Where have all the tradesmen gone?

Bit annoyed as I sit here. After getting rid of one bricklayer last week I had a replacement come yesterday. In one day he laid 32 bricks. I was unimpressed. We had a quiet word this morning. Today he laid more bricks, I thought he was getting on better until I looked a little closer at the lintel I asked him to put in.It was level but it didn't have quite the bearing you'd hope it would have. A little under an inch. Now you'd think he'd bring it to my attention or ask where the larger lintels were, but no, I had to tell him to take it out and replace it with a larger lintel. You'd think this was just basic bricklaying skills. Am I asking too much? Is this man a bricklayer?
I remember even when I finished my three year at college studying carpentry I was still nervous to call myself a full carpenter in front of other tradesmen, this was in case they pulled me up on my work or speed. I cared about the finished product and being professional in achieving this. I think doing my training in a much smaller area meant you had to be good, word would get around if you weren't. Working in Birmingham now I can see it's much easier for people to say they are tradesmen, work somewhere for a week and move on.
On a brighter note I managed to do a bit of studding yesterday to create a "vaulted" ceiling on the landing as well as insulate and counter batten the sarking level of the roof. This was in between inductions, phone calls, site visits from management, health and safety men and ordering materials.

Shave Horse

After a visit to the Bodgers Ball the weekend before last, I was impressed by quite a few of the demonstrations, Robin Wood, Sean Hellerman and Mike Abbott's were ones that stood out. Mike's "Lumber Horse" took my fancy as I'd always thought about building a shave horse for myself but never have the timber to do it the traditional way (with a large slab of popular).

Last year I did make my brother a shave horse for his birthday but this was made using planed timber to be used in his workshop, in a kind of "saw horse" style. I wanted one I could leave outside with just a sheet over it in winter as I haven't got the space in my workshop. Mike Abbott's one uses 4x2 treated timber (something I normally have kicking round) and can be made in a couple of hours (the design is on his website www.living-wod.co.uk ), so Sunday night I thought I'd knock one together.

It's really simple to make and seems to work well (sorry that I'm in the picture!)-

I just need to renovate this old spoke shave I brought from a car boot sale (Isac Greeves) with woodworm in the handles and I can mess around with a bit of green woodworking (should be a bit different from what I do at work).

What has everyone else got as a shave horse or work holding device?

More door hanging and holding a bricklayers hand

Yesterday didn't really go as planned. I had a job to go hang one pair of 15 panel glazed doors, a 2'9" 15 panel glazed door and alter a boundary fence and install a gate. I thought it would take me just over half a day but in the end it took the whole day. Still it was no great shame as they were nice people, it just means the the lawn wont get mown this weekend!

The pair of doors were the trouble (they always are) as the one side of the lining was out so it took a bit of messing round to get it looking right, the other door went on no bother at all.

On my main job (Summerfield Park) I think we've nearly found all the problems and we can go full steam ahead with the rebuild (I need to with only a month left of the program). We have had problems this week though - I decided to take out a rotten wall plate to replace on the single storey extension and the wall under it was so weak I made the decision to knock it down and rebuild it. That roof is going to need a bit of work next week - I think I'm going to get the wall plate installed a little lower as I need to extend the rafters and currently they don't have any birds mouths (more on this another time).

The bricklayers on this job have been driving me crazy - one because he doesn't turn up and the other because I have to hold his hand (not literary). Every job I have to tell him where to put the props and what order to take things out and install them (none of it is straight forward but he's got 40 years experience)- I might as well have had the trowel in my hand! He even had the nerve to tell me he wasn't paid enough to think! So I had the awkward job of getting rid of him Friday for someone new to come on Monday (all agency labour).

Who'd want to be foreman!?!

A Place for Everything

And Everything in its Place.

That was one of the first things I was taught when I started to learn my trade. Andy (the guy that took me under his wing) said this to me as I used to run back and forth to the van to get bits and pieces. Everything had to go back in the same place, even down to the bit of rope he used for the roof rack had to be looped up a certain way. I can still remember now where everything used to go in his Escort van, 10 years later. We used to fit so much stuff in that little Escort and as the years went on it got more and more as I got tools of my own.

I have to admit that this has stood me in good stead and its how I treat my van and tools now, everything has its place, this makes it faster when I want something and it means I know when things are missing. I do get stick on site for being so fussy, and not lending tools very freely (Lend nothing, borrow nothing being a moral of mine).

The trouble is little things annoy me, like my grinder living in a cardboard box. I've been using the grinder on site a lot lately and its cardboard box (which it's lived in happily in for 6 years) has fallen apart.

To make sure I can get the maximum lifespan out of this tool it needs some protection during transport (I hate to see power tools chucked loose in the back of a van) so I spent a few hours today knocking up a ply box to keep the grinder and a selection of discs in, all from off cuts (even the piano hinge was from a cupboard door I took off a few weeks ago). Not a pretty box but it will serve its purpose and it will have it's "place" in the van.

Texturing and a Herb Planter

First lesson of a new term at wood turning last night. I had mentioned to Chris (my tutor) that I wanted to do a textured finish on a little bowl I had made, so he brought in the tools to allow me to do this. After a quick demo I decided I was best to try it out on a scrap piece of wood first(some horrible Sapele).

