Competition WIP entry: My extension joinery

[Jake]

Finished the interior bit (just the ceiling, bought the oak windows and doors in, not enough time in the world) which has been a long time in the making, on and off between other stuff, last weekend:

Soffit to match on the overhangs will follow after a few months on the interior (having a proper kitchen back will be nice).

Colour balance is way off in that shot, this is more realistic (as the wax goes on over the rubbed down Rustins PC, preburnishing):

Oh no, not that one - that's the heart-attack mid-marathon-glue-up is this going to *swear-words* work or have I made a total pigs ear get out the plasterboard and call the plasterer moment

I meant this one:

 

[Rich]

I have to concede, I am very impressed and was unaware of your skills, it reminds me of the interior of a yacht, I look forward to seeing the finished article.

Rich.

 

[Mattty]

I do like the look of that Jake. I'd love to see some more pictures.

 

[Jake]

Thanks, Rich and Matty.

I've got more photos which I'll put up, but they only run back to the curve work.

The substrate and flat stuff went up last year - although I shot it all in prep for a WIP thread a hard-disk failure (and an absence of back-up ) lost them all.

This is the earliest shot I have in time, and shows the general schema as the glue (west epoxy, with cotton microfibre filler, and burnt umber/sienna pigments) was going on.

 

[Jake]

Under the flat t&g is an 18mm plywood substrate, which stopped (obviously) at each edge of the curve. Multiple layers of 6mm and 8mm bendy ply were then built up in a glued and screwed way over the curved part.

The combination of 6mm & 8mm ply was chosen so that the final surface of the bendy-ply section ended up being prominent from the main ply substrate. The amount it stuck out was chosen by juggling the combinations available, to best fit the 22mm thick reclaimed 22mm t&g and the max thickness of veneer which would bend around the curve - 2.2mm. (All the figs are from memory so may be out).

I think I ended up with the bendy ply sticking out 16mm prominent, which allowing 3mm for veneer plus adhesive gave me a finish dimension of 19mm for the bulk of the flat t&g - just about right to get out all the dinks and dents and beer, gum (and worse) stains from the ex-nightclub floor (picked up at £5/sq m from ebay).

The 100sq m of flooring was then picked through and sorted by lengths (it was t&g all round, standardised in 3 inch increments). The piles with enough staves to cover a full width of roof were separated out. Those were then sorted to eliminate any defective bits, and kind of triaged for quality.

The setting out flowed from the set of boards longest in length being centred around the middle of a big pair of french doors, as that is the natural focal point for the eye.

There are then two further rows to the right of the doors, which were a pair of sets chosen to be as as long as possible, but sequentially shorter toward the curve, with a total length which ended as close as possible to the start of the curve.

All the joints are staggered alternately by 120mm, and all four edges were bevelled to accentuate each stave, and highlight the joints.

At the edge of the curve, the shortest possible reject pieces were planed down to 16mm to match the bendy ply. The ends of these pieces were then cut off to length so that they would butt up to the bendy ply, and slotted in as the last row of full staves was secret-nailed up. This all maintained the alternate-staggered joint line for the veneers.

If you look carefully at the photo of the glue-up, you can see the thinner stub pieces between the thick full-length staves.

 

[Jake]

The glue-up of the veneers was done about three weeks ago, epoxy resin with a filler was chosen because the bendy ply ripples quite a bit, so the glue needed to be gap-filling (and slow-setting!).

Each veneer was put up for a dry fit, and marked to length, and numbered. They had been bandsawn some time before to approx 3mm, planed down to the 2.2mm, and bevel-edged.

The photo above shows a section spread with the glue, each veneer was then bent up roughly into place, the ridge at either end where it met the full-depth stave at the joint was mostly enough to hold them in place. Where not, I stuck stanley blades in the butt-joint gap to stop the veneers popping out from the compression of the bend.

The bottom of each veneer was then nudged into alignment, and lifted to create a realistic gap at the joint, then pinned to the substrate with 25mm 23g headless pins, that was followed up around the curve to make sure they sat flat, with any errors in length taken up in the gap of the top joint, where it is least conspicious to the eye - not that there was much, but it doesn't take much to allow the veneer to drop off the curve by a mm, leaving a ridge where it meets the next one. I avoided most of those, but there are a couple which only I will ever notice.

 

[Jake]

As the sections went up, the mess visible on here

was wiped off using the West thinners, to give this:

 

[Neil]

Very, very impressive, Jake =D>.

