Monday 3 October 2016

WAQAP

That stands for Wrong As Quick As Possible.
It's a slightly tongue in cheek riposte to the quality management mantra of Right First Time. Which is, as anyone who has ever actually made anything will realize, a load of tosh, dependent solely on defining "first time" as after you have solved all the problems.
I like to be able to see something actually in my hands to feel how it works.

Anyhow, I'm having a bit of an interlude to build a Summer house, but I'm also sorting through some staves and messing with a shortish length of Yew for someone who wants a Primitive.
I just can't quite make my mind up about this stave, so I figure, just dive in a go with it, as it progresses I'll find out how it wants to go, if indeed it wants to be a bow at all... maybe it's height of ambition is to fuel my Big Sis' woodburner! The main queries are a longitudinal crack at one tip which will probably close up and glue with no prob' and a little of the blue discolouration in the sapwood which feels marginally crisper than the usual creamy smooth cheesy feel.

The same philosophy of dive in is being applied to the Summer house, but the more I do the more I realise it's tricky trying to juggle dimensions to maximise wood usage whilst flipping between metric and imperial. I phoned in a big wood order and when I said "47 times 50mm pressure treated", he said, oh, yeah, 2 by 2 (insert your own Noah jokes here). Working out the roofing material was tricky too. I'm building a curved roof that is high along one edge and curves down almost to ground level along the other. it will be made from 2 sheets of 8'x4' ply which is the same size it's always been but is now sold as 2440 x 1220mm (groan).
We looked at summer houses and they were all a bit big, a bit small and rather boring. As a touch-stone for cost, there was a reasonable quality one at about £900.
I reckon I'll build something much funkier and better quality for about £500.
I went for the rubber roof (EPDM) as it will last indefinitely although it it rather pricey. I've ordered it as a "shed roof kit" which includes the adhesive, I've used the stuff before as our house has two big flat roofed extensions that were in need of repair when we moved in. If I look out on the flat roof in summer I can see stretch marks where the roof has moved over the seasons and the rubber is accommodating the movement. Roofing felt would have split by now.... trust me, if you need to do a flat roof use EPDM.
It dawned on me, that even if we bought one I'd still have to prepare the ground. It's going beneath the Eucalyptus where nothing grows.
Here are some pics of initial clearing of the barren raised bed. I have a furry assistant who loves jumping into holes.

5 comments:

  1. Looks like a fun project. I was wondering what that tree was. Big eucalyptus. Looks like our arbutus trees. Cheers- Brendan

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. I removed the duplicated comment.
    It's a gorgeous tree, but has grow and grown and grown, when we bought it the label said it would grow 3 or 4 metres I think! It sways and shimmies in the wind making a lovely noise like waves on a shingle beach. It catches the low evening sun in a spectacular fashion expecially if there are dark storm clouds behind it. Smells good too, although the leaves are a pig to sweep up!

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  4. I use epdm as pond liners and it is good, but the other day I was made aware of a product called Metflex
    http://liquidpondlining.com/product/metflex-liquid-liner/ its a liquid rubber. Metflex sent me some samples and it looks pretty good, might be worth looking at?

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  5. Hi Del , I work for a software company and at last they have stopped talking about "right first time" and now have the motto of "fail fast" , ie dive in but as soon as it looks like its not going to work , don't waste more time on it - just take the lessons learnt and try something different . You end up with a good product far faster

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