Steve's workshop - Painting the outside walls

[Random Orbital Bob]

Actually I think a remake of that video should be your first "footage" project in the new workshop Steve. It's very old and as you rightly point out in one of the comments, the production quality is poor. It would be a nice easy and quick start to test the new environment and at the same time to update what is a very useful tool that anyone can make with a little care. I'll do a complementary acoustic guitar intro for you if you like I invested in a Mac based recording studio over Christmas and its stunning quality.

What got me thinking about it is I'm helping a mate build his first ever wooden framed workshop and that would have been very useful when we were framing the walls just before Xmas. It's the scalability of it that's really appealing as well as its flexibility for different shaped squares.

 

[monkeybiter]

its flexibility for different shaped squares.

:?

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

You know what I mean

 

[Steve Maskery]

Flipping heck, I go out for the day and the thread goes mad!

Square of Thales is my name for it, as I've not found another name anywhere else. Thales was the first known philosopher and is credited with the discovery that the corners of any triangle always add up to180 degrees, and that is the basis for this working.

When I made the film I'd had the camera less than 24 hours and hadn't a clue about anything. Especially white balance. That's why I make Dale Winton look a little anaemic. You are right, it is worthy of a remake.

It's great strength is its scalability. An engineer's square of that size would be very expensive, whereas this costs nothing. The only way it can go out of square is for the long arm to become bowed. That would affect its accuracy, because the pivot point would not be in the centre of the circle described above. But apart from that it is foolproof.

And just so that I am not misleading anyone, it's not on any of my DVDs, just the Youtube film.

S

 

[Steve Maskery]

On Tuesdays I volunteer at the Community Workshop, but as well as helping others, others help me, too, and I sometimes get the chance to do a bit for myself. So today I went armed with my router, hinge jig and door jambs, which I'd already marked out.

So I found and fitted a 1/4" cutter and cut the hinge recesses.

That's a lot easier than chopping them in situ.

I've placed them 9" up from the bottom and 6" down from the top. The middle one isn't in the middle (in keeping with Robs different-shaped squares, I guess - that made me laugh), but is 0.62 of the way up the door. Phi. We are getting classical again, John.

I've brought home the router cutter so that I can do the doors, too, as well as 4 long sash cramps (yes I have signed them out). They are Nu-Tools ones, so cheap and nasty, but they will do the job. What is really annoying is that I had 4 good quality Record ones that were brand new, and now some other pipper has them. Bar stewards.

So tomorrow Ray is coming and I hope to have the doors on. We'll see.

 

[wcndave]

Ah, apologies, I knew I'd seen the video somewhere! That'll teach you to go out for the day!

 

[Steve Maskery]

The first job today was to get the frame in. The job was so much easier with two. We could wedge and shim to our hearts' content and we got it absolutely spot on. We measured it with a spirit level and the Square of Thales. Everything tallied at the bottom and sides, and when we had screwed up the top, which was slightly bowed downwards in the middle, that tallied too.

And as a final check for planarity, I checked it with a pair of crossed strings. The strings just touched without deflecting each other, indicating they are in the same plane, confirming the vertical readings of the spirit level.

I had my hair cut yesterday and now my head is cold.

We then cut 4 stiles for the doors, all in one go so they were the same length.

And then a set of rails. I then used my domino to cut a set of mortices. They are only 6mm and 20mm deep, which may not sound much, and it isn't, but I only have 6mm dominoes left, I used an array of 4 in the top and mid rails (4x2s), and an array of 6 in the 6x2 bottom rail.

Gluing and clamping up was not as problematical as I had expected, although we had to be fast, so they was no time for photography, but then we cut a sheet of OSB to fit and screwed that down. It gives phenomenal bracing, as well as a weatherproof face. You can see now why the short tenons are enough. They really don't have to do anything.

By this time it was getting dark, and so, as there was not time to make the second door today, we boarded up again and packed up.

We'll finish the job tomorrow, all being well.

