A thread about the shed

[chris p bacon]

14 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

Add to that, the squirrels use our back fence as a green highway

 

It doesn't bother the squirrels, in fact a couple of local cats have taken to walking up and down on it, they have a look of "yeh....bring it on"

[Joner]

4 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

I've got that on the top of my fence......

Me too

[polybear]

10 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

I've got that on the top of my fence......

 

Ah, a vicious streak.....

Personally I favour putting it on the inside face of the fence, right at the top, spikes facing downwards.  Anyone grabbing the fence grabs the spikes, which act a bit like a fish hook.....

[Joner]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Ah, a vicious streak.....

Personally I favour putting it on the inside face of the fence, right at the top, spikes facing downwards.  Anyone grabbing the fence grabs the spikes, which act a bit like a fish hook.....

That is where mine is! Though I have to give a warning on the other side 

[The Johnster]

Is there any reason this can't be the other side of the road?

[polybear]

 

20 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

I've got that on the top of my fence......

 

Personally I favour Punji Sticks, though I must admit that the screams in the middle of the night can keep me awake sometimes.

 

[tomparryharry]

9 hours ago, Joner said:

That is where mine is! Though I have to give a warning on the other side 

Oh No! Plausible deniability......

[Happy Hippo]

My workshop has a rather tall and wide mixed thorn hedge along one side.

 

It deters most things, including my neighbour from cutting his side. 

[heavymetalwagons]

Still enjoying following this thread 

[tomparryharry]

On 21/08/2020 at 03:07, The Johnster said:

Is there any reason this can't be the other side of the road?

 

Yes, my neighbours wouldn't really approve, as it'll interfere with things like Hollyoaks & Coronation Street. 

 

"The Railroad runs through the middle of the house".

 

 

[The Johnster]

I was responding to Joner, but I approve of interfering with the likes of Hollyoaks and Corrie.  The song was a childhood favourite!

 

Have a great weekend, bwtti bach.

[tomparryharry]

The weather tried its very best to disrupt today's activities, but not quite enough to scupper it. Every now & again, a cup of tea beckoned, (or, hot chocolate). Just right to have a quick rest, and dodged most of the showers. 

 

Todays vantage point from an upstairs window. This shows the sark advancing from the west-side eaves, up to the apex. There is-are 11 courses of sark, and we're now on number 7, or a little over halfway. Weather permitting, I might finish this phase during the week. 

 

Have a great weekend folks, and keep safe.

 

Ian.

Edited August 22, 2020 by tomparryharry
A bit of text clean-up.

[tomparryharry]

Nothing to report this week, I'm afraid. Today has been a bit of tidying up in anticipation of a scaffolder doing  some work for me. I forgot I'm bloody useless on a ladder. In fact, I'm not useless, I'm bloody dangerous.  Some people amongst you will know of the 'flap factor', where serious heights are OK, but silly heights, like 10 feet, give you the Heeby Jeebies. Sad to say, I fall into that category. A bit funny really, I've worked next door to the Shard, working 200' up on 6" beams, but no problem. Put me on a 10' ladder, and I'm a bad advert for Kleenex toilet rolls. Still, I know there's 2-3 days on the roof, and it's done & dusted.  

 

More photos next week, hopefully.

[polybear]

 

17 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

Some people amongst you will know of the 'flap factor', where serious heights are OK, but silly heights, like 10 feet, give you the Heeby Jeebies. Sad to say, I fall into that category. A bit funny really, I've worked next door to the Shard, working 200' up on 6" beams, but no problem. Put me on a 10' ladder, and I'm a bad advert for Kleenex toilet rolls. Still, I know there's 2-3 days on the roof, and it's done & dusted. 

 

I'm the other way round.  I'll go up a ladder to house gutter height ok (but not on the roof) but silly heights freak me.  When I was 21 and working in Italy I went on the roof of the Duomo with my mate.  He looked round for me and I was literally crawling up the roof.

"What you doin' down there?" he asked.

"Oldin' on!" I replied......

Now I could do it ok, though IIRC some of the journey up to the roof would make me fill my pants.

