Steve's workshop - Painting the outside walls

[lurker]

I guess you must be a very lucky or very charming chap .

Terry.

Who is this we are talking about? :shock:

The answer is simple, go back to the first page: the neighbours were just glad that eye sore was going to be replaced. 8)
:lol:

 

[Steve Maskery]

Indeed some are and have told me so. That didn't stop someone - I don't know who - ringing the Council and saying, "Have you seen what's gone up over there?", to which the reply was, "Yes, and it's all above board".
Then my car was egged and keyed.
Oh for a cottage and half an acre in Borsetshire.
S

 

[Brentingby]

Oh for a cottage and half an acre in Borsetshire.
S

Sounds like an idyllic thing. Maybe right along the River Perch

 

[JonnyW]

You should come live in Shetland. No crime here - just four months of winter and 8 months of gale force wind and rain that soaks you on the way down, then soaks you on the way across and then soaks you again on the way up.

Put some hairs on your chest.

On a positive note - we do know how to wind and water tight buildings up here.

Oh and no scum - they hate the weather.

Jonny

 

[Steve Maskery]

I'd quite like to visit Shetland. Do you do B&B?

S
PS My chest is quite hairy enough, thank you.

 

[JonnyW]

Ha ha ha.

No I don't unfortunately.

You should visit, it's a beautiful and interesting place. An eclectic built environment, with strong Scandinavian influence in the house building styles, mixed with traditional Scottish.

I'd be very glad to show you around and treat you to some tattie soup with reestit mutton bannocks, and some lovely local beer.

Jonny

 

[Steve Maskery]

I think that that is definitely a bucket list jobbie.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Not many photos today, but I have been busy.

I've grouted the rest of the RH side, or at least as far as I can reach on the scaffolding. There is still a bit right at the top but I'm not getting up there on my own. I've also done the LH side as far as I can off the step-ladder.

Then I decided to finish the front LH corner. It's not just to make it pretty, of course, it protects the corner of the cempanel.

I'd planned to use 4 x 1 on the front but I haven't got as much left as I really need, so I used some of my surplus shiplap for the sides, with the moulding ripped off. I discovered that you can't nail through CemPanel! So each hole had to be predrilled.

and then the 4 x 1 went on the front. It is about an inch shorter than I would like, but it was that length already, so I simply lifted it up a bit and I shall fill the gaps with caulk. I thought I'd been very diligent in getting the front cladding all in line, but in fact there is a good 8-10mm gap by the bottom few, so I've squirted one lot of caulk in and I shall finish it off tomorrow. Well, probably Wednesday, actually.

I've found the white paint I was looking for, so I can get that corner finished.

 

[Brentingby]

Nice. Now get that big door made.

 

[mindthatwhatouch]

Looking good Steve.
can you give us some more details on the grouting/caulking on the panels?

 

[Steve Maskery]

The grout is from Wickes

Some areas need more than one application, but when it is sanded off and painted, it looks like this.

That is just one coat, obviously it needs more.

Today I had a NYL* look at my eyes and all was well, under the circumstances. Vision really good. 6/6 in the right eye, 6/5 in the left and 6/4 both together. That is pretty darned good for someone using two other people's second-hand corneas! Fantastic. Fit wasn't brilliant, which results in my L lens just droppng out at the drop of a hat, but that is really hard to get perfect, so we agreed that if it is not too broke, don't fix it. Fine by me. In fact, she was surprised that it was the LH one that was being troublesome, she thought that the R one looked a lot more unstable.

Then I came home and finished off the caulking of the front LH corner, which took all of 20 minutes.

*Nice Young Lady (I've been a patient at that eye clinic since before she was born) .

 

[n0legs]

The grout is from Wickes

.

Why haven't you taped the joints with mesh tape first?
Surely this will crack and possibly allow in water.

 

[Steve Maskery]

TBH I'd not thought of that. But I think that mesh is to support a screed, isn't it? This grout goes into the gaps, like with tiles.

Ray didn't come yesterday, because of the weather, but it brightened up in the afternoon and I got a bit done. I painted that front corner and got the soffit box ends up at the back. It's difficult doing anything like that at theack RH corner as there is a big hole where a bush used to be, rather than anything level to set a ladder on. But I managed it.

But this morning he did arrive, complete with bandaged wrist. He fell in the garden yesterday and has sprained it But it takes more than that to stop Ray.

We finished cladding the side wall. This is the very last piece of slate lath going on

and the last piece of cempanel - hoorah!

Then we finished the grouting and rebuilt the scaffolding at the back.

I'd painted up some lengths of shiplap and we started to fit it up. We were both up the scaffolding, honest, but I can't set the camera timer and get up in 10 seconds, so these are all pictures of Ray. The very end is quite bent for some reason, so there is a short piece which I tapered to fit.

