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Pete W's Tin Shed Project.
vtsteam:
Well if you get our weather after it crosses the pond, you're in for a lovely spell of summer like conditions -- we had it for nearly a week. It was a joy to be outside, and the fall colors are fantastic this year. So fingers crossed, your shed plans should go well! :thumbup:
RossJarvis:
Hiya Pete :thumbup:
I'd missed the latest progress, Sympathies re the lack of shed space hopefully you've managed to get somewhere with the recent gaps in the rain. Remember, if you need a hand give us a bell or e-letter. I can't promise to answer the phone or be able to come round, but it's worth a try at least.
Ross
Pete W.:
Hi there, Ross,
Thank you for your post. Thanks also for the offer of help, much appreciated. :beer: :beer: :beer:
I currently have the trunks of six mature stinging nettles in the garden - they're big ones, 4.8 metres of 100 x 50 mm CLS. The timber yard doesn't seem to sell the hairy rough-sawn timber anymore! They arrived on Friday afternoon and promptly got a coat of green pickle in case of rain. The 'pickle' is called 'Duck's Back', I hope it lives up to its name. I've been tinkering with the shed roof in preparation for my gallivanting about up there! One task was to insert a 10' length of Dexion slotted angle (the big one, about 2½" x 1½") to relieve the load across the top of the two big front windows. That meant removing the screws that fixed the front edge of the roof to the front wall! The Dexion stops those screws going back in their original places so the replacement attachment will use some angle brackets.
Another task was making and fitting a couple of tapered blocks to the underside of two of the rafters to take a prop. I set out to measure the slope of the rafters using the protractor from my Moore & Wright engineer's square kit - that failed because the spirit-level bubble was so close to the roof I couldn't see it! :doh: :doh: :doh:
The prop will consist of a horizontal length of 3" x 3" supported by a 4" x 4" x 6' gate-post one end and a length of 100 mm x 50 mm that I've just brought back from the timber yard. It'll be fine-tuned with some handy plastic wedges. Once all that is in place, I can start to remove the old roofing felt.
I keep under-estimating the time these sub-tasks will take! :bang: :bang: :bang: When there's a bit more progress to report, I'll try to take some photos.
RossJarvis:
--- Quote from: Pete W. on October 08, 2013, 10:57:01 AM ---
I keep under-estimating the time these sub-tasks will take! :bang: :bang: :bang: When there's a bit more progress to report, I'll try to take some photos.
--- End quote ---
Re-jigging my Dad's advice on spending money, carefully think about all the things that need doing, add on 1/3 for mistakes and come up with a time, round this up to the next largest time span. Then double this. You will still take longer to get the job in. I also tend to double this again to take in tea breaks etc. (it still takes longer) :scratch:. It might be better squaring or cubing the second estimate.
Pete W.:
Hi there, all,
At last, I have some progress to report! :D :D :D
I started by fitting the length of Dexion slotted angle to give added support to the front of the roof over the two front windows.
After I removed the screws securing the roof, I tried to lift the roof but failed completely!! :bang: :bang: :bang:
Then, out of the blue, we had a visit from my #1 step-son and his girlfriend. 'Did you have your spinach this morning, Bob?' says I. 'Why?' says Bob. Well, he took one look at the situation, rolled up his sleeves and heaved. It was almost a 'You're only supposed to blow the b****y doors off!' moment, I thought he was going to put the roof into orbit! Anyway, here's the result:
That piece of Dexion only extends a couple of inches beyond each end of the windows but at 10' long it's the longest length they stock. The Dexion blocks the holes where the original screws went so I fitted some angle brackets to re-attach the roof to the front wall. The sharp-eyed among you may notice that I used countersunk screws - I intended to use round-heads but their 'pro-drive' sockets didn't fit my Pozidrive screwdriver!
The next stage was to fit a temporary prop to the underside of the roof to give added support for my 15½ stone while I was gallivanting about on top! I made and fitted a couple of tapered packing pieces so that the prop had a level surface to bed against. The prop has three parts, a length of 3" x 3" timber, a 6' long 4" x 4" gate-post and a 6' length of 4" x 2". The pillar of the drilling machine was in the right place to play a part in the rigging and operation. My lovely but shy assistant called it 'a Heath-Robinson affair'! Here's a photo:
After all that, it was a case of get up the ladder and strip off the felt. That's taken a couple of days with a shed-free day in between (my 76-year old knees can only take so much!). As of this afternoon, the felt is all off. My lovely but shy assistant has done a superb job tearing all the felt into small pieces ready to go to the tip. Here's what it looked like when we'd done:
And here's a close-up of one corner:
Not exactly prime quality timber but it's not in bad condition considering I bought the shed in 1993. Of course, the shed is now vulnerable to the weather so it was 'Pipe all hands aloft to set the main-sail'! (i.e. fit a couple of 12' x 8' tarpaulins.) Just like an instalment from the Hornblower series. From inside the shed I can see lines of blue light through the gaps in the roof boards.
Very pleased to have completed this part of the job :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: but the weather looks as though it'll be a couple of days before we can do the next part which is fitting the vapour barrier. (As Ross said in his post, the Hampshire Monsoon is upon us!)
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