22/02/08

Today we started off the day we started off learning about the Ramset explosive power tools. I learnt that there are two main different types, the direct and indirect tools. The direct firing fires a single shot and must be reloaded each shot, it hits a cartridge and then the cartridge hits the pin or shank located inside the barrel. The indirect uses "magazines" of cartridges that are pulled through as the gun is "cocked". The cartridge is hit with a pin and explodes but it then pushes a piston, which transfers the force to the pin or shank with contact force.
When we used the ramset i expected it to be quite loud just like a real gun, but to my disapointment it was quite quiet. The handling force that is returned is pretty forceful though. It was interesting to learn about misfires and how it is standard procedure to hold the gun against the object, in the firing position for 10 to 15 seconds until removing it from the object. This way if misfires have a delayed explosion from the cartridge no damage is done to the operator or persons around the operator. It seemed like a practical and efficient alternative to tek screwing the timber plates onto the U-beams, but if you use pins it doesn't get enough grip on the steel.
After this we did an assessment on the sub floor, and although i didn't study i felt confident that i did very well on the test. I enjoyed doing the sub floor and because things were being taught to me verbally as we were physically building the floor i learnt and retained it with ease. I am certain i will have defeated Greg on the test and yet he studied and is still there right now, thankyou and good day sir mwahaha.

Practical External Cladding

This morning, as a group, finished off the take off excersise number 6. As i was already half way through it didn't take long. After this we moved on to making a height stick, used to represent the layers of cladding going up the wall. On one side we marked out lines for 185mm cedar cladding that gave us 160mm coverage with a 25mm overlap, which as Mike found out was the standard coverage overlap. On the other side we worked out how many panels of pine cladding would be required and the equation i used to figure it out was as below:
152mm total panel width
152 - 25 (overlap coverage) = 127
2520 (height of the wall to be covered) / 127 = 19.84
Round up to 20 panels to cover the wall.
2520 / 20 = 126
so 126 coverage with each board with a (152 - 126) = 26mm overlap.
After this we moved onto actually putting on the cladding. Behind the cedar and pine cladding we placed on a water proof lining that is coloured blue to stop reflection of light, and also acts as an insulater. On a framed timber wall it must perferated so that the walls can breathe, stopping moisture build up due to condensation.
Mike and Greg worked on the pine cladding over the plastic lining, Dan and Rhys worked on the cedar cladding whilst Greg and I worked on lining the back wall with sheets of hardiflex.
This required us to put in trimmers behind where the sheets were going to join as per AS1684 guidelines. Cutting and installing the sheets was relatively easy and fixed them with clout nails. We first of all got the overall span between the two corner pieces of timber, halved it and marked a line. We then placed the tape length of 600mm on the mark and then marked 1200mm and 0mm, for the width of the middle sheet. That way we would have even sized sheets either side of the full sheet, which worked out to 1000mm.
Around the corner of the house we applied 3 sheets with vertical joins in them. First of all we put on a sheet on the bottom and fully nailed it. We marked 20mm from the top of the sheet down, and we then put on the Alcoil over the top of the sheet, with the bottom of the Alcoil lining up with our 20mm line that we marked. We pulled it tight and nailed it down with clouts.
After this we put on the next sheet above it, pressing it down to the top of the bottom sheet, which made the Alcoil bend outwards. Once this was done we nailed in the top sheet. After the Alcoil had been placed in we are going to placed a batten over the top of the join.

External Cladding

Today we researched timber cladding, hardiflex sheeting, cement fibre cladding and also a cladding of our own personal choice, for which i chose stone cladding. I read about all four of the claddings above and wrote out a bit about each one. Although what a i researched wasn't exactly what Paul was looking for i felt i learnt the basics on each one.
I enjoyed researching the timber cladding because it is a technique and product used extensively throughout australia and i could picture the types of effects this cladding type can offer. In hindsight i should have researched asbestos lining as well, as it was used in conjunction with the timber cladding in the 60's and 70's before brick houses started to take off.
I also enjoyed learning about the stone cladding as i consider it to be a very eyecatching and creative type of cladding. Searching for the info on this was quite difficult as the majority of sites just wanted to sell me the product instead of informing me about it, but through some cycling through web sites i managed to find some info about the types of glues used, how much and what types of stone cladding you can buy and also a newly invented and patented metal clip used to install stone cladding.
After this we did price listings in the cladding and sheeting work book. As i do enjoy mathematics and problem solving i was able to fly through the take offs. As i have stated in earlier blogs this week, i like the time to just sit down and work through things by myself without people talking, instructing me or telling me to hurry up and this was a perfect oppurtunity to do so. I completed all 6 of the take offs, including number 6 which was quite extensive.
The timber cladding section was quite easy and it worked well because it was only maths so we all should end up with the same answer. But with the sheeting it was up to individual choice on what arrangement of sheets they would use to cover different areas of the walls and this led to many different answers that could be considered correct.

