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Mike's ext'n & renovation (sunroom stone floor & plinth)

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (centre oak post cap)

Postby Phil » 09 May 2021, 07:39

Can only repeat what I have said before "such excellent thorough work" 8-)
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (centre oak post cap)

Postby Cabinetman » 09 May 2021, 14:41

Mike G wrote:You may have your decimal point in the wrong place, Ian. 1% of 2000 is 20mm, so 0.1% is 2mm.

Your use of the word "may" was very kind of you, definitely Numptyness!
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby Mike G » 12 May 2021, 19:39

The final piece of oak was delivered a couple of days ago. 6.2m x 200 x 200. 240ish kg depending on how wet it is:

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I knew there was a reason I'd hung on to this old Contiboard:

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Pouring the concrete went horribly wrong. I did it four times. I just couldn't get the mould to stay still. There are no photos because with a horrendously strong mix (1:3 white cement to ballast), a warm day, and thunderstorms all around, there were rising levels of panic. Once I finally got it poured properly, I covered it with an old compost bin to keep the thunderstorms off:

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It came out pretty well, but not perfect:

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I'd had to be much more cautious tamping the concrete in the mould, because of the movement issues. Unfortunately, this led to some voids. It's not a big deal. Remember, it is this which is taking the load:

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I poured the concrete around that, without any further preparation.

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Now, the quiz question. Why is this staddle stone (I'm not even sure if this is actually a staddle) the shape it is? This is its traditional location (under a post in a cart lodge, but it's also found in carriage gateways in coaching inns), and its traditional shape. I hadn't given it a second thought, assuming it had evolved from rendered brickwork repairs, but an old boy stopped by a day or two back and told me precisely why they were this shape.

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I finished the joinery work on the left hand post:

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I get one chance with the dovetail. It fits or it doesn't. There is no trial fit. So I made a ply template:

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I can never get a great photo of draw-bore holes. This was the best I could do:

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Looking around for somewhere to store the completed left hand post, it dawned on me that I could actually just stand it up in place. So I did. That post is heavy. Damned heavy, so I did lots of counterbalancing, and propping, and thinking, but in the end it dropped nicely into place first time:

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I remember an animated discussion at UKW about winding sticks. I know they can be bought for £50+ from various boutique sellers, complete with inlays, beveled edges contrasting timber, blah blah blah...... Here are mine for all this oak work:

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A couple of off-cuts of 4x2.

On to the final capital:

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby Malc2098 » 12 May 2021, 20:06

I was told it was to raise the grain stores above ground level and when the rats got to the top of the saddle/staddle stone, they couldn't climb over the overhang.

Well it sounded reasonable to me. :D
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby Mike G » 12 May 2021, 20:10

Yeah, that's the mushroom shaped ones for granaries etc, and that's absolutely dead right. These truncated pyramid ones, though, were in a different location, and served a different purpose.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby Malc2098 » 12 May 2021, 20:13

Mike G wrote:Yeah, that's the mushroom shaped ones for granaries etc, and that's absolutely dead right. These truncated pyramid ones, though, were in a different location, and served a different purpose.


Ah, you've got me there! I've got a similar pyramidal type holding up my deck roof.

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby AndyT » 12 May 2021, 20:16

Is it to do with avoiding damage by cartwheels? The spokes of a wooden wheel lean over at a similar angle.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby SamQ aka Ah! Q! » 12 May 2021, 20:35

Not so much the wheels, as the projecting hubs? The staddle stone wasn't high enough to come into contact and/or the sloping side enabled clearance, even if the rim grazed the bottom?

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby Mike G » 12 May 2021, 21:07

Yep, that's the story. They deflected the wheels away from the posts, apparently...presumably for the benefit of both the wheels and the post.

The same guy told me of travelling into Sudbury on his father's cart/ wagon, and stopping at the top of Ballingdon Hill to tie planks onto the cart wheels so the cart would slide down on skids rather than overtake the horses.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby AJB Temple » 12 May 2021, 21:45

I've heard that story too but not sure I believe it. Around Surrey and West Sussex there are lots of these on old cart sheds, some are straight and some sloped, but generally the slope is nowhere near enough to prevent the post being hit by a close passing wheel hub.

You did a very good job of that casting. Could the former not have been wedged in place with some heavy blocks? Or did you have nothing suitable to hand. Anyway, I like the fixing method and will bear that in mind in future. Certainly stops the post twisting.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (progress, & a quiz)

Postby Mike G » 12 May 2021, 21:50

AJB Temple wrote:I.....Could the former not have been wedged in place with some heavy blocks? Or did you have nothing suitable to hand.


Tamping the concrete moved the blocks. It also moved any stakes I put in the ground. In the end, I wedged some timber inside the hollow steel post, and screwed battens to it and to the formwork.

Anyway, I like the fixing method and will bear that in mind in future. Certainly stops the post twisting.


Yep, that's the plan. There is so much power in a piece of drying oak, and if it wants to twist you need something damned strong to resist it.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Mike G » 16 May 2021, 20:19

IN WHICH MIKE USES DOMINOES.........

We left things with me shaping oak pieces slowly by hand. Well, you've probably seen enough pictures of my chisel-and-plane work, so let's jump on a little. You might recall I already had one corner post up. Well, here is the other one:

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Note the orange line. I pulled this taut and took a mark from the centre post foot up to the string line, to give me the correct length for the centre post (which I'd already made, you'll recall). Here is the mark against the post:

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Phew!! There's nothing like endlessly measuring and re-measuring a critical dimension. I have literally lost sleep over this. What if the centre post is a few mm too long or short? I can't take this thing apart once the beam is in place. It has to be right first time. I had a cunning plan though, Baldrick, which I borrowed from one I.K Brunel. More of that later......

