29/08/08

Over the last 2 days we have set out and constructed a half octagon roof. To start of with i thought it was really easy and things were going good but then we found out we had been led in the wrong direction. We decided that 3 sides had to be exactly the same for this to work and that it wasn't the half span. The other 2 sides were the returns going back towards the ridge and it made sense to have them half the length as the other 3. The length of the sides worked out to be about 40.5 percent of the full span but that's not how we figured it out.

Once all the plates were set out we cut the rafters and because the ridges was already up the rafters centered the plates. We then did the 2 hips which had to have a side cut of 17 degrees. after that we did the jack and then cut the last 2 hips. Once the last 2 hips were in we cut trimmers for between 2 of the hips on each side to pick up another 2 jacks. After all that the only thing left to do was cut the under purlins But we had to work out the cuts first. I managed to find out that the down cut and the side cut were the same at 16 degrees.

28/08/08

Yesterday we did a truncated hip on one of our hips on the roof we used for the dormer window. This is where the hip gets cut back which is determined by the jack and then 2 hips come off that. I found this really difficult to get my head around to start with but once i got my head around it it was actually pretty easy. To start with we worked out the spans which are measurements that are right in front of us. Next we worked out our basted hip constant which was rafter constant+normal hip constant divided by 2. Once that was done we cut the jack and we worked out and cut a hip. Using the basted hip we got the height of the jack right so we could mark the hip and cut it where the jack landed. Then we shot the jack into the hip and got the 2 basted hips on. then we had 2 more jacks to get on. i was surprised to find that the top cuts for the other 2 jacks where exactly the same as the hip cuts.

26/08/08

Today we finished our dormer windows. I found today quite challenging because i have never seen one of these been built before so i definitely didn't know where to start building it. once we had our first point things started to come together slowly but they didn't come without a bit of thinking. our start of point was the top of the ridge and we knew it was a 45 degree pitch so we just worked our way down from that. to get the height of the wall we took our overall height and took the halfspan and then took the height of the birdsmouth. Then we build the walls allowing for a window at the front.



After we made sure everything was level we pitched the roof and got the front level with the front plate because it was a gable end. As soon as that was done we cut the valleys and nailed them on then cut the ridge back to the valleys so we could run a trimmer from hip to hip and nail it in to the ridge. After we did that we realised that it would have been better to put the trimmer in first. next i cut the jack which had to be notched around the trimmer. Then we did the valley boards and all the other finishing bits.

20/08/08

Today we spent the whole day on an oblique roof which was done as a class. The roof wasn't as big as some of the others we have done but there was still quite a bit in it. To start off with we leveled 2 benches and then set out plate for rafters to sit on. The plates made a shape that was square at one end and at about 15 degrees on the other end. Once that was done we made sure the whole thing was square and that the 2 longer sides were parallel.

After that we then measured the length of all the sides one of which gave us the half span and wrote them done on the board. We then used those lengths to determine the offsets for the long and short side. The formula to work out the offset on the short side is (short side add Oblique end) take long side divide by 2 and the formula to find out the long side is the same except the long side and short side are swapped around.

Once that was done and the working out was done the cutting was pretty straight forward because we had all the bevels but it was annoying because some needed to be cut on an angle greater than 50 degrees and our saws cant do that. After i got past that the only thing i had trouble with was the creeper shortening but after a bit of problem solving i came up with my own way that was easier and quicker for me to do.

19/08/08

Yesterday we started our brown paper drawing on oblique roofs. The drawing was worked off one of the frames that had been pre made and was drawn to half the size. we each had a different pitch to draw to and mine was 30 degrees. to start off with we drew the outline of the frame and then drew the centring rafters and the jack in. Next we drew in lines for the hips on the oblique end. once that was done we used the red book to find out the true height and the drew a line square off the top of the hip out the height. once that was done it was joined up to the bottom of the hip with another line forming a triangle. the first side made the plan length the second made the height and the last was the true length. we also had the plumb cut angle which was made up where the second and third line meet.

the same was done with both hips before we got onto the common rafters. to start off with we found the middle and put a line square off that the height and then joined it back to the plate. this gave us the plumb cut for the commons and the length. at first i thought all of it was pointless but once i got drawing i got my head around it and saw how useful it is. After doing this i wonder how i thought i could do it without the drawing

23/07/08

Over the last 3 days we have covered a lot of stuff on roofing and have even built a small roof. I really liked building the small roof and thought that it was also done to a pretty good standard considering we are learning as we go. The part that i enjoyed most was the gable because i am still getting used to putting them together and thought it was good to see other ways of doing it. I thought it was good cutting a separate pair of rafters to go under the trimmers and before now i would have never though to do it that way now i think it is good and will be something for me to take back to work. Apart from that i liked doing the scotch valley because its not something you get a lot of and was good for jogging the memory.

