Unexpected picnic bench building at work

The University has started a well-being initiative. And quite suddenly, we found out that there is actual money involved in that. Our wellbeing champion suddenly had £100 to spend. She made the quick decision that a good way of spending that was to buy a picnic bench for the terrace adjacent to the staff lunch room. It is entirely bare! Sometimes we will go there for lunch anyway, but then either sit on the bare floor, or have to drag our chairs outside. It needed assembly, and she asked for volunteers to help with that. I decided to put my name forward. It sounded like a fun job!

Next working day an email arrived. Our wellbeing champion didn't have time for our bench. But by coincidence, I was having lunch with Robin, the other volunteer, and we decided to just go and do it. We needed to borrow some tools but that wasn't a problem. So we went to get these, and then set to work! And  instructions were straightforward.

No time later (and one correction, and one lost screwdriver head) we had a bench. It was a fine specimen! It wasn't as robust as would have been ideal; it was already straining a bit under my weight, and I am hardly one of the heavier people within Ocean Sciences. The instructions say you could have a maximum of 150 kg on each side. Although there is space  for 4, at a push. With that 150 kg limit, you could only realistically have 2 people on each side. But it would do! It was a lot better than nothing!

Since we built it, it has been in use every single lunchtime. I am glad we have this thing now! And the Head of School was already thinking about buying an additional one from the School budget…

Work in progress

Finished!

Starting painting the extension

When the repairmen didn't show up, I decided to do something useful with my day. And with them not showing up, I had the extension to myself. So I popped to the local builders' merchant and got me some paint. And then started the work.

The first thing I needed to do was make sure I could do anything safely. You have to stand on a ledge above a considerable drop in order to do work on the extension. And when you're working, you're not focusing on staying up there. So I wanted to be secured. And I had figured I could do that by running my climbing rope from the bedroom window to a window in the conservatory. I could use that as a handline I could clip into. So I made my first rig! I retrieved my climbing gear from downstairs and improvise something. It was sufficient.

The ridge I have to stand on gets progressively narrower when you go further right. When you go to the right of the bedroom window, you are also not secured to anything above your centre of gravity anymore. I can of course still be attached to my handline, but at quite an angle, so were I to fall I would swing out quite a lot. I'm not so keen. I like my tether to be vertical, going up from where it is attached to me! I'm not so keen on horizontal tethers. So I decided to start on the left. I supposed it made sense to first get comfortable where it was still easy, and then build up my confidence as I moved further right. I mean, I have done much more dangerous things either underground or on climbing walls, but thanks to Corona that was quite a while ago, and additionally; then I tend to be able to concentrate on navigating the circumstances. Now I would be busily waving a paint scraper around.

Starting on the left also meant I had to bring something in that would increase my height. I can't reach the top planks! So I dragged my ammunition box out of the garage and put that on the ledge. That would give me enough height! This wouldn't work on the right, as the ledge is too narrow, but I will deal with that once I get there.

With my handline and my ammunition box in position, I could don my overalls and set to work. I first had to remove as much of the pesky vegetation as I could. I had already done around of removing ivy when I still had hope that the previous set of workmen would actually show up and go do the work, but the thing with vegetation is that it grows back. But it was quite easy to remove quite a lot of it. Then I could start paying attention to the paint. It was flaking like nothing on Earth. So I scraped and I sanded. And after a considerable effort I put on a layer of primer on the first four planks! A start had be made. I am just tackling the situation plank by plank. Once I have one or more planks (four if they are at the level of the window and therefore very short; just one if it's one of the continuous ones underneath the window) ready for paint, I just paint it. So at some point I had four planks with the first layer of paint, four planks with only a layer of primer, and several planks partially scraped. That way I will slowly make my way from the left to the right. And then I have to do some caulking.

I also improve my rig as I moved along. I had first just connected two knots with a carabiner, but I later made a rig that is easier to keep at tension. And I traded my cow's tails for a Petzl connect, which is easily adjustable. And I pondered about improved rigging on the right. Stay tuned for that!

