kerb. The exact detail have not been look at for a few years and needed updating to reflect the actual size of timbers bought. Then an analysis of all the parts that makes up the structure and framework for the skylight was performed.

    We have now a list of parts (see list below)we need to generate in our workshop and using those bits and pieces, start building the kerb and framework that will hold up the Skylight window modules.

    • 12 sheets of 18mm OSB boards, cut into 35 metres of 300mm wide strips
    • 20 sheets of 12mm plywood boards, cut into 35 metres of 740mm wide strips
    • 3 lengths of 89mm CLS timber, sliced in half to make 20 metres of 43mm by 38mm timber length
    • 3 lengths of 63mm CLS timber
    • 8 lengths of 63mm CLS timber, cut into 120 vertical posts, each 300mm high.
    • 38mm thick PU foam boards, to fill the gap in the framework.

  • First Bit of Skylight Kerb Goes Up

    Now that we have our part list sorted, the first pieces of timber can be generated and put up on the steel I-Beams to start forming the structure and framework for the Skylight.

    The first pieces were made from ripping in half planks of 89mm CLS timber down the middle to form 44mm by 38mm pieces. These went up on the lower flanges of the I-Beams on the inside.  This support piece provides a mounting point for the tall plywood panels that will go from the very bottom of the I-Beams, all the way to the top just under the glazing framework.

    Lower-Kerb-supports-started

    Lower-Kerb-supports-started

    We have done about half the way around, about 15 metres of a total of 35 metres. Tomorrow, that will be completed and the next job is to chop and slice the various timber and sheet materials into required sizes.

     

  • Completed Timber Support Framework on Steel I-Beams

    With the wind picking up a bit on this clear Monday morning, we resumed going around the steel I-Beams and installing the timber support pieces.

    Timber Rafter-Supports-on-other-side

    Timber Rafter-Supports-on-other-side

    It is virtually the same as the work we did on Saturday and we now have completed the full circuit.

    We have a line of wooden timber pieces on top of the steel work and a complete loop of special  timber pieces with slots sliced into them, fixed down on the lower flange, ready for the roof rafters to go in.

    Tomorrow, we now can resumed doing our cement board wall coverings, first putting up a narrow strip and then the 3rd line of full height 1200mm cement sheets to complete the wall covering and structural racking.

  • Installation of Support Timber Framework on Steel I-Beams

    Today, in glorious sunshine, we started the task of mounting all the special timber pieces we made in the last week, and putting it up on the steel I-Beams.

    We also put the extra flat pieces of timber on top of the I-Beams as well. Each section of the steel framework was scrubbed with water and a little bit of detergent to wash off the dust and bird poo, then measured and cut each piece of timber to fit into place, using our laser alignment tool to accurately get the special timber pieces down on the lower flange and a regular rectangular timber piece on top of the upper flange.

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-1

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-1

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-2

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-2


    We used our special all weather construction glue to stick the timber onto the steel surface, using lots of mechanical clamps to squash the joint tight before locking it down with 5mm x 50mm long screws (we had previously pre-drilled clearance holes in the steel ages ago).

    Today we managed to get exactly half way around the steel framework and we will continue on Monday and get it completed. After that, we will build up the Sky Light framework on the newly fitted timber supports and this will provide the structural anchor points for the roof rafters, hence why we are having to do all this now.