Peroni's Place - Another Keter 6' x 6' Shed Conversion

[peroni]

Note to self... Must go out and buy some silicon grease. :-D

Working on roof now. I've used the locking washers temporarily. When I adapt the shed to have a removable roof, I'll take the washers off and make sure the plugs are lubricated.

[peroni]

Roof is on now. That was hard work!

It was difficult to slot roof panels into central beam.

I took central beam off and assembled roof on the ground. It was easier to get the roof panels into the beam slot this way. I then carefully lifted roof into position and screwed it down.

[Gina]

Getting there

[peroni]

Getting there

Nearly done. Ran out of daylight.

Shed is up. Roof on, window in, doors on.

Just need to finish door furniture and shelf tomorrow.

Overcast is the forecast for Friday, perfect for tinkering with shed.

No rain, no wind. But of course, now I've said that...[emoji3]

Pictures to be posted tomorrow.

[Fish]

Use furniture polish on the plastic bolts  

[peroni]

Use furniture polish on the plastic bolts  

Top tip 

[peroni]

Conversion starts tomorrow...

Pics taken so far (of my basic uninteresting shed)

Floor of 6' x 6' shed:

Shed walls on:

Shed finished:

I'm going to strengthen the sides ready for roof removal.

Add corner braces to the inside of the roof.

Bolt handles onto the outside of roof so two people can lift the roof off.

Power will be from extension lead.

I have a network (internet) via the house mains. Tested the other day and much stronger/faster than my wireless connection.

Lights are a head torch :-)

Clear night forecast tomorrow to test it all out.

[peroni]

Another update... mixed success today...

The good news is the roof came off easily:

The bad news is...

1) my bolts are too short to attach the handles to the outside of the gable

2) I'll need to secure the end and above the door to stop the walls from moving apart (outwards or inwards).

It's good enough for a session of imaging tonight. Another hardware store visit next week to fix the issues.

[Fish]

Yea you need 4 of those bars one for each wall, thought we had already mentioned that but reading back we haven't . Great start glad your happy with how the roof comes off.

Was forecast for a clear sky here tonight but its still grey with cloud and foggy :-( hope its clear for you .....

[Davey-T]

Hi Peroni, a couple of things, I made the roof lift of bars across the inside, one because it's easier for one person to lift off, and two, it helps hold the roof in shape .

Also in case you hadn't realised you need to cut off the two locating lugs on the rear centre wall to stop it clipping itself on (see pic')

Dave

[Fish]

I found that a 4" door bolt fixed onto the fixed left hand door top to the bar that will hold the sides together firms things up when the roof is removed and replaces the plastic bolt that goes into the roof hope the picture explains better , higher res one in my gallery.

[peroni]

Yea you need 4 of those bars one for each wall, thought we had already mentioned that but reading back we haven't . Great start glad your happy with how the roof comes off.

Was forecast for a clear sky here tonight but its still grey with cloud and foggy :-( hope its clear for you .....

At one point I knew that I'd need to fashion some lintels (support) for the back wall and above the doors but in true 'there is no written plan' style, I forgot.

I had in my head that the roll off roof rails will support the front doors and back walls, but currently my conversion is in the temporary state where we lift the roof off manually and I have no roll off rails.

As you suggest, a couple more bars will do the job.

Last night here the weather was clear but the dew was really heavy. Not surprising now I see we have heavy fog this morning. I've yet to pop outside to obsy but left things covered in dew last night. I'll bring things in to really dry out once I've got some darks and flats taken.

The obsy gave a fair amount of shelter last night and it is certainly warmer then sitting outside exposed.

What do you do (if anything) to protect the laptop from dew?

[peroni]

Hi Peroni, a couple of things, I made the roof lift of bars across the inside, one because it's easier for one person to lift off, and two, it helps hold the roof in shape .

Also in case you hadn't realised you need to cut off the two locating lugs on the rear centre wall to stop it clipping itself on (see pic')

yep, that was a good spot. I've highlighted it so others also remember. It was one of the things I'd done when I first put the shed up. Everything that 'clicked' into place I double checked to make sure I wouldn't need to 'unclick' it when removing the roof.

This shed is certainly easy to lift the roof off. The polish tip worked a treat to make the plastic screw plugs easier to put in and take out.

I'm a bit undecided on direction: roll off conversion, or one person lift off conversion. I often follow the least effort route.

The one person lift / roll conversion will have to wait but for now it is easy enough and once I get the correct length bolts, handles will make it even easier. I'll post more pics when they are on.

I used these bolts here but need the 80mm ones here

I changed the square nuts for these locking ones here

[peroni]

I found that a 4" door bolt fixed onto the fixed left hand door top to the bar that will hold the sides together firms things up when the roof is removed and replaces the plastic bolt that goes into the roof hope the picture explains better , higher res one in my gallery.

Another good idea, keep 'em coming 

I'll have to change it a bit for my set up. I won't have angle bar for the roll off roof but I could attach the bolt to the builders bar instead.

Pics to be posted once it's done.

[Fish]

It is bolted to the back of the building bar, my rails fix to building bar. The clearance was just right to bolt the bolt eye onto a plate AF ally and screw the bolt directly to the door.