Next job was to clean up, cut to length, and do the joinery on the big main beam. This thing is so heavy that this was the only way of rolling it over to work on another face:

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Trial fit of the left hand capital:

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Now, you can see this is an unusual joint for oak framing, in that it is long-grain to long-grain. Other than cheat and turn a big coach bolt in from above, the only way I could think of retaining that joint through years of shrinkage and movement was to use a domino. Yes, yes, I know. You're all bored silly of me railing against these magic-joint-making-machines..... Well, sometimes you've just got to eat humble pie:

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:lol: :lol: :text-lol:

If this beam is in wind, this thing will never work. Back to my winding sticks:

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Note that they are on top of the capitals (upside-down, of course). These just have to sit properly on top of the posts. As I said, there is only once chance.

Having done all the joints, and the big chamfer off the top front edge, it was time to think about getting all the oak in to place. First up, I erected a scaffold tower either side of the beam:

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Now I could safely erect the centre post, because I could restrain it using the scaffold:

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Now. The cunning plan, borrowed from Brunel. Before putting the post up, I placed 2 layers of code 4 lead into place on top of the female part of the post foot:

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This gives me something to play with if the centrepost is too high. I will simply beat on the top of the post until everything sits at the right height, with the lead squished by as much or as little as required. Brunel used this a lot with big castings, placing pillows of lead on top before the beams, to that everything could be levelled off afterwards.

I popped the capitals on, and used a few undersized temporary pegs to keep things in place:

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Note the beam at the top of the scaffolds. That's a big lump of Douglas fir. I have a little hand winch, which I set up like this:

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I managed to raise the beam off the saw horses and onto the scaffold:

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That was the state of play when my help arrived at 8.30 this morning. I do all my big lifts with this chap, because he is sensible and cautious, and we can talk through every move. We carried on as I'd left off the previous evening, with the winch:

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Temporary staging at various intervals provides a safety net, in case anything should go wrong. But also, at this level, we are at the limit of the winch's lifting ability, simply because of its length, and the height wasting by the strapping. From now on up it was a question of rocking it up like a see-saw on a pair of fulcrums, and raising one of the fulcrums each time. We left the winch attached in case of a catastrophe:

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Finally, we got to height. That last 18 inches probably took us an hour and a half:

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Moving it across was easy. Lowering it accurately on to the joints was.......erm........interesting. But, in the end, it co-operated:

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I was thrilled with the centre joint:

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And that nightmare centre-post-length came to nothing. It was spot on:

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Down with the scaffold:

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That was 4 hours work, and I then spent a couple of hours just tidying up. It's not impossible that I then might have sneaked in for a siesta. :D

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I needed to rack the frame slightly to get everything vertical, so I set up a Spanish windlass:

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I made only a couple of pegs, as I had 2 or 3 left over from a previous job:

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Before whacking the pegs in, I screwed on some temporary braces to keep everything in place. I then set up a temporary workbench:

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......and built the floor:

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That's a fairly full day, and I need a bath.....
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Malc2098 » 16 May 2021, 20:38

Nice job.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Blackswanwood » 16 May 2021, 20:41

That’s an impressive shift Mike. You should feel thrilled by the centre joint - it looks magnificent.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Mike G » 16 May 2021, 21:04

Thanks Robert. Yes, that beam is about a quarter of a ton, so pleased to have it safely up in place.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby AJB Temple » 16 May 2021, 21:16

Very satisfactory. Looks oddly like a theatre set with the oak up and scaffold down.

Far too wet here for me to do anything apart from a final bit of blockwork and start work on my door frame. Perhaps I did more siesta than you 8-)
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Andyp » 17 May 2021, 06:25

Incredible. A pleasure to watch.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Dr.Al » 17 May 2021, 06:53

That's incredible. That central joint looks fantastic.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby MJ80 » 17 May 2021, 07:19

Looking great Mike
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Mike G » 17 May 2021, 07:46

Thanks guys. Look at the state of the concrete! That's tanin staining from oak shavings and sawdust which has got wet.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby AndyT » 17 May 2021, 07:52

I can only agree with the earlier comments - beautiful work at a really impressive rate.
I reckon that if you lived nearer to Washington state, Leo could be out sailing Tally Ho by now!
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby DaveL » 17 May 2021, 08:05

I am just a bit worried it's going to be half a crown to cycle by.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby Mike G » 17 May 2021, 08:07

AndyT wrote:.....I reckon that if you lived nearer to Washington state, Leo could be out sailing Tally Ho by now!


Related to that......In news that is to be shared with my wife on pain of a slow and agonising death, I am mentally calling this my boat shed, rather than a garage. I have a small boat build in mind in 2 or 3 years, when everything around here is finished.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby TrimTheKing » 17 May 2021, 08:24

Mike G wrote:Thanks guys. Look at the state of the concrete! That's tanin staining from oak shavings and sawdust which has got wet.


Is that there for good now or is there anything you can remove/improve it with down the line?
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (oak complete, roof starte

Postby TrimTheKing » 17 May 2021, 08:24

Mike G wrote:Thanks guys. Look at the state of the concrete! That's tanin staining from oak shavings and sawdust which has got wet.


Is that there for good now or is there anything you can remove/improve it with down the line?
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