Erecting of the Stud Walls

On friday we continued on with our construction of our stud wall frames. The majority of them were completed so only a few had to be finished off. Initially we were working in teams of three but as we progressed we found it easier to work by ourselves on each wall and occassionally seeking help from anyone nearby, generally to hold studs perfectly on lines and to help take twists out of studs. I continued on with the centre wall that divides the two bedrooms from the lounge area. This wall frame had two doors in it and 3 intersections with our walls.
I had initially started nailing in the studs from left to right but found that the plates were marked out for 35mm studs instead of 45mm, so i had to start from the middle studs and work outwards, marking out the stud positions as i went.
In the middle of the frame i had 5 studs all sitting flush against each other, two vertical, one horizontal and another two vertical on the other side. The stud that was nailed on horizontally was done so because it was where the wall between the two bedrooms joined onto the wall fram i was doing. This T-section join is located in the AS1684 booklet that we received.
The two door ways located in the wall were 900 wide by 2100 high. I decided to go with only the single jamb stud with a head trimmer butt joining across the top of the doorway height. This meant that there was only one centrally lined jack stud required for above the head trimmer. On of the doors, as a required excersise, i notched out into the jamb studs of the doorway 15mm to house the head trimmer. Later on though i found out that the required notching was a max of 10mm, but i still feel that the 15mm notch in a 45mm piece of timber should still be quite strong.
I saw that Mike was having quite difficult time housing his notches out when the jamb studs were already assembled into the wall frame so i decided to make the notches whilst the jamb studs were still separate. I placed them in a vice and then measured up (2100 - 35 = ) 2065 and marked a line, then i measured up another 45mm from that line and marked the wood. I then used my combination square to mark a depth line of 15mm on the depth of the wood. I used a tenon saw to cut out the lines i had made, roughly chiselled with a normal 25mm chisel and then finished the housing joint off with a granny's tooth planer. Using the granny's tooth was easy as to achieve a uniform depth, and i find using one quite enjoyable because of its easy and accurate use.
I shot the newly notched jamb studs into place along with the common studs onto the top and bottom plates. Then i measured the head trimmers and jack studs. Once cut i shot them in, finding that the granny's tooth notch i had made was perfect fit. During the measuring i was taking for the head trimmers i noticed that the two jamb studs i had notched into were unfortunately twisted. So Daniel and i took quite some time to try and straighten them up by cutting and fixing 3 noggings between the twisted stud and the next common stud. Two of the noggings were wedged in and also push up against the plate, creating a strong corner section to hold the timber square. This made it quite evident at the nescessity of choosing the best pieces of timber for such important studs like the doorway jamb studs.

After we had completed the frame walls we then began to erect the walls ontop of the sub floor. It only required 2 people to lift the standard smaller walls but at one stage we used all 6 of us to lift a long wall section. The first wall we put up we aligned with the chalk lines we had previously made, then levelled it using a spirit level and then shot a diagonal bracer in. This way we could keep the wall plumb whilst we positioned and nailed the perpendicular wall to it.
At corner intersections we used clamps to hold the walls together. Once we were happy that we had correctly aligned the walls with the chalk lines on the sub floors and that the joining walls were flush with one another, we nailed them together, making sure that it was sufficiently nailed to prevent the walls from coming apart.

After all of the larger wall frame sections were fixed in position, we then commenced measuring and marking out the smaller walls located in the bathroom section, which included an angled wall. We then put in string lines around the top and bottom plates to make sure the walls were perfectly in line. Whilst we had some people making these new walls, the others would be making dogs legs bracers and be aligning the wall with the string line. Using diagonally positioned temporary bracers we made the walls square with one another before nailing in the metal and wooden bracers, and also before we fixed in the dogs legs bracers.