During the practical there was also a lot of maths involved with a bit of problem solving for example, i needed to get a 40 and 50 degree angle and i thought it would be a challenge to do it without the protractor so i used the red roofing book. i managed to get the angles for a 40 degree cut but the book stopped at 45 and didn't have 50 so after a bit of thought i decided square a line of the the 40 degree mark and because the 2 angles have to equal 90 it made 50.

30/05/08

Today we spent all day ouside. In the morning we started off with work on our eaves and finished off pulling it all apart including the roof. I liked doing the eaves because i haven't had much experience doing this and it was sort of new to me. First off we started off setting out the boxed eaves. At first i didn't want to do it but once i got into it it was a lot easier than i thought. The most unusual part to me was cutting the notch out for the gutter to sit on but other than that it was all pretty similar.

the other type of eave we did was lined on the rake. this was deffinately a lot different to the eaves we do at work but still not really hard. the only part that i thought could really make things hard was the bottoms of the rafters. That is because all the rafters are a different width it is only a couple of mm and is allowed for with the birds mouth the only thing wrong with that is the way its done makes all the tops level. leaving the bottoms all over the place.

28/05/08

Yesterday we started our roof. We started off by setting up our scaffold and getting our joists on. We made sure the joists were couple with the already set out rafters. After all the joists were on we then cut a heap of trimmers. The trimmers are designed to go between the joists over the walls to lock the walls in and to provide support for the gyprock. Trimmers were also cut to go from the last joist to the wall plate this allows us to keep the joists back away from the hips and valleys. Once the trimmers were done we then measured in a hanger to go through the main room to support the joists. The hanger was nailed to an off cut of joist to get it at the right hieght then the joists were skew nailed to it. After the joists were all shot up we then used metal straps to strengthen the joist up more. the straps are made to be nailed to the joist and the hanger because skew nails wouldn't be strong enough to hold under wieght.

The next step after the cieling was to cut the rafters and we did that by using a bevel and the red roofing book to work out the lengths and cuts. First we started working out and cutting rafters for different angled pitches before cutting them all to suit a 25 degree pitch. Once a few commons were cut and one jack was done a few of us could start pitching while the rest cut more rafters. after there were enough rafters to hold the ridge up i jumped down and cut one of the hips using the red book to work out the length and angle of the cut. I had never used the red book to work out hip lengths before and was suprised by how close it was. Its a bit of a shame the rest didn't work out so well but we aren't finished yet.

21/05/08

Over the last few days we have been installing locks, hanging doors and skirting. So far i have hung the double doors installed the lock and done some skirting but i still have a single door to go. While installing the double doors i came across a few problems and had to try find ways to make things easier for myself without these ways i think it would if nearly been impossible. Installing the lock i thought was pretty easy but was easy to stuff up if your not paying attention or rush. I thought the hardest part was drilling out where the locking piece would sit because if it was on an angle then the door knob would sit off in the other hole and there would be a gap around. Skirting was tricky but with a bit of help from Paul it became easier but time comsuming. Overall i think i have done a pretty good job with these things but with more practise i could do better.

11/04/08

Over the past couple of days we have done quite a bit of work on our form work. We have gone from having all the string lines set up to getting the footings dug and the form work cut out and set up. There wasn't really a lot involved in getting this done but instead we just had to get stuck into it. While doing this i learned quite a bit and thanks to my group listening to paul we were able to make our form work really strong.

When we weren't doing the practical were in the class room doing the construction sequence and we also had a few assessments to get through as well. On wednesday we had a test on powder actuated tools, yesterday we had a test on wall framing and today we had 2 on cladding. In the powder actuated tools test i got 79 percent and i dont know how i did in the others.

08/04/08

Over the last 2 days we have been focusing on form work. To start with we went out the back of the Tafe where there is plenty of room and set up a boundary with a string line and used a fence as the second boundary. After that we decided which plan we were going to follow and put a stake in the ground a few metres from each boundary. We made that the back corner of the house. From that we came forward the overall distance of the house and came in the same distance from the boundary and put a stake. Once we had the 2 stakes it got tricky because the fence at the back wasn't straight so we had to get the 2 overall lengths and use pythagoras to find exactly where the other back corner would sit after that the last point was easy.

