Tuesday, August 19, 2014

One Step Forward, One and a half back... Shop update

Hi gang! I''m finally going to post a bit about my shop, or at least about one end of it.  I built my shop back a few years back, and I basically 'ran out of steam' when it came to siding it. I  still have some pre-painted OSB product to hang on the one end of the building, I must admit I've been 'bad' and left the outside of the OSB shell open to the elements. Hasn't hurt it so far, but I've decided to git'r'done and finish the siding.

I'm not all that happy working on a ladder to begin with, so I'm certain that one reason I  haven't hauled the sheet goods up to the top of the shop is that I'm not all that interested in testing out how fast I can fall off said ladder with a 1/2 sheet of OSB.  To that end, I've decided to join the pallet recycling movement. I broke down the skids and wound up with a pile of typical pallet wood. I'm only using the top and bottom pieces, which I used my recip saw to cut from the stringers.
 I managed to get about 1/3 of the space filled in with the wood I harvested. I used the wider boards first, then realized that three of the narrower boards would equal two of the wider boards. I filled in as much as I could before the battery went on my drill/driver, leaving one odd shaped hole...



 I trimmed the board roughly to length... then had to trim just a smidge of of the one tab on the end. 





Here's a shot of the hole filled in. I really like the varied patina. I called a buddy of mine when I ran out of boards, and after a quick bite to eat, I headed out to his family business. They make and refurbish pallets. He said they had a bunch of salvaged wood and that I was welcome to pick through and haul away as many as I cared to take. #bonus!

My youngest son Pat and I loaded into the wife's Escape and headed to East Herkimer.

During the afternoon I tweeted about my accomplishment and Dyami Plotke of the Modern Woodworking Association Podcast chimed in, asking why I hadn't put house wrap up on the wall, and wouldn't the OSB rot when moisture got behind the pallet wood.  Being a true nerd at heart my iPhone does push tweets when I'm mentioned by my @artisanboards tag... so I had about 50 miles to think about the whole tyvek thing.

My first knee jerk reaction was to 'say'... it hasn't hurt it in the last 8 years, (as you can see, the OSB is well faded), but then I realized that I was Being a Jerk.  SO on my way home, I took some Birthday $ and bought one roll of 3' high Tyvek. Sheesh was that expensive, there is house wrap/Tyvek on the lower section of the shop, but I hadn't purchased any recently... $50 later...

so +Dyami Plotke you 'shamed me'  into doing the right thing. Since I'm 'finishing' the shop I might as well do it as well as I am able to within my very limited budget. Tomorrow morning I will climb back Up the ladder, and remove those boards from the shop. Then (presuming I can find the bag of special plastic tabbed nails, (I Think I know where they are, but don't quote me),   I will tyvek the wall, and then reinstall the boards. If I don't have the nails, I will simply staple the tyvek up, as It will be immediately covered with the pallet wood siding.  If I have any energy left after that, I've got another 5 or 6 skids worth of material to sort through and cut apart. I figure that I Might get the North wall (shown) completed with what i brought home tonight.



2 comments:

  1. Ned,
    Sorry to shame you. Though I am glad you're going to add the house wrap. While I am a huge fan of OSB, one thing it does not do well is hold up to weather. When left exposed it ages, but at least it can dry. With the siding installed, water would get trapped between the OSB & the siding, greatly accelerating the rot.

    Sorry to give you more work, but I hope the finished product now lasts you a lot longer.

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  2. You did me a big favor... that poor OSB has seen 8 central NY winters... about time it gets a good wrap and then something else to cover it. I was up on the ladder today (yesterday, as I'm writing this at oh-dark hundred) removing the already installed boards when mother nature decided it was time for a serious gully washing storm. I ignored the thunder as long as I could, but there's still half of the boards to pull down. I have the wrap in the shop, and if it doesn't rain tomorrow (today?) I will get the rest down, then wrap and re-install.

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