 

[The Johnster]

On 30/08/2020 at 13:45, tomparryharry said:

Nothing to report this week, I'm afraid. Today has been a bit of tidying up in anticipation of a scaffolder doing  some work for me. I forgot I'm bloody useless on a ladder. In fact, I'm not useless, I'm bloody dangerous.  Some people amongst you will know of the 'flap factor', where serious heights are OK, but silly heights, like 10 feet, give you the Heeby Jeebies. Sad to say, I fall into that category. A bit funny really, I've worked next door to the Shard, working 200' up on 6" beams, but no problem. Put me on a 10' ladder, and I'm a bad advert for Kleenex toilet rolls. Still, I know there's 2-3 days on the roof, and it's done & dusted.  

 

More photos next week, hopefully.

I am fine at any height and in any conditions so long as what I am on is solid and there is something solidly attached to it that I can hang on to.  I can manage a bit of movement, a cherry picker bucket for example, but otherwise I have to get Kasia to hold the step ladder for me if I'm more than 4 steps up.  This is from a man who was happy to drop off or swing aboard a brake van at around 25mph or perhaps more if there was space for the overrun, and was perfectly happy on the bottom step of a Western at 60+.

 

I am awestruck when I see film of those Mohawks on the scaffolding building New Yorican skyscrapers in the 20s or 30s, and more so with Harold Lloyd, who did stunts up there for pity's sake.  Snod dat furra gaymer sojers!

 

Good to see the erection of your edifice; very impressive.

[Happy Hippo]

On 30/08/2020 at 13:45, tomparryharry said:

Nothing to report this week, I'm afraid. Today has been a bit of tidying up in anticipation of a scaffolder doing  some work for me. I forgot I'm bloody useless on a ladder. In fact, I'm not useless, I'm bloody dangerous.  Some people amongst you will know of the 'flap factor', where serious heights are OK, but silly heights, like 10 feet, give you the Heeby Jeebies. Sad to say, I fall into that category. A bit funny really

I have the same misgivings.

 

Never had a problem parachuting or climbing up a rock face though!

 

The reason is simple, if you try to emulate a blob of jam on the floor, that's it:  However, if you fall a distance that doesn't kill you outright, subconsciously you are worried about the agonies that such a fall will cause you.

[tomparryharry]

Yes, that's quite right. On my lower photo, the dark grey beam is the perimeter beam for Aldgate Tower in London. It's 300x 300mm, and goes all the way down, past the foundations, to straddle Aldgate East tube station.   Part of our job (my job) was to affix solar panels on the topmost beam, and plumb them in. Once I got over the initial Heebie-Jeebies, I was OK.  When we first contracted at Aldgate, the lifts weren't in, and to gain access to the top floors meant standing in a cage whilst a mechanical chug-chug lift raised you up. Every tooth on the grid shook as the teeth went up by one notch at a time.  Was I worried? No...... (he lied). Once by floor 9, I realised that if it went wrong, it's 'goodbye Vienna, so I might as well enjoy the view. 

 

It's the same with swimming. Being a professional short-ar$e, I learned to swim in a 6' pool. The prospect of drowning always used to scare me. Leaning to swim at Fort Bovisand however, no such problems.  I have been known to travel on the top floor of a bus, all by myself....

[tomparryharry]

Well, I bowed to sensible and called in a scaffolder, who brought his team along this morning. By 10am, the game was very truly 'on'. It's allowed me to finish the sark work today, 

 

Tomorrow will be dressing the ends of the sark, and installing the drip edges. After that, it's the box profile sheets. 

 

Another photo from the vantage point of an upstairs window.

[tomparryharry]

Hello Folks, welcome back to another episode from here. Many apologies for the length of time, but the mojo went AWOL for a while, Still, normality is resumed. Latest work over here revolved around around the front roof aspect of the project, with the metal sheeting going on over the wooden sark. Saturday saw the final pieces of tin, and now the roof is weather tight.   Monday, and I'll ask for the scaffold to come down. After all, it's only been a month.....Today was installing the TeK screw caps, all with a dab of roofing mastic sealant. 