 

[Ring]

I think a photo of the hair cut should be put up as well ... no photo it didn't happen lol.
looking good Steve going to be a cracker when finished.
Jim

 

[Steve Maskery]

We had a few pieces of polystyrene left over after the floor job, but it is 50mm thick, whereas, because the 4x2 is planed, the cavity is no more than 45mm deep, so we ripped it all up to a tad under 45mm and packed it into the door.

It's made a right mess of my bandsaw (and my sweater, my hair, my face, my jeans and everything else in the workshop)

Then we glued and screwed on the second skin and offered it up.

Something was definitely wrong. The hinges went in OK, but then the top of the door was fouling on the frame header. So we took it off and trimmed the top. Still no. How could we bee so far out? So some more off and the door went in. And then. When it was all in there was a huge gap at the top. I have no idea what we did wrong, but you could drive a bus through there.

Anyway, there it was. So we did the second door. We actually hung the stile before we assembled the frame to ensure that the hinges fitted. They did. So we made the second frame.

When we cut the skin it didn't fit, but we discovered that the frame was not square. My sash cramps are not long enough to go from corner to corner, but we mackled them up to hook over each other, tightened it up a bit and made it worse. This was not our day. Then we realised that we had turned the door over (because the two skins are different widths and the one we had cut was for the face that was on the underside). Anyway, we got it right in the end.

We were running out of polystyrene so the second door was even more of a patchwork, but we did do it and had just dust and some tiny scraps left.

When we hung it and had to trim just 3mm or so off the top. This second door looks much better, just as it should. Pity about No. 1.

So the fit looks good from the outside, not quite so good from the inside, and whilst it is not pretty, it will see me through the rest of the winter, at the very least.

They are not totally finished - I haven't fitted the loose door stops (because I haven't made them yet) and the doors are screwed down at the moment rather than bolted in place, but it should mean that the workshop stays warmer than the outside when the temperature does drop.

Tomorrow, however, it is due to warm up a bit, so I hope to get some painting done. There is a fair bit of clearing up to do first, the place is a bit of a tip at the moment!

 

[Steve Maskery]

The workshop had got a tad untidy recently, so I had a bit of a clear up. Actually it took a good part of the morning.

The it started to get a bit warmer but windier, so as I really wanted to have the doors open to get that nice warm air in, I decided to fit the cabin hooks, I bought them from MoreHandles.com and they are rather nice. Unfortunately they appear to be just a tad loose and they have jumped out of their lops a couple of times in the wind. The hook bit could do with being a bit deeper, or the loop bit could do with being smaller and tighter. Either would be better. Still, they are there now, we'll see how I get on with them. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo and it is dark now.

So this afternoon I have been painting. I'd decided to do the walls magnolia, as it is less harsh than brilliant white. When I opened the tub I was shocked. I remember magnolia as having a slightly pinkish tinge. This was the colour of milky tea. Still there it was and on it went. It looked horrible. I just hoped it will dry a different colour.

I've painted one gable wall and a quarter of the back wall. It is drying paler, but it is not yet anything like what I expected. We'll see what it looks like tomorrow. I don't want to paint it all out again. I hate painting.

 

[John15]

Don't worry Steve - remember the old saying 'if in doubt use Magnolia'. I did my shed in Magnolia and it looks OK once it dried.

John

 

[Scottdimelow]

Maggi always looks that colour when it goes on, it'll dry fine.

 

[RobinBHM]

I prefer gardenia 10b15 generally to magnolia

 

[Steve Maskery]

I'm not sure that I can make plain blank walls interesting, so I'll just say that I've finished the painting. I'm pleased to report that the paint does look much better now that it is dry. I had only a tiny bit left over, so part of the RH wall has had another coat. You can see the difference between the wet and the dry.

I think I need to take the ladders and the rest of the scaffolding back to Ray's ASAP, it would make a great deal of difference to the amount of Stuff in there.

The next job will be to fit the floor.