Once we had all four points we came back of each stake and put pegs in the ground for hurdles but before we put the cross pieces on we went 170mm up on the hieghest point and then used the level to get them all the same. As soon as the hurdles were up we went about marking exactly where the ouside walls would sit. At first i found it really easy but when we came back and made sure every thing was right we came into problems. We started changing things and in the end it turned out we were changing the wrong things but as soon as the back wall was squared up using pythagoras and everything was adjusted again it all worked out good.

Once the outside walls were done we started putting in more hurdles for the other walls and before long the outline was all stringed out. I felt that i was really switched on during this step but i dont think it would of made a difference if we didn't have pythagoras. i learned that pythagoras is the most accurate way to make a right angle and the bigger the triangle the more accurate still.

22/02/08

Yesterday we spent most of the day working on our cladding. I was Working with Rhys and i thought that we did a good job. We got our pine boards on really quick i believe this is because we got our end stopps on really straight and didn't have to measure all the boards. i also thoght that we did a good job cladding around the window because its a little bit tricky. when we had put a few boards on i compared it to the last wall and even though i think the ceddar boards look good i thought the pine looked just as goo because we had taken the time to pre drill all the holes so there wasn't one crack.

Today we started off in the morning by doing a bit of work on powder actuated tools. I thought that this was easy but at the same time i learned a lot. After some smoko we actually got to go out and fire one of the guns. The gun we fired was an indirect one which means there is a piston between the catridge and the nail. I was the second person to fire it and after the book work i was a bit nervous. After i fired it i was a bit suprised, firstly because it put a nail into concrete and also because the gun was nowhere near as bad as i thought it was gonna be. After that we finished the day by completing the booklet on the powder actuated tools and then organised our portfolio for the wall framing.

21/02/08

Yesterday we started off in the classroom where we talked about our research on different types of cladding. After that we went into the workshop and were shown how to set out a hieght prop which helped us set out the lining boards and the timber cladding. I thought it was good how we took a little bit of time to do this because it made it a lot easier later and it also means you wont get stuck with one little piece later.

Once we were out side we had to put some pieces of timber on the corners. This acts as a stopper and covers the ends of the cladding. After that we put some foil on followed by a strip of timber where the boards went. This is to bring the bottom of the bottom board out. Once we started cladding everything started to go good but we ran out of ceddar boards and had to put in a block and start above it with a sheet.

18/02/08

On Thursday the 14th we started manufacturing our wall frames. We started off by marking out our top and bottom plate. After that we marked out the studs at 450mm max centers remembering to put extra studs where walls join on and leaving gaps for windows and doors.

After everything was marked up we worked out how long the studs would be by getting the total hieght and taking off the hieghts of the top and bottom plate. After that we counted how many studs we would need and cut them. Once they were all cut we started nailing them to the top and bottom plate before measuring the noggings. When we nailed in the noggings we divided up the stud and because it was within 1350mm we just put them in the middle and staggered them so we could still get solid nials in. While someone was nailing noggings the others started cutting sill trimmers for under the windows and then the head trimmers for the tops of the windows and doors. As soon as the trimmers were nailed in we could then cut the jack studs for above and below the doors and windows.

As soon as all that was done we got the frames square by measusing the distance from corner to corner. After the frames was square we could then mark out for the bracing. When doing the bracing we had to remember that it couldn't go through windows or doors, it had to go from the top plate to the bottom plate and had to be between 30 and 60 degrees. If we weren't able to do this we had to use a different method which involved cutting trimmers on a 45 degree angle that went between the noggings. As soon as the trimmers reached a door or window we continued them on the 45 back the other way.

When all the frames were done we could then start the assembly.when we started assembling we choose to start at the back cause it is easier to finish at the front esspecially cause there was no room behind us. The first frame i thought was the hardest cause it had nothing to support it and needed bracing but after that was up it was easy because each from supported the next and we had to use less braces each time.

After all the frames were up we went back and did the final adjustments and made sure eveything was straight and secure. we also put extra trimmers where they were needed and cut out the bottom plates where the doors went.

12/02/08

Today we started off in the classroom. We started off by going over yesterdays home work. I thought that it was really easy even though i struggled to think by the time i got to it last night. For our home work we were given a plan and we had to calculate how much timber we needed to construct the wall frames. After we did that we went outside and began set out for our own wall frames. first of all we had to cut the plates to length and lay them out where they need to be. after that we started marking them. This was a lot easier than i thought it was going to be. After we finished that we had to put some sheets down to finish a bit more of the floor off. I wasn't very helpful during this because i can't lift the sheets with my bad knee, althogh i still managed to cut one and screw a few down. After that we went back into the class room and did a tiny bit more on our drawings. Today i learnt a lot about wall frames that i didn't know before but i still think there isn't much to it.