Friday 13 August 2010

Day 12 - Wednesday

So the sun came out today - hurrah ! The major task for the day was to fix and bolt together the back wall of sleepers, known as 'The Beast', it comprises four sleepers and forms the retaining barrier for the back bed. With the sleepers overlapping the idea is to use 4 x 75x75 fence posts bolted to the back of the beast so that each post covers two sleepers and each sleeper is fixed to two posts, the posts will be bolted in from behind to keep the front clean using coach bolts. The posts will extend into holes in the ground so that once fixed they can be concreted in.

As I have limited access from behind (oo'er) when the beast is vertical the plan is to lay it down bolt together and then rotate it to vertical dropping the posts nicely into the holes.

Here is the beast laying on its front for marking up the posts and drill holes.


Lets skip over the frustrating 2.5 hours it took to dig the four post holes..

The drilling all went well and with the posts bolted in place and a few extra batons for strength I was ready to rotate ! 

Here is the beast in place, with all posts sitting comfortably in their holes.




With that done there wasn't much of the day left. I thought I'd get a head start for the next morning by moving everything around ready to construct the deck frame.

Space is very limited in my little garden, so limited in fact that with the deck area maximised there is not enough free on each side to be able to use a drill or screw driver. The answer was to construct each side of the decking at a raised angle, about chest height. This gave me the access I needed to work with the drill.

I used the sleepers and decking boards to build a solid platform to work on.



Here is the very first cross beam ready for fixing.

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