 

Passing the spirit level about (as you do), I noticed that one end had 'racked over', or gone slightly rhomboid. Enough to run out on the vertical by 1" on the 7' height. Further investigation showed that the stored wood sheets has influenced the angle. With that in mind, we moved the sheets from one side to the other, and bingo! It was enough to cure the lean.  Tomorrow will see the making of some internal angle bracing to maintain against any possible lean, and final fix.  

 

My usual attempts of grotty photography.   Have a great week folks.

[The Johnster]

A fine palladian facade, and you got it weatherproof before the turn despite the mojo issue; well done mate.  Of course it leans a bit, it’s on the side of a hill.  The Elgin marbles would look good on the portico; is there going to be a bronze statue of Pallas Athene in the middle?  There are definite Parthenonian overtones to the proportions; Callicrates would approve!

[tomparryharry]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Is there going to be a bronze statue of Pallas Athene in the middle? 

 

Err....No. The nearest I've ever gotten to Greece is the kebab house on City Road... The project was going to be 8'  to the top wall plate, meaning you could use 8x4' sheets 'as-is'. However, I reckoned I would be blocking out some of my neighbours light, so dropping the height kept everyone happy, before anything went too far. In the completed roof, the ridge comes out 18" (450mm)  lower than our neighbours, which for me, is ideal.   Tomorrow's work will be re-visiting any remedial woodwork tasks, and making some diagonal braces & noggins. 

 

Lockdown is upon us, with Cardiff joining Newport, as well as most of south-East Wales. Luckily however, I've been stockpiling material in anticipation of this. I guess I can keep going to December before I'm 'on stop'. 

 

Keep safe, everybody, 

Ian.

[The Johnster]

Yeah, not surprised at the new lockdown; we wuz surrounded!   It’s not gonna make too much difference to us, as it’s not like the proper lockdown before.  All the shops, pubs, restaurants and so on are open, but I can’t go to Porthcawl for the day.  I can live with that if it stops the plague spreading.  Sorry you had a bit of a mojo wobble, though, and glad to hear you’ve pulled  through it.  
 

I know when I have my black dog episodes that they will pass, but that doesn’t help much at the time.  It does help enough to make a difference though!  Having plenty of stuff to do on Cwmdimbath is another thing that keeps me going, as is this website!  Had what is prolly going to be the last Barbie of the season earlier; smoke roasted a whole chicken and used up the charcoal. 

 

[Happy Hippo]

On 28/09/2020 at 00:07, The Johnster said:

 Had what is prolly going to be the last Barbie of the season earlier; smoke roasted a whole chicken and used up the charcoal. 

 

Completely going off topic on sheds, but has anyone ever tried winter BBQs?

 

Having a lunchtime outdoor cook up on a crisp but sunny day when you've been working in the garden is great fun.

 

I've always fancied doing a new year's day  brattie fest.

 

Back to sheds: I'm going to cut my old store shed roof up today providing the weather holds.  It's been leaning against the workshop for over a week now and needs to go.

[tomparryharry]

A brief revisit to the roof yesterday. Despite my best intentions, a drip appeared at the ridge line. Seeing as this is steel sheet, you can guess the amount of cross words. Investigation revealed that a portion of the foam filler wasn't properly inserted, so 20 minutes  with mastic gun, new foam insert, and new TeK screws (hopefully solves the problem. It's raining today, so when I finish typing this, it'll be inspection time. Some new steel sheet was collected yesterday. This will go to to provide a sacrificial portion of the lower wall, to allow drainage down to the retaining wall soakaway.  No photos at the mo' but hopefully later.

 

Cheers,

Ian.  

[tomparryharry]

9 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Completely going off topic on sheds, but has anyone ever tried winter BBQs?

 

Yes, I think so. Bonfire night, etc? New Years Day is Mrs. Smiths Birthday. It's anyone's guess what or how this years end will pan out, but I remain hopeful.  Our neighbours in Carisbrooke used to have BBQ's in winter. A touch unique, but....  

 

Historically, the Winter Solstice was the event of the year. people would move South for the winter, so little wonder that places such as Stonehenge became what it is.  

 

Cheers,

Ian.