Altogether this will take me a while! But then I have an extension wall that is ready to face the harsh Welsh weather again for a few years. And it doesn't look particularly good; I suppose in order to achieve that I should have used paint stripper, or something along those lines, to really get rid of all the old paint, but I can't be asked. This is only for durability, not for looks!

 the situation before I started

The flaking paint and my first safety measures

me doing some scraping. Picture by the neighbour.

 using the bedroom as an anchor

First results 

Furniture for the garage

When I got the garage more or less in order, I did place quite a lot of stuff on the floor. Not much choice! There was one shelving unit bit that was full soon. Then there were some shelves in the back. They were full soon too. And I stacked the firewood high. That helped! But I still had lots of stuff on the floor. And I happened to mention that to Kate when I saw her in association with a walk. And she said she was trying to find a new life for a cupboard! Or two, really. So that matched up nicely. And the Tuesday after she came to bring them! We put the bits in the garage. 

By Saturday I set to work. It's hard to put big furniture together on your own! But I have practiced. So I managed to get the first planks in with the cupboard standing up. That was not a very good idea. The thing came with these wossnames that you need to turn with a screwdriver (no, not screws) and the bottom shelf, some two inches off the floor, needed that doing too, from underneath. So I had to lay it down! Could as well have done that straight away. Oh well. At least I now could get the doors on easily. And then it came up again! And I could put the loose shelves in! It was done! There seemed to be a shelf left over but that seemed not to be a problem. I suppose I could get more of these pegs and then add it. Even though it seemed to already have sufficient shelves. Anyway; I put my paint and accoutrements in the new cupboard and decided it was time for a run. 

When I got back I started on the other one. That was smaller and thus easier! It was up in no time. But I had so many shelves left over But not normal ones. They had funny asymmetric fixings. I pondered it a bit. Then I figured maybe they were separate items. You could make two side tables with the left-over bits! But they were still a bit weird. They had fixings for being attached to something. And then I remembered the funny tops of the cupboards; they had excessive-looking fixings too. I figured the extra bits were an optional top shelf for people with high ceilings! But I couldn't fit that under my ceiling beams. Nor would I be able to reach these top shelves. I decided to stick with the side table option. I could have plants on them in the conservatory! So that was me done. I will have to do some reorganisation now to use this new cupboard space! I hope I get everything tidier! 

The raw materials

First important steps taken!

Going horizontal after all

Finished!

The small cupboard (yes I know, uneven shelf spacing)

The extra bits: side tables? 

They could probably be fixed to these! 

Stairs project entirely done now!

The slipperiness of my garden stairs had bothered me from the start. I had done some attempts to do something about it but I had not been convinced by anything! Until I tried fine gravel and epoxy. It seemed to work a treat on the wood stairs! And I had done a trial bit on a loose piece of slate. With success. So one sunny day I sieved out a bit more sand, dried it, made the last batch of epoxy, and tackled the slate part of the stairs. The slate never gets as slippery as the wood! But wet slate can still be treacherous. So I hoped my last epoxy would do me for these steps too. And it did! When I was done, the entire flight of stairs was festooned with grippy strips. I'm so happy with this! It's now a pleasure to come down there stairs, even in the rain. Success, at last! 

Result!

Close-up

Third attempt making the stairs less slippery: a second trial

I had tried some locally bought glue with small gravel to make my stairs into the garden less slippery. I hadn't been convinced! The glue stayed a bit bouncy. I could imagine the gravel just popping out. That's no use! So then I thought I go with the original idea: epoxy. But I don't know much about epoxy. Are there different kinds? Which one do I need? But I decided to try. The stuff can be really strong! I looked around on internet for a bit, and decided to buy a reasonable amount of some epoxy with a description that fit my needs. When it arrived I set out to do another plank trial. 

It's a lot more faff than with the glue; you have to warm it up and mix it and brush it onto the wood and somehow manage to clean the brush. And the problem was that you really need to get the proportion right; 3 parts epoxy to 1 part hardener. But I needed such a small amount for my trial! I have postal scales, but they're analogue and it's hard to measure off the right amounts. I only needed a few grams! The glue gun was a lot easier. But it's the end result that counts. I tried it on a Friday before a warm weekend. The idea was that on Saturday I would be able to decide, and then bring my decision into practice before the weekend would be over! 

On that Saturday I decided the difference wasn't huge, but that I suspected the real results with the epoxy would be better, as with a big batch it's easier to get the proportions right. So I made my decision! Epoxy it would be. The other stuff may come in handy for other purposes... 