At one point it took a bit of work to push the top of the wall out to make the walls perfectly plumb. I was applying weight to a 3.1m long joist that was wedged between the top of the stud, that we wanted to push the top out of, and the bottom plate of an adjacent wall. Rhys and Greg removed a nogging that was blocking the horizontal movement of the top of the wall, and then used a rope to effectively clamp the two end studs closer together. We used a spirit level to check if the wall had become plumb yet and when it was plumb we shot in a temporary brace to hold it square. so we could fix in the metal bracers.

Brown Paper Drawing of AS1684

Yesterday we spent the whole day completing our brown paper drawings of several different intersections of stud walls. We split the drawing in to thirds lengthwise and the first two thirds were split into thirds heightwise. The last third was split into a two thirds section and a one third section, so all up we had 8 different drawings.
The first column had three plan views of a corner junction, a T-junction and a a drawing that combined them both. The drawing that combined both had 10mm gyprock lining on the inside of the house and 6mm hardiflex sheeting on the outside. These drawings were pretty easy and looked quite boring.
The next three drawings in the second column had three different lintal arrangements, one with the lintal flush with the top plate, one with the lintal flush ontop of the sill trimmer, and a window without a lintal at all. Lintals are only nescessary when there is a load over the top of the window, and generally lintals are only needed if the window or door stretch is over 900mm.
The last two pictures in the third column were drawn in isometric style on an angle of 30 degrees. The top one was a picture describing how to fix two pieces of timber together to form a structural beam, where two screws must be placed at each end of the beam and each screw there after was a single screw staggered with the previous screw, at no more distance than two times the depth of the timber being used.
The last picture was three studs ontop of a single bottom plate, with each stud having different types of notches in it including 1350 max spacing for the noggings, a diagram of the crippling technique with cleats either side and notches for a diagonal timber bracing. These isometric drawings were a challenging brain teaser as i used vertical and horizontal lines to get the angle perfect at each point of the drawing. I thoroughly enjoyed having the chance to just get stuck into the drawing and completing it as it is a testament to the effort and thought i put into it.

Hardies sheet flooring and Stud wall plating

Today we got outside and commenced marking out, measuring and cutting out of our bottom plates to fit ontop of the sheet flooring we had put down the last two weeks we were here. We measured in 90mm from all ends of the of joists on the extremity of the building. We then pinged lines between each corresponding 90mm marker with the chalk line. This way we knew and could visualise where our bottom plates would be placed.

After this we then decided which plates to run through to the end of the building and which plates were butt jointed into those plates. We are placing in a double plate also known as a ribbon plate.

Once we had cut all our 90 x 35 plates we then moved onto cutting out and fixing the hardies compressed 19mm cement sheets in the bathroom area. We used a diamond blade circular saw hooked up to a diamond blade, we were informed by Paul that simple P1 dust masks were suitable for cement but not suitable for asbestos. Cutting with this saw was a new experience for myself and using it was quite different to a normal circular saw in its feel cutting through the hardies sheet. We fixed these down by pre drilling and then screwing onto the joists. Each joint in the flooring was staggered with the next according to the Australian Standards.

Around the perimeter of the strip floored area in bedroom 3 we cut packers out of chipboard to increase the height of the plate to the same level as the plates on the sheet flooring.

Monday 11th Australian standards for Stud Wall Framing

Today we stayed in the classroom to learn the basics of stud wall framing. We received a print out of the Australian standards for wall framing and learnt a few things about them such as the main components of a stud wall, which are jamb, jack and common studs, noggings, top and bottom plates, lintels, sill trimmers and bracers. We then proceeded to do cutting lists based on some simple house plans. Figuring out the studs is what i consider to be the most time consuming aspect of the cutting list, with plates and noggings relatively easy parts. For example all the spaces between windows and doors, which are just straight up and down studs running from top plate to bottom plate, must be first figured out. Then that total length must be divided by the stud spacing requirement either 600mm for single stories or 450mm for the lower level of a two story house.
We also set upour drawing boards by outlining the border and putting in the margin on the right hand side, which had our names, the scale and the project in it.