4 x 4 x 20 = 320

Bunnings got in my special order of R2.0 batts quicker than I thought they would. So I headed down with my trusty trailer this morning and collected my insulation before then heading on to the club for my Saturday fix of model railways.

It took two trips to take the insulation home - two packs each time. Here is the trailer half unloaded on one trip.

Inside each large pack are four smaller packs. Inside each of these four smaller packs are twenty batts (sounding like a Russian doll isn't it), each being R2.0 insulation and measuring 75mm x 600mm x 1200mm. The product is called Earthwool and is made by a mob called Knauf.

I piled the four large packs up outside the shed during the day and went to the club. After working on the HO scale layout all day at the club, I came home and took the packs out and into the shed. Now I have 16 packs of 20 batts sitting on the floor. The way the large packs exploded when I cut the packaging, shows what pressure they are under. The individual batts are under more pressure, as there are 20 of the blighters in each of the packs shown below. They reckon it is almost an explosion when they are cut open. I'll have to see if I can rig a video for that!

Next thing is to head off on another day and go buy some screws and then start the work I suppose. It will be a couple of weeks until I can get to work on it, as next weekend is the big train show out at Doomben.

Couple of Sheets to the Wind

Before I headed down to my local train club for my mid-week fix, the delivery bloke showed up with my plywood. 

These sheets I'll use to do my walls and ceiling. I purchased 30 sheets of 12 mm plywood to do the walls and another 30 sheets of 9 mm ply to do the ceiling with. All up I think I calculated it to be approximately 3/4 of a tonne the delivery bloke and I shifted to out back and into my shed.

The next item to come will be my R2.0 Earthwool insulation batts - but they'll be another week or so away. There will be enough to do all the walls and the ceiling.

Another bonus today was a call late this arvo from the certifier - my council approvals have come through for my double carport and patio. So by about mid May, the slabs will be down and the materials delivered - oooooooo, it's so exciting  :o)

What Else Would You Get for a Train Shed!

A Pullman of course!

Yup – went and bought a Pullman – vacuum cleaner that is. Got myself a 15 litre barrel type suction device for the shed, and a dustpan and broom.

Have also gotten a can of Sika Boom (expanding polyurethane foam) to seal the edges of the shed to keep those insects, geckos and grass out of the place. I'll squirt it in where the metal sheets meet the concrete. That should keep the intruders out - well, it'll help.

I have also gone and placed the big order – 60 sheets of plywood with Janden Wood Products who are just up around the corner from the RMCQ train club. He's always been good on price and to the club as well, so I have no problems in supporting him. Nope, the plywood is not for the layout yet, but for lining the walls. I’ll use 12mm for the walls and 9mm for the ceiling. This should be delivered next Wednesday in the morning. I have also today placed an order with Bunnings for a crap load of R2.0 Earthwool batts for insulating the walls and ceiling. Delivery should be about 10 days or so - Easter etc mucks delivery times up a bit.

The studs are all 75mm deep, so I got the R2.0 product as being the best rating for that space which is available. This insulation plus the 12mm plywood on the walls should be good at keeping the place snug in all weather.  The ceiling benefits from the roof already having insulation blanket material under the roofing itself. The new ceiling structure that is in place will also get a layer of R2.0 Earthwool as well. So add the 9mm ply to that and I think my shed should be pretty good for insulation. I think the aircon will not have to work too hard at all.

Oh, and the sparky has been and laid all the wiring into place in preparation of my lining the shed. Once I've done the lining, then he’ll come back and install all the lights, the air-conditioner and power points. I have decided to have a double GPO in the middle of each wall, with an extra one on the wall that will have my workbench against it. There will be 12 lighting fixtures. Each will be a twin 28 watt flouro tube with a diffuser – all nice slimline units. 

Above is something like the lighting I want. Nice and slim and less overhangs for the geckos to sit on.

So here is the door and the red rectangle shows where the 12 light switches will be placed. I think I'll do a 4 x 3 bank emulating the actual layout of lights on the ceiling. By have 12 light switches I can have on as few or as many lights exactly where I want/need them at the time. The shed of course will have its own separate power sub-board to the house, hanging from a big safety fuse/switch. This way I can power off the whole shed from inside the house.

Above is the short wall which is closest to the house and the red circle shows where the sub-board will be for the power coming into the shed. My workbench will be along the left half of this wall. The door is just off to the left of the photo.

So it is all starting to get very real in the shed and therefore closer to a time I can say "I'm going to the shed to do some work on my trains".

Progress Again

Whilst at the club on Saturday I received a text message – all it said was “Done”.

I knew what it meant – it means progress. It also means more work to be arranged. The Titan guys had been around in the morning and started installing my ceiling structures and some whirly gigs on the roof of my new soon to be train shed. It was humid and heading for a hot day, so once I had a chat I bolted down the the train club to do some work down their on the new HO layout.

Normally you don’t get ceilings in a shed, but after a particular Tuesday Nighters I attended, I got an idea for the storage in the ceiling. So while at Titan the other week I spotted some metal framing done up as a structure to put in at ceiling height to act as a simple shelf to cover half a bay of a shed. That way you can store stuff up high - what a great idea. I put it to the max and used that principle to put in a flat ceiling in the shed. So after a discussion with Greg at Titan, I ordered some whirlygigs for the roof to cool it down and enough panels to make a flat ceiling for the whole shed - and of course installation of the metal and gigs.

So the boys came down and installed this pile of panels (see last blog entry for some photos) and the whirly birds on the roof.

Here is the hole for one of the two whirly gigs:

And the external view of one of my brand new gigs:

Mind you there was a small problem. You guessed it – the door was too small to cater for the 2.7 m wide panels. But that’s OK, accurate measurements before delivery showed that the removal of the sliding and fixed glass panes would be sufficient to allow the panels through. But as Murphy is want to do, he made it that three of us had it wrong. That’s right, the original measurer Greg, myself and the factory blokes all got it wrong. We have measured from the outer edge of the door frame not from the removable parts…  Yup – no go. The frames just weren't going to go through the door. Bugger. Normally for a shed it is no problem as you have these big things called roller doors - not me, I have a small sliding glass door. But Grant the Titan installer fella that got there in the morning knew just what to do – he had after all also put the shed up and was a guru at this sort of thing. "Ya just rip down a wall mate!"

So he took down a third of the end sheeting on the shed and the wall behind it and in went the panels – no biggie. See, that's what you pay for - experts. Me, I would have attempted to cut the panels up and lessen their strength in the process!

So across the 6.76 meter internal span of the shed, there are 3 panels. Two are 2.7 m and one is 0.6 m. Yes you are correct, that doesn’t make up 6.76 m. You can see the 600 mm panel in the middle in photo below.

By the way, all the ceiling panels are bolted on with some nice big bolts. So they are going nowhere in a hurry. It also means the shed is now even stronger than before - I think I will now designate it my bunker in case of storms and quacks.

So, to continue with why the 3 panels don't add up tot he width of the shed: What you do is to space the 3 panels across the ceiling, thereby you have small gaps. You do need a gap at the wall ends on both sides as the panels will obviously not fit where the roof tapers down to zero - so a gap is required. Also, there is no need to have the panels all butt up against each other as there is no gain in strength, only a gain in cost.

The orange arrow below points to the ceiling panel and green to the tapering ceiling to the wall.

So after the text and after finishing up at the clubrooms for the day, I headed on past an ATM to get the fun tickets out to pay Grant the Installer and headed home via my usual fish and chips shop for a snack. So here are the ceiling panels in place.

So now the first order of business on Monday is to call the Sparky and arrange for him to come wire up the shed.