ElKego's Blog

Parner in Crime, aka ElKego, aka KEG has started his own blog. www.elkego.blogspot.com

PIC has tackled (and is tackling) much grander rennoavtion and modification in his gaff than we have to date. He is also a great source of advice and support with many of our mad plans, although some might say he's resposible for hatching some of our mad plans.

KEG blog is mostly in Norwegian, but do not fear English speakers. KEG is a man of few words and many pictures (does that then make him a man of many thousand words?!?). Regardless of language, I thoughrougly recommend a visit! The links in the sidebar for future referance.

Spring?

Little more than a week ago we were out tidying the garden ready for a new growing season. The earliest flowering bulbs were beginning to open and we were excitedly watching the newly planted (in the Autumn) tulips and crocuses in the circular flower bed at the end of the lawn appearing.

Thursday last week it began to Snow and didn't stop until Saturday. Here's how it looked as we left for a fine Easter feed at the in laws chalet on Good Friday.

On Saturday night, it was down to -13.4 Deg C and hasn't been above freezing since.

On Sunday I took the oppurtunity to get snow chains on the David Brown and mostly for my own entertainment (and good experience) moved some snow about.

A few photo's of attaching snow chains on More-Power here.

On Monday it snowed a fair bit and even more Today. The weather forecast says that in a couple of days the temperatures will creep over freezing, but not much. Looks like I'll be waiting a bit longer before I can properly get to work in the garden.

Baby Room Part 6 - Prep and Paint.

The baby room will have (well has already actually, still playing blog catch up) 2 walls painted and 2 walls with wall paper.

Preperation for painting and papering is pretty simple, all that's involved is a little filler on the joins of the panels that will be wallpapered, filler in all of the staple holes and a little flexible filler/sealent stuff in the corners.

Something like this.



I did make the job a little more difficult for myself when I cocked up with measuring the last panel and ended up with a couple of extra joins to fill. Somehow I measurde 103cm but wrote down 113cm. It must have something to do with this metric business, if I had been working in inches it would never have happened!

Still, it turned out OK in the end.



Painting the walls involved 1 undercoat followed by 2 top coats. The first top coat was rolled on and then smoothed out with a brush to give a real wood effect, the second top coat was brushed on.



The walls for wallpaper got a primer of watered down wallpaper adhesive to seal them.

Baby Room Part 5 - Wall Panelling

Much the same technique as the ceiling, but bigger and more unwieldy panels and doors and windows to work around.





The job progressed pretty quickly, the only 2 delays were preparing holes for the cables (light and sockets) and when I found out that the back wall wasn't verticle. I had to build this out a little at the top so that the back wall lined up with the verticle lines in the panelling.

Baby Room Part 4 - Ceiling

The last couple of weeks have been one of those times that there's been so much to blog about that I havn't had time to blog.

Anyway, there has been loads of progress in the baby room. After solving the bathroom problem it was back to work. After attaching a layer of plastic to the ceiling and outside walls (to stop condensation) I was ready to get the ceiling boards up.



With both the instructions that I recieved and the nail gun I borrowed from the neighbour the job went pretty quickly and the result was more than satisfactory.

Bathroom Mods Part 4 - Testing

Err, Where's Wally?



It seems that it doesn't take much bubble bath to make loads of bubbles when you start the pump... Despite all the bubbles, everything worked exactly as it should. I have to say we're both really pleased, 4 days from purchase to completion and we've ended up with a way better solution to the problem than we had originally planned.

I've also had a request for a photo of the finished article, so hear it is. Difficult to get a pitcure of it all in one go, this is the best I could do.

Bathroom Mods Part 3 - Solving the height issue

The offending article,

which connects the back of the shower unit to the post which supports the glass. This piece takes the height of the unit over the 215cm available and as well as adding structure, houses the main shower head, and the hose that connects to the sideways sprays in the post.

Since the top of the post is just under 215cm from the floor my cunning plan was to do away with the monstousity above and replace it's function with the ceiling.

First I had to re-route the hose to the side sprays. I acheived this by drilling a hole in the middle of the bottom post mount.

Then another behind the shower unit so that I could route the hose down, under and up again. Luckily it was just long enough so I didn't have to extend it.

My first attempt was to screw the top post mount directly to the ceiling and attempt to jack the adjustable feet up to fit the post into it. I found that I was at the end of the thread on the feet so I needed to lower the mount. Which I did as shown below, to make, what Mrs VL reckons is a Dorian pillar....

This worked a treat and I managed to get the bath adjusted level, made a bracket to fix it to the wall and seal between the unit and the wall with some silicon.

The final part of the equation was the solution for the main shower head, a bit of chrome pipe and a couple of elbows and le-voila, job done!

The wooden bit will get a coat of white gloss when as soon as I paint something white in the baby room!

Saw Modifications Part 4 - Just needs a lick of paint now.

Here, as promised are the photo's of the finished saw modifications. It will get a clean, rust treatment and a lick of paint at some point in the coming months. Now that it's inside and in the dry, that can wait until a suitable time when it's a bit warmer out.



The stiffening piece, probably totally unneccesary, was welded on at the end of the last session, before attaching to the tractor for the first but after it was too dark to take photo's.



All in all, I'm very pleased with the result and it's turned out pretty much exactly as I had hoped. I am not yet sure if the DB will be able to lift it high enough, I havn't tried. Yes, it does stick out a long way to one side. I had to make allowance for the off-centre weight distribution. I will just have to be careful when I move it around, not exactly as though I'm going to take it far.

Bathroom Mods Part 2 - Retreival.

