Sycamore Bowl

At the weekend I made a sycamore bowl from a blank I brought at Yandles a while back. Its the first time I've worked with this wood and it turns really nicely and takes a good finish.

As for work I've been having problems on Summerfield Park. Last Thursday night we got broken into (through the roof) and someone took about half the copper pipework that had been installed. I then spent Friday boarding it up and trying to make it secure, over the weekend they made another hole in the roof and had the rest of the copper away. This cost the firm I'm working for money and delays the project even further.

Then to top it all off my computer got a virus and I had to completely wipe and reinstall everything (not how I like spending my time!).

Still the sun was shinning today and who knows what the rest of the week will bring.

Bit of Roof Work from a few years ago

I was looking through some old photos the other day and I came across a roof that Andy and me did back in 2005/2006. This was a lovely old barn that we were there to convert and we saw it through from start to finish, in fact this was a barn i used to play in as a kid as it's only a few miles from where I grew up. Andy still works for the firm who we did this through, they were a great little firm to work for.
When we started this roof I was a bit more daunted than Andy (or he didn't let it show) as the one side had a massive run where three full lengths of timber had to be used for the rafters, being birds mouthed onto purlins and the angle of the one side of the roof made things even more complicated. As well as this when we got there we had to brush the snow off the scaffold! I remember being dogged by bad weather and hiding under blue sheets out of the rain, the yard in front of the barn had a puddle that was over a foot deep! When we got the rafters on it was a great feeling, made slightly worse by the fact that we had to then felt, batten and tile the whole thing.
The tiling started in the new year and here I learnt a valuable lesson about work. We were tiling in the snow, wrapped up against the elements, and I started to feel bad, so bad in fact I had to go home early and take the next day off (My first ever day off ill). I then felt slightly better and went back to work, I made myself so much worse because I wasn't ready to go back - in the end I nearly gave myself pneumonia and had to have x-rays with fluid on the lungs! Three weeks off in total, for a self employed man this is never good.
Still I bounced back and came back in time to do the larch cladding and the work on the inside with Andy.I loved doing this barn conversion (wish I had more pictures!).
Good times

Renovating a Roof

The last few days at work I've been renovating an old roof. In the end I think it would have been easier to have taken it completely off and start again but never mind. At least we didn't have to alter the purlins by doing it this way (although some of the rafters had to be packed to catch the purlins).
On one side of the roof I replaced every rafter due to rot and woodworm whereas on the second side I just extended each one down so it will cover the future external insulation as these were all sound. Where the rafters were replaced everyone had to be cut to a different length due to the building being out of square, this made it a bit of a slower job, but its only a small roof!
I decided that although the specifications said to insulate between the rafters and on top I made it a "warm roof" and insulated only on top, this keeps the air flow between the rafters but used a more expensive insulation to meet regulations - the building inspector was happy with this solution.

The roof insulated and counter battened, ready now for felt, batten and tiling.

To the Grind Stone

Last Thursday I committed a sin.

I lent my labourer a chisel (I'm sure you can see where this is going...)

It came back lighter than it went out. Still a little time on the grinder and its as good as new (a little shorter maybe, but as good as new), this is why carpenters don't lend tools (I know he didn't mean to do it though)

At woodturning I have been grinding some HSS bar that I brought at Yandles to make some new woodturning tools. The first of these tools is a three point tool, it seems a good tool to work with (when I've borrowed Chris's) with loads of uses and good for fine detail, as well as forming beads on bowls.

The raw materials used (Beech blank is a bit big but its all I had)

I made the handle out of beech and fitted a brass ferrule onto it. The steel took a long time to grind but it was quite easy to do as I used a triangle piece of MDF as a jig, this was to make sure all three sides were even so they met in the middle.

I'm quite please with it and I know I'll enjoy using it.

Anyone else been making their own tools lately?

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!).