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May 13, 2011 15:23:57 GMT
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Well, the gate and post are painted, then on Wednesday evening I was pretty bored, should have been prepping for the interview in Southampton, but decided to hang the gate instead.  The whole motivation for the gate and taking the hedge down the side of the garage down, was to be able to get to the back of the garagewith a wheelbarrow or lawnmower. Even though the land after the first meter belongs tothe church and in turn is farmed by the farmer, we have about 3 meters of unused land, which has become our veggie patch, I also got the neighbours permission to plant "Boer Pampoen" (Farmers pumpkins) behind his hedge as they do take over a lot. Currently we have courgettes, squash, cabbage, lettuce and a row of giant sunflowers out back. I also planted an eating apple tree (closest to camera) and a Conference pear further away, to add to the plum tree that was there already.  Today was Mickey's 66th birthday, so we decided to dig the 24 inch holes for the concrete posts, and concrete them in, and prep the ramp on my side, next up will be Sunday to cast the first 2 sections of the footpath. We had the stone/sand mix bag put in the rear of the van with the forklift, and decided to do the mixing straight out of the van...... clever guy Mick.   Rough cast top of the ramp, it will be getting another 2 inch screed on top, blended into the ramp and footpath.  Back to the BBQ, last Sunday I bought this spanner for £2.00, teaspoon just for perspective. The plan is to weld a couple of 5mm rods in the back of it, and build into the rear wall of the BBQ, and then use it with some stainless hooks from IKEA to hang all my BBQ-ing tools.  |
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Last Edit: May 14, 2011 11:58:17 GMT by grizz
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May 13, 2011 16:40:15 GMT
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Loving the massive spanner. I've got a few similar I rescued from the tip, surprisingly useful.
Just wondering if you ever sit down and take a rest? You seem constantly at something!
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May 15, 2011 22:13:44 GMT
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Loving the massive spanner. I've got a few similar I rescued from the tip, surprisingly useful. Just wondering if you ever sit down and take a rest? You seem constantly at something! LOL.... you are right, I do battle to sit still. To me a holiday is a time to do stuff I do not get time to do the rest of the year, like painting etc. This redundancy has allowed me to do loads of stuff. I think some people are just lucky that they can switch off and do nothing. I do wish I could "sleep late" till 7am for instance. |
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skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 5,550
Club RR Member Number: 11
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May 15, 2011 22:55:57 GMT
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lol sleep late till 7am!! Thats a really early morning for me!! hahaha Good to see your making progress though and using your time well Rian!  |
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lol sleep late till 7am!! Thats a really early morning for me!! hahaha Good to see your making progress though and using your time well Rian! Ants in the pants my mum used to say. I do find myself in withdrawal from skip and tip diving though.... ;D Need a couple of cooker shelf/grilles at the moment, to cut up and fit in the oven. |
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I find old shopping trollies dumped in open ground do the trick nicely for this sort of thing
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Last Edit: May 17, 2011 8:48:49 GMT by kwikkwak
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May 17, 2011 20:52:11 GMT
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I find old shopping trollies dumped in open ground do the trick nicely for this sort of thing Great idea too. Just that living in the sticks where we are, the closest thing resembling a shop is a service station where they still fill your car for you, and do farm implement MOT's and that is some way away, and deffo no trolleys. However I will be looking at those as an option too. |
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May 17, 2011 21:03:07 GMT
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Started with the concrete casting for the communal/shared pathway to the rear of our propperties yesterday, but stopped when we ran out of materials, as Mick needed to be in Sheffield at 7am today. Great way to get rid of loads of old scrap dug up in the garden and other bits of hard core.  I continued on my own with various small jobs and also cleared the area where the footing of the BBQ will go.   The concrete mixer was fetched by Micks son tonight for a job he has to do, so next up will be either hand mixing, or I need to buy, hire or borrow a mixer. You will notice the old road sign from which I got the oak post has been making its appearance a couple of times so far.  All the old letters and numbers from the sign were truely rusted and pitted from being out there for years. I wanted to use some of them to make a sign board for the BBQ, but could not see myself sanding them, or getting them sand blasted, so I popped them and a load of stones, gravel and a couple of heavy lumps of steel in the concrete mixer for an hour or so, resulting in this ......  Followed by a coat of primer, and 3 coats of black on the front and finally two on the rear.  Off to a 4 hour interview and assessment centre tomorrow, and a different interview on Friday, France on Saturday, so not sure when the next update is due, but in the mean time, any advice and tips greatly appreciated. |