The texturing was quite light and you couldn't really see it, that was until we got the blow torch out! Burning the area I had run the tool over really changed it, with a quick tidy up around the chard zone it really stood out. I'll have to try this on a proper project sometime soon I've seen some peoples work done like this and I always think its stunning.

Today I decided that as the rest of the country were having the day off I would as to (well I spent it working in the workshop!). One project I've been putting off is a herb planter I promised to make my sisters boyfriend who made some excellent logos for me last year. I'd put it off because I wasn't sure how to joint it for the hexagonal planter he wanted, but last weekend I brought the solution at a car boot sale - a biscuit jointer (another tool to the collection)!

I used an Iroko decking board, cutting all the side peices to 30 degrees before plunging the biscuit jointer in and then clamping it up with a couple of ratchet straps. The base was made from marine ply with holes drilled for drainage.

Planted up with Oregano, Sage and Mint it looks quite nice (I hope he likes it as I'd like a logo for my carpentry business!).

Why vent a suspended timber floor?

I just thought I'd share this with you,

Whilst on the Summer Field park job the other day, part of the program of work is to rip out an old suspended floor which seemed a little springy under the vinyl floor.

When we started I couldn't believe we'd been walking on it for so long, it was completely rotten. Every step we took we put our foot through, and you could squeeze the water out of the flooring. But it hadn't even rained in over a month so what caused it?

Well many years ago they had tarmaced round the outside of the property, covering the air bricks. At around the same time they concreted some (not all) of the floors inside. What this did was to completely cut off the air flow that is essential for a suspended timber ground floor to breath. This caused wet rot to set in as the moisture from the ground is trapped in there - there were no damp membranes in those days - The sweating timber soon reaches and maintains the plus 20 - 25% moisture content needed for a good attack of wet rot

To fix the problem I was told to install 4 air bricks and reinstall the timber floor. But I have refused as the room is a corner of the house, so complete through flow of air would no longer be possible. I've put my foot down (through the floor) so now its going to be concrete.

This is the second floor in this house like this, I think we're lucky to only be dealing with wet rot!

Cupboard doors and wardrobes

Trying to juggle my own work whist being foreman on the Summerfield Park job can be tricky. The bank holiday has let me fit in a job that came up a couple of weeks ago whilst not missing any time on my other job.

The first part was to ease all the doors in the house as they'd just had carpets fitted, I did this in a morning (before going to a wedding much to my wife's annoyance) and then came back yesterday and today to do a couple more jobs.

The first was to alter the cupboard under the stairs. The door the house builder had put on was tiny making the space unusable so the plan was to cut a bigger opening and fit a new door. This was a much more awkward job than you'd give credit to! Still it looked good when it was done and it's the first time in years I've had to bisect angles (glad I still remember how!).

The next job was to make use of a small alcove in the second bedroom and turn it into a wardrobe full of shelves for storage.

[Before]

[After]

The trouble with a new house is there is never anything to fix to, this makes putting shelves up difficult, not only that but you have to be extra carefully removing skirting - my new Multimaster earned its keep over the last few days! All they need to do is give it all a good coat of paint (I've filled all the nail holes and caulked up the edges for them) with no damage done to anywhere else.

The customers seem happy, they've already asked me to come back for more work and they gave me a bottle of wine as a tip!

Tool Addiction

They say the first part of getting over a problem is admitting you have a problem.

I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't drink much, but I do have a problem - I'm addicted to buying tools and whats worse is I love it.

I've got a job this weekend of putting in some wardrobes and altering doorways on a brand new house, I didn't want to damage any walls whilst doing the work so I decided that the best course of action would be to buy a tool I've been hankering after for quite a while - a Fein Multimaster. I used one on a job before Christmas to cut through some oak paneling which otherwise would have been impossible to keep in one piece and it was an excellent tool for this specialist work. So for cutting through skirting and architrave without wrecking the wall behind it should be perfect and the job should pay for it (well that's what I'm telling the wife!).

Joking aside this tool should soon pay for itself on any repair work I have to do when I give a price and it doubles as a great little detail sander.

My other purchase today was a Record No 8 jointing plane without a cap iron or blade. It's in lovely condition and for £20 I couldn't say no. It's not a plane I'll use very often in my line of work but for workshop projects, shooting boards it should be great. I'll wait a while to get the bits that are missing and see if I can pick them up second hand, it'll go nicely with my grandfathers old No 7 try plane (anyone ever use a No 6?).

Alder Burr

We've had a busy weekend with far too many hours spent in a car drving "Up North" and back, so it was nice tonight to spend a couple of hours in the workshop.

I decided to finish the shallow bowl I'd started last week. This was a blank of wood from an Alder tree from my fathers farm, spotting the burr as my brother was chopping it up I asked him to put a few bits to one side for me. I dried them in my old workshop and once turned with a coat of walnut oil they seem to have come up quite nice. Worth the wait to dry the timber (not the best photos in the world sorry)!

An Oak Bathroom

A job from last year

This is going to be a picture heavy Post!