S

 

[Steve Maskery]

I did spend Monday in the workshop, and a couple of hours yesterday evening. It was supposed to be a pot-pourri of odd jobs; hanging the fire extinguisher, installing the alarm panel, insulating and lining the man-door. But as I was doing the latter, or at least preparing some support battens for it, my P/T stopped. The lights were on but no-one was home. I knew straight away what the problem was, it's happened once before, it's the drive belt from the cutter block to the gear train for the feed rollers. When it happened before, many years ago, I am pretty sure that I bought two drive belts, so I had a spare to hand next time it happened. Furthermore I remember seeing it recently, So the hunt was on. Yes, got it, installed it (it's a right faff as I have to remove the shaft of one of the pulleys and do a lot of wiggling, but as I've done it before it was not as hard as the first time). Job done, switch on. Nothing. I had mistaken a rubber band for the drive belt and of course, it just stretched and bounced.

So I googled for fan belts in Mansfield, and got a car factors I have used before. I rang them, yes, no problem we have one in stock. Great. 20 mins later it was "Ooh no, we haven't got anything like that, who did you speak to?". No idea. So I bought a standard V-belt of the same length and hoped for the best.

I couldn't try to fit it until yesterday afternoon, late. It doesn't fit. The problem is that the original is only about 2mm thick, it is flat. This was about 10mm thick and there isn't that much clearance between the pulley and the metal casing around it. So I went back and swapped it for a flatter poly-V like the main drive belt from motor to cutter block. It's 5mm longer, but I hoped I could accommodate that.

So I got that on and it is so much more robust than the flimsy thing that had snapped, very happy. But that little episode had cost me a good half day.

And today I am knackered.

We had already worked out that we needed 3 full floor boards plus about 2ft per run and there would be 13 runs. But we had to remove the tongue on the first row and we didn't want to be left with a very narrow strip at the end, so we ripped off 450mm or so, so that it lined up with the opening to the double doors.

We then laid out the rest of the row and cut the end piece,

the rest of which board became the first of the second row, thus staggering the joints by about 2ft or so. This piece had to be notched to go around the door frame.

There is a very slight step in depth just inside the door, due to the sole plate being a tad thinner than the polystyrene. But an extra strip of DPM made up the few mm

And so we continued, hammering everything together as we went.

But something was not going very well, to be honest. I was rather hoping to get it all so tight that the joints became invisible, but instead we had small gaps all over the place. In some places we had glue squeeze-out, in others you could lose a coin down there. So I, yes I, the slow dim one, suggested we check the line with a string. Problem identified, we were out about 1/3 way along by a good 6mm. No wonder we weren't tight.

It's because the wall is not laser straight. So we persuaded the boards into line and things looked better, but by this time the glue had grabbed and is was pretty much set in an imperfect position. It's not awful and if the glue had been grey than it would not be a problem, but I don't really want white lines. So tomorrow Ray is bringing some black cement colouring and we are going to try to make a grout.

I have to say that the material itself is excellent. It's almost like sandpaper, I'm not going to slip on that. OK, it is chipboard and as such the joints can't really be as tight as they would be on proper laminate flooring, but this is a workshop not a dining room and anyway it is not intended to be a finished floor surface. But so far I think it has been an excellent choice.

All that extra OSB was in the way so we had to re-stack that

And so, with 4 of the 13 rows laid, we called it a day.

Clearing up I discovered that there was an Allen key missing from my set. I couldn't find it anywhere. I knew I had used it yesterday on the P/T, but where had I put it? Nowhere to be found. So, like Sherlock himself, I figured that when you have eliminate the the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer.

I took the panel off the side of the P/T and there, inside, was my Allen key, laughing and mocking me. I've no idea how I missed it, it's bright orange.

As I say, I am knackered.

 

[The Bear]

that flooring looks excellent Steve, has it got a brand name?

Mark

 

[Steve Maskery]

Cabershield.

 

[Racers]

The gaps will give you somewhere to sweep the sawdust into.

:wink:

Pete

 

[Steve Maskery]

Quite, Pete, quite. After a couple of weeks it won't make the slightest bit of difference.
When are you coming over?

 

[wcndave]

When I laid all my flooring, be it T&G OSB in attic, or laminate in main house, I drew a chalk line and next to one wall. I then double checked with string the first few rows until it was solid enough to just go for it.