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camper damper
Part of things
Another car bites the dust
Posts: 606
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May 17, 2011 21:21:59 GMT
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I love the letters what you gone to do with them
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I love the letters what you gone to do with them Thanks mate, they were a bit of a challenge to start off with, and I am not sure many people would have tried to re-use them. This is the lot in a bucket where they lived for two weeks before I got them sorted, the two 1/4 mile pieces are ally castings, so I took them out, and will do them by hand.  |
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Between 2 job interviews, one was 4 hrs  , and other stuff, including a day trip to France yesterday, not a lot has happened as Mickey has had his hands and van full of other jobs too. I did manage to clean up the hedge on Thursday and weave some of the sticks back into it, to retain as much as possible of the hedge for when the brickwork is done, I am actually going to sacrifice about 6" or 150mm of the depth so that I do not have to cut away more of the hedge, leaving it all looking untouched by the time the brickwork is done. The copper pipe, bricks on the floor and red wool are just to help me be able to show Nicola what she is getting in exchange for a mangled lawn and hedge, as she soes not visualise as instantly as my mad head does. Plans are for 4 supports where the bricks are now, and then a cast floor in concrete ending up at the level of the copper pipe, which should give you about 800mm off the floor in front of the construction, with the grill going above that.  Now I need to wait for Mickey to have days off between jobs so that we can fetch materials and get on with the casting and mixing. |
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May 22, 2011 20:30:31 GMT
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Hey man, know you were after summat like this, spotted at my local car boot, he's got em there most weeks  CROWN is 35 quid, one behind it, the short T is 25. If you want one I'll happily get it for ya and hold it till you can get it collected? Just a thought, no idea if the prices are good ones? I've never priced up chimney pots before lol. Btw, gardens looking cracking  |
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Remember the days when sex was safe and motorsport was dangerous. Vintage bling always attracts pussy. |
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May 22, 2011 20:38:41 GMT
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Hey man, know you were after summat like this, spotted at my local car boot, he's got em there most weeks CROWN is 35 quid, one behind it, the short T is 25. If you want one I'll happily get it for ya and hold it till you can get it collected? Just a thought, no idea if the prices are good ones? I've never priced up chimney pots before lol. Btw, gardens looking cracking Hi mate, Thanks a lot for the effort. I found this one for £15, and though it is quite plain, it will have to do. I will still make a rain cover for it, that will slot into place on the top, maybe from part of that knackered gas bottle I found.  |
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May 23, 2011 14:17:11 GMT
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No worries bud, just noticed them as I was wondering round and thought of your monster man BBQ.
Wish I had space to build summat like that.
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Remember the days when sex was safe and motorsport was dangerous. Vintage bling always attracts pussy. |
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No worries bud, just noticed them as I was wondering round and thought of your monster man BBQ. Wish I had space to build summat like that. We are very fortunate to have the space we have.... but in exchange for that, I have 20% mobile reception with O2, and only 0.5meg of internet download speed. Our bus stops infront of the house for Tom's school, but the town busses are hourly or less. Still, the space is a pleasure. |
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Yesterday Mickey and I were off early, and got the rest of the 1.8m walkway and ramp done down the side of the garage, then off to the supplies store for another cube bag of sand/stone mix and 5 bags oc cement to get going on the BBQ foundation pad.  As usual we mixed straight from the back of the van, plastic sheeting to help the grass a bit.   Done and brush finished. The plan is to use some nice large cobble style paving stones one of the neighbours had over from a job he did and was throwing out in front of the built up section, laying them on top of the cement slab to gain 50mm.  Behind Mickeys place he had an old coal bunker that was originally put there by him to use as a compost bin, but now it too has to go, so I have decided to use a couple of the sides as "lintels" and to support the chimney section once I have fitted the oven and fire hole. I cut the hole bigger to allow a decent draught through from the oven section, once it is stoked with coals from the fire hole. This section will be fitted at a slope with the smoke/heat escaping into the main chimney through some clever ducting I still have to figure out.  Cutting a supporting lintel off the one side of the panel, this will go to seperate the fire hole and the oven section with about 120mm x 600mm space through which to load the coals to drive the oven.  Hole enlarged in cover and both thick sides cut off for lintels.  Today I will be doing some more woodwork, maybe a bit of welding and have to fetch in about 40 building blocks and some bricks. All in all, an easy lazy day for me. |