Last year I was just going self employed again and I didn't have much work, so my mother decided it was time to have her dream bathroom. My sister and I have both left home and my brother works away a lot so Mum decided to loose a bedroom to give the large farm house the decent sized bathroom it needed.

The room before I attacked it!

The trouble was the room chosen had only small oak joist going into a chamber beam and to make matters worse the floor was 5 and a half inches out of level from one side to the other. Add to this that mum wanted an Olympic sized bath and an oak floor, the only option was to raise the floor level with a suspended floor.

No easy task, but one I enjoyed. The step in the entrance was an extra problem but it just took a bit of extra trimming round. We then got the bath and shower in it and the plumber in to do his pipe work, It was then time to lay the oak floor boards. It had been a while since I had done an oak floor but it didn't take long to get into the swing of it, I was proud of the results, all secrete nailed and tight joints.

I also created a stand for the basin out of 3x3 oak using foxed mortise and tenon construction, my little mortisier got quite hot but managed with only a bit of tidying up with a chisel. The bath boxing on the other hand was not as fun, it was huge as mum wanted a shelf created all the way round to be tiled. I spent a couple of hot afternoons on my hands and knees wedged under the bath, cursing!

Mortises for the basin stand

[Basin stand being clamped up]

A friend then tiled the walls, he took his time but made a really good job of it.

To finish I stained the floor a medium oak colour to go with the feel of the rest of the house and then gave it two coats of oil to seal it, the basin stand was given a different shade of stain to make it stand out.

Picture showing the step and basin stand (the mitre was cut by hand)Bath with tiled boxing around

Shower area

The best compliment so far was someone couldn't believe it wasn't the original floor! Mum was really pleased and its always nice to be able to go back and enjoy your work (spa bath please!).

A Trip To Yandles

My little brother and I went down to Devon yesterday to visit the woodworking show at Yandles. We both had a really good day, although the tools were more aimed at the type of woodwork I do rather than the green woodwork my brother is into.

That said brother brought a gorgeous hand made travisher (I've no doubt it will be on his blog soon - David Alviti Rustic Creations), where as I brought some High Speed Steel to make some turning tools, ferrules for making new handles, a pair of folding trestles to go in the van, a small microplane so I can try barley twists at some point and a selection of turning blanks so I can practice making some more bowls.

There was a lot of people demonstrating, and it was interesting talking to different people, one that really interested me was a man hewing oak in the traditional way with an axe. I was impressed by how flat, straight and square he managed to get it, although it didn't look like easy work in yesterdays heat!

Back in my workshop I've just started to make a platter/shallow bowl out of a piece of alder burr I've had kicking round for years and considering how many knots are in it it seems to be turning quite easy at the moment. Now the evenings are getting lighter I need to spend more time down the shed, but sometimes its the last thing you want to do when you've been on site all day!

Adventures of a Bacon Curer

This is not a woodworking post but I read these books and fell in love with them. I read them both too fast (my wife is always moaning about my consumption of books!) and although technically not brilliantly written (more how you'd say it rather than write it) they are just lovely to read.

These books are about Maynard Davis, a man love who loves his trade and the right way of doing things. They are basically memoirs of his career and follow him from starting as an apprentice all the way to retirement. He is known as the last apprenticed bacon curer and he doesn't want his trade to die with him.

The book is made up of lots of little snippets of his life, all the stories are interesting, some funny others moving. I really felt an affinity with Maynard and I'm sure anyone who has studied (and loved) a trade will as well, although it does make me long to be a part of the past I know I never can be!

A Tale Of Two Hammers

Anyone who knows me knows I love my tools, almost to the point of obsession (I think its actually well past this point but never mind) but there has been a chink in my armour. When I first started on a building site I was told I could do a couple of little jobs if I brought in a hammer and a tape measure so I went off to a hardware shop and brought them (and so began my apprenticeship...), the hammer was a Stanley Steel Master and the foreman I was working with said it was the one he used. I was proud of my purchase and I even managed to ignore all the "advice" on how to break it in (cruel tricks to play on a youngster). Ever since then though I've had to justify my choice of hammer on site as it isn't an Estwing like every other carpenter uses. I've been told horror stories of the heads flying off Steel Masters as they're not one piece construction and doing serious damage on their way back down to earth.

(old Steel Master head, well used and looked after)

My Mate Dan, who I sometimes work with, was the worst (or is that best) at taking the piss. "Why don't you get yourself a real hammer?" He'd quip. "When you can do with yours what I can do with mine, then you can comment." Was my normal reply, or something a little ruder perhaps, but all in jest. But for all his piss taking I was taken aback when he came over this weekend for my birthday and said he'd got me a present - out of his bag he pulls a new Estwing hammer. I was very touched and not sure what to say. "It was getting embarrassing working with a man who got his hammer out of a cracker, so I thought I'd get you a real one" A lovely present I thought, and one I will use for many years to come. I've enjoyed nine years with my Stanley Steel Master hammer but now its time to retire it to the workshop and break in a new one, I'd love to know how many nails my old one has knocked in (and bent over!). I did text Dan Monday morning to say thanks again for the present and how my hammer had already done more work that morning than the total his had done!