Was this (the 3mm veneers) your justification for the Startrite? :lol:

Cheers,
Neil

 

[Jake]

Thanks Neil - wow, you've got a good memory.

No the excuse, I mean reason, for the Startrite was another project, which erm, hasn't been done yet. Bathroom cabinets, from some big planks and baulks of teak up to 14" wide which I picked up. That room got finished, except for the big blank gap where those cabinets are going, but then this kitchen extension (and doing up a room for my 18 month old) took over my life.

It did get used for this, obviously.

 

[Jake]

The next stage was sanding, sanding, sanding, argghh. It took forever, holding the Rotex overhead for hours on end is no fun at all, through 60, 80 and 120 grits. It's something where only the Rotex would do, if it took hours with that, it would have been weeks with a ROS. Then a going over with the ETS (it's lighter, as well as finer!) on 180 grit to finish off. That's probably about where this is:

All the pin-holes on the curve left by the headless pinner were filled with brummer and the curve was sanded by hand with the grain from 120 grit upwards. (edit, actually that's where the photo is, as the pre-sanded smudges of Brummer can be seen on the face of the veneer)

About two whole weekends of sanding in all (but that included the oak joinery which had never glanced a sheet of sandpaper before being glooped over with linseed oil which had gone all orange).

Then the ceiling was given a coat of teak stain to even up the colour, and warm it up a bit, as the natural timber had a bit of a sterile look with a test coat of Rustins PC.

 

[Jake]

Then for the finish, which as it is a kitchen ceiling, I wanted to be pretty bomb-proof. Time to try the Rustins PC, thrust into my conciousness by their best cricketing salesman.

Having bought a Fuji HVLP a few months ago, I had the brilliant idea that I should try it out for the first time on this ceiling, as a little tester. Impetuous. Rash, even. I did briefly spray a bit of hardboard to get my skillz up to scratch.

So I taped and masked up:

Three coats of RPC gave this:

Which was OK, bar a couple of small patches of orange peel (surprisingly little given the idiotic impetuousness involved), but it really did look like a cheesy Italian pleasure boat deck. It doesn't really come across in that photo, but it was much more shiny than the finished article.

 

[Jake]

A whole day of knocking back the finish with wire wool followed (I tried webrax on the Rotex to save time, but it wouldn't give the same finish).

Then a day of rubbing in Liberon Black Bison wax with more wirewool:

Which after polishing up, takes us back to the start of the thread:

The wax is a bit of a compromise on durability of finish, but it has so much more depth to the colour and lustre, and is so much nicer from a tactile point of view, that I am happy to exchange a bit of fit and forget for some maintenance. The RPC coating underneath means that it can be cleaned vigorously if need be, and then re-waxed with relative ease.

 

[Jake]

I'll buy a virtual pint for the person who spots what I think is the biggest error.

 

[Neil]

My arms are aching just reading about it all, Jake. After all that surface prep, you were incredibly brave trying the Fuji out for the first time. I would have done the same, though, with one slight difference - my Fuji is actually SWMBOs so I would have got her to do it!

Cheers,
Neil

 

[Jake]

I shall not miss working overhead, that's for sure, Neil. I thought floors were bad, but they are nothing.

I would have pre-finished more before nailing it up, but there was a timing issue with getting everything in place before window delivery. The windows were supposed to incorporate a rebate along their outer perimeter to cover the edge of the ceiling with a shadow gap, so the ceiling had to go in first.

In the end the windows didn't fit as perfectly as hoped, so one of my next challenges is to devise a neat way of planting on a strip of something to cover the gap between window and ceiling. More curve complications... and I could have pre-finished after all. Still, never again (I hope).

 

[Neil]

Does the panelling start at worktop height, Jake?

Can't spot the 'biggest' error - no virtual pint for me.

 

[wizer]

I'll buy a virtual pint for the person who spots what I think is the biggest error.

You've been doing it so long, the garden has consumed everything that was stored there?

 

[Jake]

Does the panelling start at worktop height, Jake?

A little bit below, yes.

 

[Jake]

Heh, Wizer. We are doing our bit for wildlife. That's my excuse.

 

[Chippyjoe]

Ok my coat is ready! Is it the spur box not central to the middle socket ?

Just a long shot,on a more serious note that is a nice job and you must have the patience of a saint or a very demanding other half :shock:

What do you think of the Fuji? I bought the Q4 pro and it has not seen daylight yet!

Keep the pictures coming.

Mark.