Bogged Down and Slow Going

Yep, I took 2 weeks off to dedicate to emptying out the old shed and what happens? It rains.

I supposed I'd whinge at anything - it was way too hot and humid (and rainy) over the Christmas break (and too many family things to do) and now it's raining. Oh well, you get that on a big job, they say. Who is this "they" anyway?

OK, so I obviously did go to my train club on Saturdays and Wednesdays over my two weeks of holidays and besides working on the club exhibition N scale layout, spent yesterday playing with a new application for my iphone - two apps in fact.

(1) And the Oscar Goes To.

The other day I was reading the IT news section, yes it was about IT stuff as I don’t read the gossip rags, and I came across this - Oscar Award for Best Documentary goes to Searching for Sugar Man film shot on Apple iPhone.

I was intrigued. So I went out and got me this little ‘ol 8mm Vintage Camera application for my iPhone. So on Wednesday I decided to have some fun rather than working on the layout all the time as I seem to do. So I played with my trains yesterday and took a range of videos. Here are some videos I took using said application on my iPhone which makes everything look like it was done on an old 8mm camera and done years ago.

Old Fashioned View of RMCQ Layout for 2013:
http://youtu.be/cUEQx6CIiPo

Burlington Northern Passenger Service from Way Back - Parts 1 to 3:
http://youtu.be/CIJPVU7L4A4
http://youtu.be/25b2F3xQ014
http://youtu.be/VfXjQt6IAJM

The old Burlington Northern Passenger Train + The Circus Train:
http://youtu.be/WzXXkQXkgHg

Circus Train Comes to Town:
http://youtu.be/d7n8jy_N_xE

5 'ol Diesel Trains:
http://youtu.be/sNmqkBrP6Rw

Containers and Boxes from On High:
http://youtu.be/4ygW7AD_UUU

(2) I Take Up Art.

While on the subject of technology for phones, here is the result of another application I found for my iPhone called Paper Camera. Who said it was hard to be an artist?

Welcome to my old shed, hopefully soon to be demolished. I have more rec leave coming up in a month - two more weeks. Maybe I can get what I need done then. But at least today I did open the old girl up and completely fill my rubbish bin from empty to overflowing - I hope the rubbish truck can lift it tomorrow morning!

And here are a couple of shots from inside the old shed. I reckon this app it very artistic - there are other settings, but this drawing flavour seems more to my liking. Oh, and the lead photo up top is from this same app - call me Van Gogh perhaps?

Start the New Year off Right

The Christmas and New Year break tends to be quite hectic with family and stuff, but in amongst it all, I managed to get almost 2 days of work done towards getting me eventually into my new train shed.

The first order of the day was to clean up the lounge room a bit. So off to Office Works for a pile more of the 10 litre storage boxes - I've standardised on the StarMaid brand's Storemate style, as the plastic seems to be nice and pliable and so far in over 5 years or more, none have cracked up on me.

Here is shelving that used to contain all sorts of cardboard boxes and loose items, all now nice and tidy.

Next I hit the garage for a bit of a clean-up and chuck out of non-wanted items. This led to me actually putting a small 2½ cc internal combustion engine I found I still had from my hobbies of over 30 years ago on eBay - now I am a Seller! At least by the end of the day I was able to sweep the garage out and then turn the hose on it and make it dust free - for at least a short time until the car came in again.

A shot of some shelving up on high with a pile of train stuff boxed up and out of the way. 

Probably half of the stuff in boxes out in the garage are empty boxes for wagons. I tend to keep them on the off-chance I might one day sell a wagon - then I'll have the box it came in. The wagons actually live indoors in a pile of foam lines standard draws the club sells the makings for. This gives a standard easy way to lug them around to and from the club and shows. Here are the trays I keep the wagons in:

And the larger box that protects the trays and allows me to lug them around to shows:

Anyway, here is more storage above head height. The rafters make it easy to bolt hanging bars and then shelves to them. It was a good idea they had when they lifted my house all those years ago to give plenty of headroom downstairs. Sure allows me some extra storage space.

What the heck, here is another shot of storage boxes on shelves. Here you can sort of make out the length of the garage as well:

Finally - nice and clean and no railway items to bee seen down low:

Here is car in at the end of the first day - you can make out the shelves on the left are pretty empty, as all railway related items are in storage boxes.