Apologies to those of you who have been hanging on the edge of your seats waiting for a bathroom update (and I'm sure there are many.....). Loading up pictures to blogger decided to be tempermental on Sunday and Monday evening. Finally, here is the next installment, hopefully shortly followed by the next (and the one after that).

Thursday evening last week I went to start the dismantling process. I had chosen to do this myself as the ladies husband was out on an oil platform and wasn't going to be home to do the job himself before the middle of this week. I didn't mind the extra work, working on the principle that it would be much easier to put together again if I had dismanlted it myself. As an added bonus I got the hoses to connect it to the water supply thrown in for my trouble.

I had taken the Volvo for the occasion and with the back seats down managed to transport the bath unit and all bits and pieces excluding the shower part and the bath surround.

One of the neighbour's sons kindly helped me to get the bath part up the stairs, here it is in the bathroom (Standing on end for cleaning purposes).



Most of the other bits and bobs.



I picked up the shower unit and bath panel on Friday evening and also purchased the few fittings I needed to complete the installation.



By the end of Friday evening, after a quick floor scrub, the two main parts were sealed and bolted together. All ready for connection to water, preliminary testing and installation on saturday.

Baby Room Part 3/Bathroom Mods Part 1 - New Shower/Bubble Bath

You may well ask, why does fixing up the baby room involve installing a new shower in the bathroom. Well, I've said it before, that one project leads to another, and I'll say it again.

On removing the panelling on the wall that is between the baby room and the bathroom we found out that our bathroom, which is supposed to be a wet room, is not 100% watertight. There's a small but all the same significant leak somewhere in the corner of the shower area. Wet rooms are suppose to have a waterproof membrane behind any walls/tiles, needless to say, this is nowhere to be seen.

After unsucessful attemts with some silicon sealant we decided the only 100% safe solution was to install a shower cabinet. The cheapest shower cabinets available are seam to be around 4000,- Kroner, a lot of money for a quick fix which will be thrown out in a few years when we re-do the bathroom properly!

Today, this appeared on Finn.no, Norways internet market place. It's the full pack, Bubble bath with 7 nozzles, back massage and seperate foot massage facility. Integrated shower with handheld shower head,shower head in the roof and 3 side nozzles. 3 years old. New Pris 21,000,- Kr.

You may well ask, why on earth I knowingly have purchased a bath/shower unit that's 225cms high when the bathrooms only 215cms to the ceiling. As ever, "I HAVE A CUNNING PLAN"

Saw Modifications Part 3 - Over Engineering

The pathetic 10 Amp fuse which all lights and sockets in the garage are currently connected to isn't man enough for the welder on full power so I had to place the saw within extension lead reach of the Sockets in the car port.



Positioning and welding on the already produced frame for the bottom hydraulic arms went easily and quickly.



The original "sketches" drawn up with London Son had a very simple rising vertical piece from the middle of this frame for the top arm. Having slept on this for a few nights and seen that most other equipment has a triangle arrangement I was beginning to have doubts. When I measured and found out that I had enough steel I changed my plans. After a few hours of semiconsious thought during the nights leading up to the weekend, the construction details were clear in my head.



One problem with building from a design which is only in my head and not thought through on paper is that angles are rarely correct first time. It took me a coulple of cuts to get this triangle to sit squarely in the correct position (I had to allow room for the belt gaurd (taken off in all but the first photo). No major problems, but with the thickness of the steel I did get through a few 9" cutting discs on my big angle grinder.



More cutting and many Km's of welding wire later and it was starting to look the business. I did more or less complete the job that evening and the saw is now in the top barn attached to the Zetor, but as it was too dark to take pictures at that time you'll have to wait for Part 4 for the final photo's.

Baby Room Part 2 - Cutting to length

Saturday morning dissapeared to an extended visit to the local builders shop. This was confounded by being relatively new to the whole wooden house thing and getting, I think it's fair to say, poor guidance from the sales assistant.

Finally we settled on ready painted white ceiling panelling, which although it was on offer for Friday only, I perseuded them that since I took monday of it was only Friday so we got this at the offer price. Then we went for unpainted panels (Saturdays offer!) that are profiled to look like panelling for two of the walls and fibre boards, which will be wall papered over for the other two walls.

I ran down in the ever faithfull landrover to fetch this lot, taking my chance with the changable weather, as the 120cm wide fibre boards had to go on the roof.

On Sunday afternoon, after moving the saw, but before I set to work on it (so this post is in sequence), I unloaded this lot and took the oppurtunity to cut it all to the correct length before stacking it up in the house.



Many thanks to partner in crime (who now has his own blog, www.elkego.blogspot.com, more on that later) for lending me one of his "Rettholt"s, the long aluminium guide, invaluable when doing long cuts with the circular saw. If any of you can tell me what a rettholt is in English I would be most appreciative!



So with it all cut to length, it's now stacked up down stairs in the warm, where it is advised to leave it for a few days before it's all put in place. A nice man will be lending me his compressor and nail gun, maybe even from tommorrow evening. Ceilings first thing to go up, who knows, maybe it's done and dusted by this time tomorrow!



Floor, coving, skirting and trim around the door and window will be another visit to the builders suppliers.

Saw Modifications Part - 2 Moving

I had a very successful day with the saw on Sunday, but due to time constraints now, I'll blog it one bit at a time!

The original plan was to work on it in situ, but after some thought, considering gas, extension leads, wet grass and all the rest I decided to move it. As you can see from the photo's, with the right equipment the task was easy.

One!



Two!



Three!



And an "In-Tractor" Shot for good Measure.