Glad you managed to use it, I have a permanent PC left in my obsy, if you look at my pictures I have two wood shelves (wood so they don't attract dew) above and below the monitor, all so I have my red led light close which gives a small amount of heat , as we speak I have not had any dew whatever on the monitor or keyboard , but anything plastic or metal on the top shelf gets soaked, if I forget and put my C8 lens cover the wrong way on the top shelf it fills up to the top with water :-) but the middle shelf stays clear. If you don't intend to have more shelves try a search on here for laptop dew and I think it throws up loads of solutions.

Just for the record after a real wet session my obsy gets the early morning sun so when I get up in the morning everything up to now has dried out a treat ....

[Billy Bluelight]

Looks like a brilliant job - very interesting project!

[Davey-T]

Another thing I remember I did was glue strips of wood in the open tops of the side and back panels, using "no nails" and clamped together 'till dry, as I  found after a while they spread and stopped the roof going down easily.

Dave

[peroni]

It is bolted to the back of the building bar, my rails fix to building bar. The clearance was just right to bolt the bolt eye onto a plate AF ally and screw the bolt directly to the door.

Glad you managed to use it, I have a permanent PC left in my obsy, if you look at my pictures I have two wood shelves (wood so they don't attract dew) above and below the monitor, all so I have my red led light close which gives a small amount of heat , as we speak I have not had any dew whatever on the monitor or keyboard , but anything plastic or metal on the top shelf gets soaked, if I forget and put my C8 lens cover the wrong way on the top shelf it fills up to the top with water :-) but the middle shelf stays clear. If you don't intend to have more shelves try a search on here for laptop dew and I think it throws up loads of solutions.

Just for the record after a real wet session my obsy gets the early morning sun so when I get up in the morning everything up to now has dried out a treat ....

When I looked at another one of your pictures I saw you had bolted the rails to the building bar. This is good news as it means I wouldn't have to redo work if I decide to extend the project to include roll off later next year. I'd just need to bolt some channels to the builders bar.

Useful to know about the wooden shelving.

I only have one shelf in so far, see photo below. I'll swap out the plastic shelving for wood and a second above it as you suggested.

Power needs to be sorted out as well before I add lights and other stuff. I'll also need to sort out the 'cable chaos'.

You can see from the picture that the HEQ5 tripod fully extended fits in the shed with about 30cm to spare either side. This leaves it cosy and a pier is definitely on my priority list. Especially as guiding went a bit awry last night when I went to sit down. Unsurprisingly my weight moved the floor and PHD detected it (I did wonder what the strange PHD graph was as normally my graphs are pretty flat  ).

Only ruined one sub and I went in doors after a while to leave the scope and camera happily snapping away without me.

I was also going to get a fan heater to dry things out the next morning so stuff didn't sit there damp for a while.

[peroni]

I found that a 4" door bolt fixed onto the fixed left hand door top to the bar that will hold the sides together firms things up when the roof is removed and replaces the plastic bolt that goes into the roof hope the picture explains better , higher res one in my gallery.

20141129_171433.jpg

This picture shows my unchanged front door section (no builders bar or channelling). A yours and mine (before and after) comparison should be useful for others reading this.

You can also see the angle brackets here  which I used to strengthen the roof.

I'll grab some more builders bar from Wickes; I used the 1.6m length, 5mm thick ones here. I'll add links for the handles when I get them bolted on so others will have a kit list (albeit spread over the whole thread)

[Davey-T]

Coming along nicely, a pier quickly moved to the top of my to do list after I'd tripped over the tripod a few times

I fitted one of these screwed to one wall low down, plugged into a thermostat.

Dave

http://www.qvsdirect.com/3ft-180w-tubular-heater-with-wall-brackets-white-ip55

http://www.qvsdirect.com/timeguard-electronic-plug-in-thermostat

[peroni]

Coming along nicely, a pier quickly moved to the top of my to do list after I'd tripped over the tripod a few times

I fitted one of these screwed to one wall low down, plugged into a thermostat.

Dave

http://www.qvsdirect.com/3ft-180w-tubular-heater-with-wall-brackets-white-ip55

http://www.qvsdirect.com/timeguard-electronic-plug-in-thermostat

Thanks Dave. I wasn't even aware and therefore hadn't even considered these tube heaters for outside! The thermostat is the icing on the cake.

I ordered these from Amazon...

4ft 240w heater

thermostat

There are loads of suppliers but cheap delivery (and good reviews) sold it for me.

What temperature do people normally set their thermostats to?

x degress above dew point?

[Davey-T]

What temperature do people normally set their thermostats to?

x degress above dew point?

Usually leave mine on 10 degrees, no reason though

Dave

[peroni]

One heater installed on the sidewall. This is the 4ft version and it fits in nicely.

I put this extra shelf (a spare piece of chipboard shelving I had lying around) in above the plastic one and it solved the problem with dew/frost on the laptop. I'll have to swap it out later and put a wooden one in as there was still dew on the top white surface of the shelf.

[peroni]

Another thing I remember I did was glue strips of wood in the open tops of the side and back panels, using "no nails" and clamped together 'till dry, as I  found after a while they spread and stopped the roof going down easily.

Can you explain a bit more please. Perhaps a photo as I can't quite picture what you are saying. 

[Ibbo!]

I also use a Keter shed

mine is very basic as its a lift off roof but I do have a pier and seeing that it is run from indoors via Teamviewer mine is much more cluttered with junk

I have the tube heater

many thanks for the thermostat link thats ideal

Steve