The next day started with a trip out to Bunnings and the purchase of 2 shelving racks from the Handy Storage range.  I picked the 5 shelf version which is 1830mm H x 910mm W x 400mm D. These are neat in that they are all keyhole construction and hence only a rubber mallet is required to put it together. I also purchased a draw for each rack as well. Now all my tools and nuts, bolts, nails and stuff will have a new home.

I forgot to take a photo before the car came back in, but you can see the shelves in this shot and I even moved some of the tools into their new homes.

Some of the nuts, bolts and nails have made it onto their new shelves too. Many more to go - but at least I got it started over the break:

At the back to the left of the new shelves, will be another set of shelves from the old shed, to store a pile more kits from the old shed.

You can see that once I get more shelves and ladders up against the left wall, that the car will have to go live outside for a while. The plan is for a carport one day within the next 2 years.

So that's it from the break, but at least I've gotten into it and can hopefully keep up some momentum and get all the keepable items out of the old shed and into the garage really soon. Then the demolition team can be called to come in.  See you next time.

Another Prerequisite Done

A Prerequisite

I almost get a step closer every weekend. This weekend I got a clear day on Sunday, so was able to go chase down all the bits I needed to mount up a cloths line.

I'd purchased an Aussi made one the other week - an Austral pull out type - 5 lines over 8 metres. This would fit nicely between the old shed and the house for the time being until the old shed goes. At least it will allow us to do some washing since the old hills hoist is now just a pile of piping and wire in the back yard, having to be dismantled to make way for the more important train shed.

So during the week I'd knocked off work a few hours early and headed down to Bunnings to grab some Dyna blots and some galvanised coach screws. I also needed a slab of 35 mm thick hardwood and couldn't find any at home. But as I was backing the car out of the garage, there was a nice sized plank sitting under the car - nice find and cost savings.

The slab of timber was to go on the old shed to spread the load of the cloths line but also to give me somewhere to bolt the thing to (blue bit on the shed in the picture), as the front of the shed had no timbers in the right places. So anyway, to cut a long story short, I mucked around all morning (I expect the 3-4 coffees and reading the paper in between might have made it take a lot longer) and got the cloths line up. So I was able to get a load of the unmentionables done on on the line to dry in our nice hot weather with a nice breeze to boot.

What's Yet to be Done

I thought I'd show some of the mess I need to play musical chairs with before I can get into the new train shed and start setting it up. Silly me tied the council approval for the new shed to the demolition of the old shed so as to save on costs for the certifications. So until the old one goes, I can't get sign-off by council and therefore can't even get any sparky work done or insulation or lining done in the new shed. So I have to do the following before getting in the certifier:

1) Move car out of garage onto the driveway - that can be its new home until I get a carport late next year.

2) Clean out the garage and put up relevant shelving, benching and storage brackets.

3) Move all the stuff I want to keep from the old shed to the garage.

4) Get a hold of a sparky to disconnect the old shed from the mains power board.

5) Get a hold of a plumber to cap off the water that goes to the old shed and to also cap the drain that the old wash tubs empty into.

6) Arrange a demolition crew and get them in to flatten and remove the old shed and remove all the junk in there as well. They are to leave nothing but the soil it was standing on. What was the old Dean Brothers motto "All we leave behind are the memories..."

Only then can I get the certifier out to get my sign-off so I can then start fitting out the train shed.

Here is the washtub room in the old shed. The shelving can be moved into the garage and resume its normal function. Half the gear in it though, will need to go - I honestly don't need a pile of it as it has gone off if it was glue or rusted up etc. There is also a pallet of ceramic tiles there to get rid of as well. I think they cost me about a half dozen cartons of beer about 20 something years ago! The washtubs are busted and chipped and not worth keeping either - would have liked to keep them, but they aren't really re-usable.

Here is the main part of the shed with a pile of stuff in it. I'll keep the old circular saw bench which is up behind the cement mixer and also keep the cement mixer (don't know why, but a bloke has to have a cement mixer in his shed!) In fact most items in this section will be kept.

Now here is a shot of the garage where all the above needs to go into. The garage of course has a roller door. But the back of it also has a roller door. I think I might have to get it working again as it hasn't been used for 10 years and is pretty much seized up - or maybe I should remove it and put in a door...

Anyway, that's what I need to do before I can use my train shed.

After all this, then I can get to the OTHER stuff - like the pergola, a carport, driveway etc etc.

For you Doubting Thomas's

And to all you blokes out there who whinged and whined that the downpipes weren't in and said it would take ages for me to put the pipes in... The downpipes are now in. Big effort too!

