Steve's workshop - Painting the outside walls

[Steve Maskery]

Hi Rob
The point is that there had already been some expansion. In some places there was very little gap left. Not quite touching the wall, but in a couple of places not very far off.
So if the expansion is not yet complete, or if it goes a bit more when the weather warms up, then the gap could do with being a bit bigger, hence the trim. I had a conversation with Eric the Viking last week and he commented that he thought I should be more generous with my allowance, so, as it was not a difficult thing to do and better safe than sorry, etc...

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Gotcha...I had assumed that but just checking my maths

 

[Steve Maskery]

You when sometimes things seem to be against you and then it turns out for the best? Well today has been such a day. Well, the afternoon has anyway. I've had two really lousy nights sleep and I had to do something far less pleasant than potter in my workshop this morning, so I didn't really get going until lunchtime.

But off I went to the timber yard just down the road to see about getting some architrave for the double doors. Unfortunately, although they arrive in 5-point-something-metre lengths, they then get cut up into sets I have a 3' man-door and the top piece is just a tad too short.

It's very annoying, because there was a couple of inches spare on each upright, and if I'd started with the original length it would have worked out fine. So I was hoping to find some uncut lengths and also find some the right length for my double doors. 'Twas not to be.

So I went off to another timber yard not far away, but they are not really a retail merchant, they supply lorry loads to the retails guys. But the chap there was very helpful and asked me if I had tried Jet Joinery Supplies in Kirkby. Well I'd never heard of them, but it turns out they are only a mile or so away from where I live, so off I toddled to them.

Small, but well-stocked and a very helpful young chap behind the counter, who happily sold me three lengths of torus architrave to the lengths I require. Unfortunately it is not exactly the same profile as the existing, so I can't just cut another length for the top of the man door but it will do just fine for the double doors. The other very satisfying thing is that they sell hardwoods. They don't have huge stocks, but they has some oak, ash and beech in, as well as some very nice looking Douglas Fir. And they sell the PVA glue that I like as well. Recently I've either been buying it from Axi, or getting my mate Jim to pick up a bottle from Turners Retreat, which is close to where he lives. But it is expensive. These guys sell it and the price is very good too. So I would call that a result.

So, with some architrave work to sort out, I started on my Cunning Plan. First I stuck two pencils up my nose and marked out around the light switch. Unfortunately the jigsaw makes a bit of a mess of the white primer, but it will need to be painted anyway.

Then I cut the top piece in half. Yes, really. This is from the if-you-can't-hide-it-make-a-feature-of-it school of thought. I cut a keystone shape from a bit of flooring with the intention of making a sort of art deco look. Then I made a stupid schoolboy mistake, I mitred the architrave the wrong way. Not what you want to do when you are already short of material, so the keystone has had to be made somewhat wider than the narrow elegant one I had intended. But I think it will look fine when painted up and I might even do the same on the double doors, even though I don't have to.

I trimmed out the lining of the double doors,

but I'd had enough, even though I had such a late start. So more architrave and skirting tomorrow, I guess.

 

[Woodchips2]

Good bit of innovation Steve =D>

Another trick is to cut the top first, then if you are a bit short on the two uprights put a couple of plinth blocks on the bottom.

Regards Keith

 

[StevieB]

How many times are you going to catch something on the bottom of the keystone before you trim it flush with the architrave Steve?

 

[Steve Maskery]

I'll keep a tally...

 

[Eric The Viking]

I'll keep a tally...

Is that an old Nottinghamshire term for a hard hat?

I likes to keep me banter correct... :wink:

E.

 

[Steve Maskery]

It may not look a lot different, I admit, but I've done quite a bit today.

I finished the architrave, although, TBH I wish I'd waited until Ray, or at least another pair of hands, came along. Handling the long top piece of the double doors was tricky on my own. I chickened out of duplicating the keystone...

But once the architrave was up, I could fix the skirting on the front wall. But when I looked at the gap, I was surprised to see that the uder-layer of OSB was hard against the sole plate, or at least, it was was well under the plasterboard.

So I decided I should trim that too. But it did occur to me that that there were cables in the floor at some point along the length. Unfortunately I could not remember where we had laid them, but fortunately I had taken a photograph or two...

So I could trim it back without having a big bang.

It was a ot more difficult than I thought, my cheap Lidl multitool is apparently made of cheese, so it has no effect on OSB. Anyway, I eventually managed it.

Finally I did a bit of caulking around the architrave and the gaps where the floor meets the door frames.

So, not very exciting, I admit, but a decent job, I think.

S

 

[Racers]

You are making progress slowly but surely Steve, time to build the big doors?

Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

It was a lot more difficult than I thought, my cheap Lidl multitool is apparently made of cheese, so it has no effect on OSB. Anyway, I eventually managed it...

I bought a couple of aftermarket blades for the Bosch GOP thingy recently.

I was pleased wth myself until they turned up: teeth not hardened, and crucially much thicker steel. OK they are sharp and they do cut (and they can be resharpened), but it's no dfferent to a tablesaw, in that the thicker kerf means more power needed to cut along any given line. In the GOP case, that means the battery goes flat faster, which is annoying.

