Arthur our plasterer is on site, with a heavy and impressive bit of Kit to spray the lime plaster onto the Straw. Photos of that to follow, we ve rigged up a festoon light chain so there is light inside the building, which is great as we ‘ll need to start working in there soon; and the south end of the roof is now watertight, which bearing in mind the weather is both an achievement and a surprise! Well done all … of course the North End still has its temporary roof pending raising the trusses into place – those are looking increasingly finished and impressive.
Progress continues, though the rain has limited what we can do and tomorrow, Wednesday, we are taking a day off as the forecast is wet, very wet, wet wet wet.
But you ll see we are felting and battening the roof, quite a major task, as it is huge; hopefully then it will be waterproof and we can work in the dry.
Arthur, the Lime Renderer, comes on the 30th and will start lime rending the outside. Thomas has been busy, and the Oak Trusses are taking shape. We assembled them for the first time today, perfect, though they need a bit of trimming and tweaking, plus big metal plates bolted on and then they need lifting in place. We are looking for a crane ….
Photos say it all!
The kingpost and rafters meet; carefully crafted mortice and tenons
lifting on e of the rafters in place
Thomas has a huge home made spanner to move the rafters, which are 7 metres long and way 400kg
the Kingpost ready to be raised.
some beefy metal plates needed to be sure the structural engineer is happy!
the first truss assembled, with a proud Thomas in the foreground; what a beautiful job!
not one but two … they are a pair; height needs trimming but otherwise more or less all done.
they caught me napping; the rafters are surprisingly comfy!
the iingpost in position ready to accept the rafters.
Thomas Sanding the oak beams – the finish is wonderful and the grain superb
Viv still working on the bales
Viv and Jill … the finishing touches to the bales.
where have all the workers gone!
felting and battening, up on the roof; the felt will be waterproof so a good temporary cover pending the shingles going on
Today s been quite a day; to start off with Chelsea Timber delivered a heap of stuff including battens for our roof, and the I beams that will form the north end roof.
Thomas has been beavering away cutting the Trusses to shape (thats not quite true … he uses saws and chisels, and is very precise, where beavers use their teeth … )
Gerry, “the window man” came – the panorama windows require some rather tricky carpentry; so he came today with some angle fillets to fit and make final measurements so he can fabricate the windows.
And the rest of the team have been very busy; the boot room has now got almost all of its roof, some of its walls, and other bits and pieces have been done and prepared; We are on site again tomorrow and Thursday,
Tea(m) Briefing …. John allocates jobs for the day … but who’s that not paying attention and playing with her phone?
Gerry and mate, fitting window bits
does not look like much, but this is the corner fillet that Gerry has made to fit and make the windows fit PERFECTLY!
OK, its not on project, but we have great company in the form of the 3 horses
At the south of the building will be the boot room; this is effectively a porch, and intended so that if groups are going into the Education Centre on wet days, or are muddy. then they can leave their hats and coats and muddy boots (hence the name) in the boot room, and go into the classroom all warm and dry …
We’ve had to change the design a bit, so its going to be a tad smaller and the wall set back; it was always going to be on tyre foundations but it is now partly straw too; this will improve the appearance; we re not sure that we’ll be able to use the windows that we harvested from the Rickyard, or may dismantle them and use the timber to make new, different sized windows.
John Morrell met Graham, our Electrical Engineer who’s designing our all singing, all dancing fully automatic electrical installation. it is going to be soooo swish ..
and we had 30 sheets of ply and a heap of smaller timber delivered … Oh, and Thomas is working away on the Oak Trusses … going to be sooooo  beautiful ….
Taking shape …the boot room builds …
is this the biggest tenon in Perivale? beautifully crafted by Thomas
Thomas at work
Another Tenon; angles so carefully measured
A tenon in process
Gives you some idea of the size of the beams
this is not part of the structure, but a massive spanner to help turn the beams. they are very heavy!!
Forgive the pun …. but we ve had a couple of significant deliveries! first, after a bit of messing about we had the MAGNIFICENT Oak beams delivered; these are to become the roof trusses for the vaulted ceiling to the Classroom area, and they are HUGE!  two are 7 m long by about 300 mm square (make it about 22 feet by a foot by a foot) and others are smaller. Oh, and they are quite heavy – the big ones are about 0.4 Ton, and they had to be dropped off the lorry then put on rollers and rolled into the marquee, where Thomas, our expert carpenter, will be working on cutting them to shape and forming the joints; they can then be lifted (with a crane taht we are hiring) into place on the roof and the temporary trusses be taken down, to be recycled into partitions and internal structures.
And Cedar Shakes … so we had 7000 cedar shakes, which are sort of wooden tiles, delivered; they will form the roof covering; there is a huge pile at the Wood at the moment, and we will start to put these on fairly soon, working on the South end of the building.
What other progress – fox mesh is completed (we put that in to stop foxes and other wildlife exploiting the fact that the building is effectively on stilts, and living underneath it! we ve made the foundation  for the boot room, and are working on the ring beam. The design has been slightly changed so the boot room wall will be set back a bit – necessary to create space for an outward opening door – and made from straw and rendered, so that it will match in with the main part of the building.
Photos, in no particular order …
shakes being offloaded
rolling the beams in place
the last tyre foundations for the boot room
A mountain of Cedar Shakes
Adrian and Gill digging out the last foundation pit
gravity is 100% reliable, the beams went down, as we wanted.
the smaller beams were easier to handle!
no comment!
Thomas, looking forward to the job!
John finishing off the last tyre tower.
easing it over the edge
dropping the beam off the side of the lorry
Putting your back into it … Viv and John drag the first massive beam into place
The Bluebell Centre - a New Education Centre for Perivale Wood Local Nature Reserve 