Actually I think doing the photos and the blog itself took longer than the actual work of putting in the downpipes! The job was to connect this gutter outlet:-

 to this pipe sticking out of the ground  - twice, as there are two downpipes needed.

It turned out I didn't have any spare pipe, so would have to get some when I went to get the fittings. So this morning it was off to Bunnings to get my supplies, but all they had was the 100mm downpipe itself - no fittings - so no purchases were made.

So it was then off to the Home hardware over near my train club and they too didn't have the fittings. So back home I go empty handed. Onto the ol' pooter and Google to find my next local hardware store, which turned out to be a Mitre 10 which is down at Sandgate. Yep, they'd be open on a Sunday morning, so into the car again I go.

Into this nice big 'ol hardware store goes I and yep, they have a lot more fittings to look at in the sizes I am after. So I found the 100 mm straight sleeve joiners, so 2 go into my hand for purchasing. 

Now to find the rectangular to circular adapters to go from the gutter outlet to the downpipe - but I can't find the right size! Over comes a very helpful bloke from the counter and lo and behold, next shelf up were the relevant type of fittings I was after. They had the correct size rectangular bit, but didn't do it for a 100 mm pipe, only for the much , much more common 90 mm pipe.  Why is it that I always end up with non-standard stuff around my place - arrrrgggggggggghhh.

So I figure I have three options. [1] Bugger off home and call a plumber to do the whole job (expensive) [2] Nick off home and do more research of places to go buy plumbing bits, which would entail doing the driving around during the week most likely [3] Get the 90 mm adapter that is in stock and make it work.

What the heck, I grabbed two of the rectangular to 90 mm circular adapters and headed to the counter. 

Got a 6 metre length of 100 mm pipe as well. They kindly cut it in half for me too. I had to fold the seats down to get the pipe into the trusty old Camry and driving was interesting with only half an inch from the pipe to the gear stick - the pipes being over the top of the gear stick. Must also go buy a new ocky strap as all mine are buggered and none in the car. Luckily an old shirt sufficed to tie down the boot lid for the 4.4 km trip home (so said Google maps).

Got it all home and went to work on it. Measured the length needed from gutter to pipe sticking out of ground and cut my pipe knowing it would be a fraction too long, requiring a small cut to make it right. I found the slide on joiner sleeve made for a great cutting guide too. I'd slide it to the measured mark and then put the hand saw blade up against it and by keeping the blade against it I'd get a square cut for once in my life!

Now since the adapter was for a 90 mm pipe and not the 100 mm pipe I had, I figured I'd just sit it loose in the top of the 100 mm downpipe and make the pipe a neat fit against the piece sticking out of the ground, and then slide the joiner into place. I'm a genius - it worked! 

The pipe stayed in place and the little bit of slop of the 90 mm into 100 mm hole can, if I ever want, be sealed up with silicone sealer - but I doubt it is needed since it is at the top of the pipe and water can't get out anyway.

So the job is done. But you purists are saying "where is the PVC glue?" well I tell you - I figure I don't need any. The slide on joiner is nice and tight and is not likely to slide off. Heck, if it ever looks glue is needed, I can easily go pull the downpipe down and add some glue.

Here are the shots of BOTH downpipes so you can't say I only did one of them!

As usual the chooks were out and about looking to see what the heck I was up to and getting in the bloody way as usual...  Till next time, happy trains.

Business with a Capital B

06:00 Wednesday morning, the alarm went off and I was out of bed like a rocket. Into and out of the shower like a flash (not sure if the water even had a chance to touch me). Cuppa making gadget was then turned on, as was the pooter and the camera found and readied for action for the day. The usual handful of magic pills, supposedly will keep me alive until I'm 113, was thrown down the gullet and washed down with some nice cold OJ. A cuppa was then made - geez those Aldi thingies are great for making the wet black stuff - sooo easy now. 

7:30 on the dot the head Shed Technician arrived, as he had arranged, and got straight into setting himself up with all his tools and bibs and bobs for the day. 

He double checked with the client, that would be me, of where the plumbing, door and window were to go, just to make sure of it all. So I let him be for a while and went back in to my pooter and coffee.

7:50 the second Shed Tech arrived and got straight into it. After talking with the guys a bit, it turns out they are busy as and are putting up sheds every day - no shortage of work they say. They didn't even blink when I said the shed was for model trains - they apparently do a lot of them.

First order of the day was for the wall sections to all be unpacked and stood up loosely around the area close to their final locations. 