Two of the Bosch blades that came with the tool blunted very quickly. One, a wide saw, supposedly good for both metal and wood, went
so fast, I'd lost all of the teeth (except for grooves between where they weren't) before I realised why it was getting hard to use! Oddly, re-cutting teeth with a needle file has worked well - the new teeth are doing better than the originals.

These people have been recommended on here in the past: http://www.saxtonblades.co.uk. I have yet to try them, but will do this week as a fresh set is overdue.

 

[shipbadger]

I'll also give a vote for Saxton blades, use them exclusively now. Worth getting on their mailing list as they often have worthwhile bundles of blades at a good saving. Incidentally if you grind all the teeth off a blunt blade and give it a slight edge you have yourself a wallpaper or paint stripper.

Tony Comber

 

[Graham Orm]

I'll also give a vote for Saxton blades, use them exclusively now. Worth getting on their mailing list as they often have worthwhile bundles of blades at a good saving. Incidentally if you grind all the teeth off a blunt blade and give it a slight edge you have yourself a wallpaper or paint stripper.

Tony Comber

+1 For Saxton. I've added myself to their mailing list too now. Thanks Badger.

 

[memzey]

+1 for Saxton blades. That's all I use in my Fein now. They may only last half as long as the Fein original blades but they only cost about an eighth to buy so they are still great value!

 

[lurker]

You are making progress slowly but surely Steve, time to build the big doors?

Pete

Steve,

When you do the doors, I have a pile of heavy duty 4" brass butt hinges and loads of door furnitue including mortice locks if you want them
I think I have a paired set of locks so you could fit two upper and lower

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi Jim
Thank you, that is very kind of you. I have hinges and actually I am thinking of doing without locks, just barring the whole thing inside, but if you have bolts then yes please. I could do with enough for 4 shutters as well as the double doors, top and bottom. If you have that lot in your dusty box under the bench then fantastic. Why not take a ride a couple of notches up the M1 one day, eh?
S

 

[Steve Maskery]

I've done a couple of little jobs since I last reported.

Over the weekend my mate Akram came over and we finished off the alarm installation. I've had an alarm in the building for a couple of weeks, but now there is also a siren in the house. When it goes off down there, it also goes off in the house. I hope there are no false alarms, it's horrible.

I've also made a power tower. Since we laid the floor, the power for the TS and PT have just been trailing out of a hole in the middle.

So I've made a sort of bollard. It's just biscuited together. The plywood is excellent quality but not external. I scrounged it from the building site when I got my insulation, but it's had to live outside under the eaves of the log cabin ever since. It means that some of it has got wet and the surface veneer has blistered quite badly. I tried to sand back to the sound stuff, but I ended up sanding it all off. So it does look a bit scruffy, but a coat of paint will sort that out. The flange on the bottom is so that I can screw it to my floor. I just need to make the top and drill a couple of access holes for the cables and then we can rewire the sockets onto the tower.

The main casualty of that was my finger, which I managed to get caught in the belt sander at the Community Workshop. It'll be fine in six months or so. How fast does fingernail grow?

------------------------

The first job this morning was to go shopping for guttering. We need to move that pile of wood that is sitting in front of the workshop so that we can dig up the garden, so we thought we could store it behind the workshop, out of the way. Installing the guttering there means that we can cover it with a tarp and it should stay reasonable dry, without half of the roof water dripping on it constantly. At the moment there is no soakaway for it, but the BH corner of the garden is quite a bit lower than the rest of the garden, so we are just letting it go there for the moment.

We started by fixing up the down pipe in the far RH corner and working out how much we needed to get from the corner of the walls to the corner of the roof.

As this is the lower end of the run, we installed our first bracket, ensuring that we would be able to make the other end a bit higher.

Then we set up a builder's line between the first and last bracket and screwed up all the brackets. The lengths are 20mm over 4m, so we have a union about half way.

When we got to the end, though, would you believe it, we were about 6" too short.

But eventually it was all done and we tested it with a watering can. It all ran out. Slowly, but none was left sitting in the gutter. Ray pronounced himself pleased with it, and if it's good enough for Ray, it's good enough for me.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Well done.

I hate doing guttering off a ladder (and I don't enjoy it much off a scaffold, for that matter).

 

[AES]

Steve, the "power tower" looks like a good idea and I'm sure it will do "the woodworking palace" full justice once it's painted.

This may be a "carp" idea (probably is), but FWIW, why not fill the bottom of the tower with a few bricks or something else weighty, mount some small castors underneath the base, then you can move the tower around to meet the various machines? I appreciate that the main power lead in has to come out of a central point on the floor somewhere, but if the tower's not fixed in just one place then the number of leads you have trailing around the floor will be reduced to just the one, no?

Just an idea ...........

Krgds
AES

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi Andy
I see what you are saying, but I'm trying to reduce the number of trailing cables. I have loads of sockets around the room, so it's just the centre that needs to be serviced. As the TS and PT are not going to be wheeled around, I think that a fixed supply will be the best solution Of course, if, in the course of time, I discover that I've put the TS in completely the wrong place, then I'll have to do something about it, but at the mo the Workshop Essentials Power Tower (WEPT for short, TM, all rights reserved) will service the TS, PT and DX.


S

 

[xy mosian]

I recall that the Woodwork Room at the school I to had mains isolating thump switches about the room.
I wonder if the tower might have one on top for ease of access, if only for the connected machines.
xy