We finished early, as I am being picked up in hour, to be whisked away, wined and dined, then I shall laugh all evening long at Andy Hamilton

Ray can't come next week unfortunately which is a pity given that we are so close to completion, but it can't be helped.

 

[JonnyW]

Looking really good Steve. Really enjoying your posts and photos.

Jonny

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well, it was very misty this morning, so I decided to do a bit inside.

My mate Julian, from the Community Workshop, has asked me a couple of times if I have finished with his Paslode. Well now I have, so I thought I'd better service it before returning it. There are service instructions inside.

So I removed the nails, gas cylinder and battery and undid the various bolts. It was filthy inside, but a squirt of this and a wipe of that and it cleaned up easily enough. I put it back together and... nothing. Not a peep. Well the fan was operating but nothing else was.

I discovered that the nozzle appeared to be jammed, it wasn't sliding properly, but the casing all seemed to be back together properly, there were no gaps in the moulding etc. So feeling a bit worried I dismantled it again, in about a tenth of the time, and had another go. This time it fired properly first time. I have no idea what I'd done wrong the first time, but was relieved that I'd not knackered it up.

By then the mist had cleared somewhat, so I turned my attention to the front RH corner. That needs some wood trim to finish it off, but some eejit had put a downspout in the way, making it difficult to nail anything on the side. But I managed, and then completed the job with a piece on the front.

I've also been painting several lengths of shiplap, ready to finish off the soffits when Ray next comes (Thursday, weather permitting).

Back inside I did a little job I've been meaning to do for a while. My DX is on the far side of my saw from my P/T, which is what it is usually attached to and there is also a scrap bin and workmate in the way, so it is a pain to walk round it all to switch the D on and off. It's such a long way

Quite a while back I bought some remote controlled switches so decided to use one for the DX. Unfortunately the receiver unit did not fit inside the covered socket on my Power Tower (TM), so I simply added another socket. It's not covered, but I don't think that will matter.

So then I could dangle my zapper from the Unistrut on a piece of bungee that Eric the Viking gave me for another job entirely. Thank you Eric, it will get more use this way. It is above head height, but easily reachable.

I rang Kevin the BCO yesterday. "Eyup", he said, "Have you finished that bit of a job yet?". I told him how far we'd got and he confirmed that he'd like to come and look just as soon as we have finished the soffits. He can then sign it off. So I'm glad Ray can come on Thursday, I wasn't expecting him at all this week. We should get the back finished, I'm not sure we shall get both gable soffits done, too. probably not, actually.

 

[Racers]

Opening day soon Steve?

Pete

 

[Steve Maskery]

I seem to have said, somewhat rashly, when I started this idiotic malarkey, that I hoped to have a Bash before C........
Fortunately i didn't specify which one.
S

 

[Wizard9999]

You really are only inches from the finish line now Steve, nice job. What will happen to thsi thread, will it be retired or live on?

Terry.

 

[moosepig]

Loving the bungee zapper - I've been considering remote control sockets for my own dust extraction but have been put off by the idea of constantly wondering where I put the remote, this looks like the ideal solution 8)

 

[Steve Maskery]

It was a bit of a late start today, because a load of us were round at Ray's last night, singing and playing. I left at 11.30 and I was one of the first to poop the party, so goodness knows what time Chris and Ray managed to get to bed.

Although it was dry first thing, it wasn't long before it got a bit drizzly. But we'd left the scaffolding up at the back, just storing the boards to keep them dry, so we were up and running very quickly, and by lunchtime we had the soffits finished there. It doesn't look as classy as it should because I'd painted all the soffits so that they would not ed doing when up there, but some eejit left them outside and the rain washed all the ne paint off and now they look ten years old.

Then, fortified by carcinogenic bacon butties, we turned our attention to the RH side. The first job was to check the width and find out how much variation there was. We did this by screwing a gauge block to a pole and poking it in at intervals. We had about 1/4" variation over the whole length, so not too bad.

We decided to do this by elongating the tongue on one length of shiplap so that it can overlap. In that way, we can spring it to the wall and bargeboard and any difference is accommodated by the overlap. We tested it with two short pieces on the router table.

The test worked just fine, so I ripped all the shiplap to 85mm.

At least, I thought I did. When we started to put them up, we found something was wrong. My rip fence was 95mm all of a sudden. It turned out that the clamp was a bit loose. I don't mean it wasn't clampd properly, I mean it needed adjusting. So I got my Allen keys out (thank you again AES) and fixed it. And then all was well.

The bottom ends of the gable soffits needed some support, so I made a couple of blocks that could be screwed to the box ends.

And the overlap ruse worked perfectly well, this is Ray putting up the last piece,

which made Ray very happy indeed

So we packed up and I rang the council. Kevin the BCO is going to call tomorrow morning.