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Last Edit: May 25, 2011 6:37:13 GMT by grizz
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May 25, 2011 20:41:49 GMT
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Went to town on the bike today to order and pay for some bricks and blocks to be delivered, also got some other bits done. Then home, moved the 32 blocks I already had (Freebies collected over time) to the foundation site. After this I cut down some WW2 Corrugated iron @2mm thick and tack welded them together. The sheet will be fitted on top of the blockwork once it is done and a 50mm sheet of cement cast into the box I will be building, after which the actual BBQ and oven will be built on top of it. I also prepped a 3meter long recycled 2x4 length of pine, which will form the front of the "fire floor" Using one of those clever steel and diamond blades..... impressive stuff.  Tacked together @ 2700mm, BBQ will be 2800 wide, so rendering will tidy up the ends.  There is a load of prepparation that goes into a job like this, and then when you look back at it, it is hard to imagine where the time went. |
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May 25, 2011 20:59:58 GMT
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looking good
had time on my hands changing jobs still up at 0700 am
tinkering is an art form
for rochester you area looks good
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May 28, 2011 15:44:27 GMT
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Today I finished early..... so it is a "day 7 + 8 report" I had to wait for the foundation to cure propperly before bringing the blocks up to the house.  After stitching together the sheets of corrugated iron, I decided to make a wood frame to keep the concrete at bay that was going to form the floor of the fire place and oven, as well as the food prep area which will get tiled with floor or mosaic tiles. Just before Christmas I took down a wall in the house and typically stored all the timber that was in it. One length was 3.5meters and filled with nail and crowbar damage, so I decided to keep with the rustic look and just ran a coarse 40 grit belt followed by a 80 grit belt on the beltsander over it. There was a bit of old oak stain left in a tin, which had rusted through, so I transfered it to half a fabric softner bottle and added some water. This was brushed on twice to get a nice aged oak look. The timber will stay in place and be a feature. While doing this, I added some 6" nails and welded bits of steel to them all to keep it all together once the concrete dries.  In order to get a neat finish I cut many of the blocks so that the newly bought ones will be at the front, and used most of the old recycled ones at the rear, or inside what will become storage with doors when the rest is done. Nicola reckons we should build the cats their own village out there.  Harley toward the end of yesterday, she has no fear of machines and loves the dust from the cutting, rolling in it and insisting on some attention. Throughout this whole project she has been "helping" me, which is great because a lot of the time I am on my own, with only the HiFi blaring out whatever CD's are on the carousel.  At the end of the day yesterday things were this far., even I am pleased so far. We went down to Broadstairs to watch a group (husband and wife) called Truckstop Honeymoon for the second time, they are off to France today.  This morning I cut a ready made "lintel" from a sheet of reinforced concrete, the chimney will go on top of this.  Trial fitted the working surface mould this morning with Nicola's help, still in her sleeping attire , and Harley had to do her bit of Health and Safety inspection.  I then mixed mortar, loaded the walls and fitted the sheet so that is will be nicely supported once the rest of the building goes on top.  Filled and smoothed out, now I have to wait a couple of days for the mix to go off and start drying propperly before I can do the brickwork.  As always, comments, advice and tips gratefully received. Hope to be out doing a wobbler trial ride tomorrow. Monday some more woodwork. Thanks for checking in. |
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marksparks999
Part of things
I aim to live forever, or die trying!
Posts: 656
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May 28, 2011 17:46:07 GMT
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wow... i hope a job offer doesn't put a stop on all your handywork!
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Retroless at the moment... but on the hunt for something old!
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Ax GTi Turbo
, and other stuff, including a day trip to France yesterday, not a lot has happened as Mickey has had his hands and van full of other jobs too.
