Yawning Angel

Sunshine = progress ? One panel clad, painted and installed, the other half is ready to clad and go yay

Yours too Kev! I'm chasing windows in the weather now - of course, I'm sat here at work and it's clear & dry ?

It is very close, yes. Roller and a pole ?

Given a few gaps in the weather, construction has continued. One end wall and the back are now framed, and put to one side. The back wall is awaiting cladding before install. The rest of the frame timber has been cut to length ready to blitz it! Also, finally poured the concrete for the pier, so the obs side flooring joists can go in! It's starting to come together Excuse the random rope, but the met office issued a warning for wind, and I've a gazebo covering it over ?️☂️? - It survived ? I've a 3m length of 150mm ID twinwall pipe spare now, if anyone needs (It comes in 6m, which was a tad long for the pier) It's this stuff : Naylor MetroDrain -71302

Pier mkii is underway - sketchup to the rescue! This will be a concrete filled 175mm ridged and rigid pipe, topped with a pair of 6mm octagonal stainless plates (already a nice shape, thanks ebay!) separated by 50mm stainless spacers and bolted together with 12mm stainless bar. The puck is a beautiful bit of machining from Altair, which fits perfectly. All secured to the pipe by 3 250mm long 12mm stainless L bolts Not owning a drill press, I've enlisted our engineering department for the precision drilling - they even offered give it a nice finish with some sort of acid wash ? Much happier with this design (much cheaper too), and it means I can get on...if only I didn't have to work away this weekend!

Thank Kev, it's been a little testing. The ill-fitting adapter and it's associated pier have been returned - about 6 weeks of to and fro is enough. Time to put on my old engineering hat and make something! ?

The centre hole is too small, by 0.5mm or so, and the alt bolt on the mount lands right on a hold down in the plate. They're skimming it out and re-drilling the az post hole - it's times like this I wish I had a lathe ?

One step forward, one backward The puck, above, doesn’t fit. It’s close, but this is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades, so back it goes ? However, after dodging hail stones and rain yesterday, today I’ve half of the back wall framed up. The cladding is also ready to fit and coat before it goes up. Maybe half a step ahead overall ??

A slight bump in th eroad has been the pier. The first puck wasn't sized for my AVX, but Rother Valley Optics have done a great job sorting it out, and puck no2 is now here awaiting a test fit Assuming all is well, I can finally align to north and concrete in the bolt box. Some framework will be going on this weekend, starting on the back wall where access will be limited once it goes up. Frame it, clad it and paint it flat, then install it complete. It's only 4.2 x 2m, how heavy can it be?! ?

Looking good James!

That's the wood up to the roof, but not including. Unless I'm well adrift, it should be fine. That's framing and cladding. A smaller number of long lengths was more economical...the chop saw will be busy!

The wood man cometh

A few weeks of no tangible progress, but today I ordered up the framing timber and cladding. Friday, I lose half of my driveway to wood ?? Onwards and upwards ?

I was in 2 minds about doing that too. It seems that batons and an air gap is worthwhile if it's insulated, to allow vertical airflow, but that leads to needing insect mesh to protect the void. Argh!

Looking very nice, Kev! Are you cladding directly over the top of the membrane, or running batons?

I plan to access it once it's in place - but I'm thinking of using stud connectors threaded onto the bar to make a stable join, with washers if it needs leaveling to any great degree. Should make it pretty bomb-proof ?

That's what I thought when I came across them a few years back. By far the best digging tool I've owned!

Thanks Alan its a narrow, curve section shovel - quite thick metal, and great for slicing neat holes and trenches and punching through roots and bricks ? http://www.spear-and-jackson.com/product/tubular-steel-shovels/tubular-steel-newcastle-draining-16

Indeed. I'm going to make up a nice short centre bolt, then drop those right down - I've plenty of height to play with. That said, it's pretty solid

Ooh, found some upvc in 2400x1200 sheets - ordered a sample ??Thanks Collected the pier from Rother Valley Optics too <glee>

The frame isn’t fixed down at the moment, but it will be wrapped beforehand, yes. The staggered ends seemed to make sense, leaving as little exposed end grain as possible, but I’m sure I cribbed it from a build on here. If it’s not yours, perhaps James’ ? Just weighing up ideas for the back wall, as it needs to be low / maintenance due to being very close to the fence. Front runner at the moment is the same coating that’s going on the roof (25 yr before maintenance, if it performs to spec), but over vertical OSB panels - built and coated flat then raised and fixed ‘finished’.

Collecting the pier on Saturday! ?? Should be doing the concrete on Sunday, all being well

Progress today. Base framing done, awaiting joists next. Slate ground cover heaped up for now, as the pier pour is next weekend and I didn’t fancy a landslide. The pier itself is due end of next week from the fine folks at Rother Valley Optics - slight refinements on their standard offering. Last job of the day was completing the bury of the SWA network cable. Nice to be going upwards ?

Planning to have plenty of sockets ? oh yes! Todays madness was to strip the grass on the Obs plot and clear the ground work spoil - on another blazing day! Massive thanks to @Uplooker for pitching in on the spade work. It filled a 2 ton mini skip, which wasn’t in the budget, but stuff like that is easily missed least exciting photo ever: Weed matting and stones in order to cover it. If only the builders merchants sold new backs, as mine is killing me!

Got wood!