The epoxy trial

Project toilet: the rebuild

My repair-the-toilet project wasn't going to be a quick thing. Removing the cistern had been a nightmare with all the metalwork rusted beyond recognition! But when I had the cistern, and all that came with it, completely dismantled it was time to see if I could rebuild it all. But the first thing I did was paint the wall behind the cistern; the painter hadn't been able to reach and this was my chance. But that was a doddle.

Now for the actual issue: the toilet flush. I was religiously following the instructions. They were clearly meant to be universal; all was in pictures! No verbal explanation. I prefer the combination but hey ho. 

I started with the fill valve! That was easily screwed into position. Then the actual flush. No issues there either. And the set came with its own plastic bolts and nuts to put the cistern back. But then the instructions said that I should adjust the settings on both fill and flush. What? They were in position! How could I adjust them if I could barely reach them? How big do they think a cistern is? So I dismantled the whole thing again. I made a bit of a guess at how high I wanted the water level to get. Not too high! No need to use more drinking water than necessary. The flush didn't want to collaborate. I left it at factory settings.

So how to adjust these...

I put it all back and tried it. And it wasn't OK! The cistern slowly drained into the pan when it shouldn't. Annoying! This mechanism was brand new. It should just work! Some Googling suggested this is the sort of thing that can happen when the washer is old (it wasn't), the cradle it fits into is dirty (it wasn't), or when the cistern fills too fast (it did it too with the water disconnected so it wasn't). Hm! I posted a question on a plumbing forum. How to sort this? I really don't want to have a leaky toilet. Drinking water is a precious resource! Not to just be lost into the toilet pan.

I figured the plunger didn't come all the way down. Would it be too light? It's only gravity that lowers it! And it's all flimsy plastic. So I figured I'd try to weigh it down. And an easy way of doing that would be wrap some soldering tin around the shaft. So I did! And it didn't work. But I really couldn't find another possible reason why it wouldn't work. So I just added a second loop of tin. And put everything back in place. And it seemed to have done the trick. I did a few tests; put water in the cistern, make a pencil mark at the water level, leave it for hours and see if the level had changed. When all tests were OK I put the lid back on. I'm still not convinced I quite understand what the problem was and whether I've solved it! Was it really a weight issue? Did I accidentally tweak something else which solved it, and is the tin strictly decorative? Oh well. I was quite fed up with not having a traditionally functional loo, and the bathroom being strewn with tools, and having to spend time on this. So I decided to leave it as is. If something goes wrong again I can revisit this issue. For now, taking the cistern off will be a doddle, and I now know more about this loo than I ever expected!

Soldering tin: the solution?

New mechanism in place

Looks all sophisticated again

Toilet project: the dismantling

When you buy a house it tends to have a loo in it. And do you necessarily know much about  it? No, not really. I sure didn't. It worked; no further questions. But it developed a habit of having water run down when it shouldn't. And that was easily remediated by a second push of the button. Until it wasn't. And then it was time to have a look at the mechanism.

I had sorted a loo before! When I lived in Plymouth. I had managed to make that a success. Some of that must have been due to that the metalwork holding it all together wasn't all rusty; I don't mention any difficulty with rust when getting the cistern off. And some of that success doesn't help here as the issue was something entirely different. But here we go again!

I took the lid off. I didn't know much about what I saw. But it did look a bit old! Probably best to see if I could just replace the whole mechanism, as repairing it might be a bit futile. I am not good at it, and would there be spare parts out there for such outdated equipment? So I googled a bit and found that Screwfix sold these mechanisms. And I found one that I thought would fit.

What I found when I took the lid off

Going to pick it up from the shop was weird. Outside the entrance was a gazebo with a bloke with a two-way radio. He let people in if someone else came out! They had two tills open. This allowed for plenty of distancing.

Then the real work could start. I had noticed the cistern was fixed with very, very rusty screws! This would get interesting.

After some trying I figured I would get the cistern off if I would manage to get one of the top screws to reveal enough profile again to accept a screwdriver, and if I sawed off one of the bolts at the bottom. The other two seemed OK. And it worked! A gimlet scraped enough rust out of the rusty screw for my screwdriver to get a grip. And my metal saw sorted the bolt. Some pliers allowed me to take the water supply off; this had been tightened beyond being able to do this by hand. So that was one item off: the refill mechanism.