While this was happening the other bloke was getting the roof trusses ready. No mucking around here - these blokes meant Business - with a capital B.

I spent the whole day out there watching the guys and taking thousands of photos - you just gotta love these digital cameras. With these photos I have made up some time lapse videos of the shed being built too. If I had a timer for the camera I could have just set it up and walked away and gotten my shots, but I don't so ended up hand holding the camera, so the videos when made up are ever so slightly shaky. But I digress. So the guys are now making the walls.

For the guys to make a wall, they got a number of prebuilt wall sections and bolted them together.

Then they got the colorbond sheeting and screwed that to the wall and then trim any excess off with this electric nibble they had. The blokes had a pile of battery powered tools all setup with the relevant bit already in the tool. This made it so much faster working than spending time removing this drill bit and putting in that driver etc.

For the two long walls, there was also the guttering to put on. It makes it easier to do it all while the wall is laying on the ground. So they screw on the holders then cut and fit the guttering to them.

While this is happening, one of the blokes would be drilling some holes in the concrete slab where the wall would go and place a few bolts loosely in the holes after laying down the plastic water barrier that keeps the steel walls away from direct contact with the concrete.

Why were the bolts only part way in you ask - this is so they could place the bottom of the wall against the bolts sticking up, to stop it sliding off the slab as they stood the wall section up. Once the wall was sort of standing, they lift the wall up and onto the bolt.

Once this was done, they would raise the wall and then move it into place and bolt it down with these fun looking bolts.

The actual hole in the wall the bolt goes through is quite oversized and this is to allow easy adjustment of the walls once stood up. In fact, the bolts were already loosely in the slab and the wall stood up and placed over the bolts - that's how much bigger the hole in the wall is. Hence the need for the steel plates as well as the normal washers. Here is a close up of the bolts, washer, plate, plastic mat and wall section once bolted down to the slab.

So there were four walls, so here they are being stood up in order.

So all the major wall sections were up, leaving just the section that contains the sliding glass door to be done. So the prebuilt wall frame was lifted into place and bolted down without the cladding this time. This is to allow the door to be properly fitted and cladding to line up properly with it.

After the frame went in, they built the door frame and screwed it into position, thereby allowing the remaining cladding to be screwed on as well.

Now it was time to put the glass panels and door into the frame and we now have a door.

The roof trusses were also being installed and all the cross supports for the roof. There was also the usual strapping to keep it all square.

Leaf guard foam type material was also installed int all the gutters. This will help keep them cleaner and not to clog up.

Next on top was the mesh that will hold the insulation blankets up. This was measured up and rolled out over the top of the trusses and supports and then tied down.

Here we see the insulation blanket being measured up and cut to length.

Now it was up, up and away with the roof. The insulation was thrown up and the guy on the roof would roll it out then place the roofing iron over the top and put in a few screws to hold it all in place.

While he was doing some, the offsider was on the ground and getting the next lot of roofing iron ready. One end of each sheet got the channels bent. This would be the end up at the pointy end of the roof and will stop rain from being blown up and over the end of the sheet.

So they repeated these steps until the roof was laid down.

Next up was the ridge capping on top of the roof - the pointy bit. 

While the ridge capping was going on, the offsider was up and adding all the other screws to each sheet of roofing iron. He would mark out where and then go for it with his trusty battery drill/driver and screw in a pile of screws in between where the first guy had held down the sheets earlier. There are a heck of a lot of screws in a shed - a heck of a lot. 

You can see him with his blue line marking down the line the screws must be on. To his left you can see how many screws need to be applied and just in front of him how many were used just to tack the sheets in place originally.

While this is going on, the other bloke has finished screwing down the ridge capping and has started to cut the wavy shape on the capping so it will sit down into the corrugated roofing channels. He had a battery powered pair of tin snips and had the hand movement down pat - looked so easy when he did it - me, I would have easily ballsed it up.

Final item was to screw on the end caps.

11:15 am on the Thursday, hands were shaken and the boys were off after a job well done. And there you have it - one completed brand new Titan shed ready for me to start to outfit and make into my train room.

Since you've made it all the way to the end, here are some time lapse videos of the shed built:

http://youtu.be/q_ewnjrHGUY

http://youtu.be/FN106RyicYg

http://youtu.be/vnXEo0s3iBU

http://youtu.be/vO3peOG88y0

http://youtu.be/j9WvHI8dokw

I now have The Shed. I can also now say "off to the bat cave!" See you next time.