Now I needed to get the actual flush off. That wasn't straightforward either! It's screwed on with a big plastic nut-like thing; much bigger than any wrench I have. I tried a glue clamp but that didn't work. In the end I managed to improvise a sort of chain wrench with ducttape and a hammer. Did the job!

Cistern gone

Get the flush off with a smart trick!

I also found out the bottom bolts keeping the cistern in place had not only had nuts below the pan, but also between cistern and pan. And these were rusted in position too, of course! Would I manage to sort that with penetration oil and force? I could use spanners on the nuts, but on the other side I could only try to steady the bolts with a screwdriver. And you can imagine how easy that is after (probably) decades of rusting. So in the end both bolts got sawn. 

It is supposed to be a doddle to install the new mechanism! Removing rusty things, however, is a big challenge. I was glad when that was done. Would things get easy then? Stay tuned...

Unexpectedly buying a circular saw

Given that I’m not a ThursdayNighter anymore, but I do want to keep going underground, I had started looking for a cordless drill. The ThursdayNighters have a gazillion drills, so there never was a point in me buying an additional one, but things have changed. And I have a drill but it's electric.  Time to become more independent!

One day my eye fell on a post by a lady on Anglesey who was having a clear-out. She was selling all sorts! And there was a picture of a tool in a box. But what tool? Was it a drill? It was difficult to see; there was only one vague picture and no description. But it turned out to be a circular saw (not much of a surprise to anyone). And I want one of these too! I can’t saw in a straight line with a handsaw to save my life. But with a circular saw I could! So I popped over to Anglesey and got me a dirt cheap cordless circular saw with two batteries and a charger! That will come in handy!

On charge for a test run! 

Ready for the encyclopaedia

Sorting eleven meters of shelf space is not a trifle! So if you need to make space for a big fat encyclopaedia you have some work on your hands. But I had a lot of wall space. And I had stolen, begged and borrowed some shelving strips and brackets. But then I also needed shelves. And these have to be the right size. Not so easy to pilfer these! So I popped to the local timber merchant. They had plywood sheets. These were 8 by 4 foot. That sounded perfect! I needed shelves 8 foot long and 1 foot deep. So having them saw the thing in strips had me sorted.

I needed 3 long strips (sorted) and a slightly shorter one; I cut that one in the conservatory, and then took them to the office to fit. And it was almost good! I had intended to use one pilfered shelf. And that almost worked. One shelf needed a notch as there was a tube with cables in the way, and a long plank had to have a corner cut out to accommodate the pilfered shelf. So these I took home again! And sorted the adjustments. And brought them back.

I then screwed the old and new plank together. Now they fit perfectly!

The week after I finished it off; I brought a plank from home I and screwed it into a third wall; this shelf is quite shallow but it can take some smaller stuff that's currently in my cupboard. This is deep enough to take bits of the encyclopaedia! So this additional shelf will allow for some more efficiency. Then I also screwed the shelves to the brackets and that was me done!

I have contacted the suppliers of the encyclopaedia to say I was ready to receive the thing. They said they will get in touch soon. Watch this space!

Look at all that space

Precision work!

More adaptations to the office

It's great to get a lot of knowledge in paper form! But paper takes space. And when I was offered THE foraminifera encyclopaedia I didn't have enough of that. It takes some 11 m of shelf space! Who has that lying around in the office? Not me. But I had free wall space, and a space downstairs had been stripped of its furniture as it was going to be re-purposed. And it had shelving! Now it was mine. At least, the wall strips and brackets. The shelves themselves had to fit the space I had! And my house had had some shelving in the landing. I had taken that down; these wall strips are not quite the look I had in mind. But I am the kind of person who thinks things may come in handy one day, so I hadn't thrown them away. Good! Now they DID came in handy.

When the second Open Day was over I went to my office. Another session of Saturday office DIY! I (again) wanted to do the wall-drilling in the weekend. And now I was here anyway! A great time therefore to make noise and get this job largely done. I put the three strips I had pilfered from the space downstairs on a wide wall. And the strips from home on the narrow one, next to the door. I noticed there were some drill holes there already! And they fit the strips! That was easy. Although they were in a funny place and in order to make it make sense I would have to put a third strip in. But I assume the system is still in wide use so that shouldn't be too difficult. And then I need to buy some extra brackets, and source some planks. and then I have a lot of space! I have quite some empty space on shelves already; altogether it should soon add up to 11 m!