New tool store – day 4

The first job of the day was to attach the two side rails that are there to stiffen the sides. I knew that this would be time-consuming because once again I had to hold screws on the outside while tightening the nuts on the inside, but having worked out how to do this single handedly I got the job done, albeit taking longer than if I’d had a helper. But I thought that I’d do it by myself because this was the last job that could have done with assistance and from then on it should be plain sailing working single-handedly.

After that it was time to fit the door trim. Unfortunately I found that the door jam on one side was slightly damaged and it was a pity that I didn’t notice this at the time because the manufacturer willingly replaced a couple of damaged items that I did tell them about. However, I straightened it the best that I could and as it’s low down on one side, it won’t be too noticeable. Following that came the end pieces, two at each end, that will give the roof its slope.

The last and biggest job of the day was making up and installing the roof beams. Each consists of two halves that had to be bolted together and the central, main roof beam consists of two roof beams joined together, which was a bit tricky as it meant that four pieces of bendy metal had to be held together and secured by four small bolts. But I got it done and then each beam had to go up and be securely fixed in turn, starting with the two smaller beams and finishing with the main one.

At this point I was all ready to fit a couple of end straps before calling it a day when I came across what is the first design error that I’ve encountered. The two straps on the ends of the main beam just could not be fitted as shown in the build manual. It’s no big deal though as all I’ll have to do is drill a couple of new holes in the main beam, one for each strap and then secure them with nuts and bolts as in the manual, but in slightly different positions. But that will be for tomorrow.

Here are the usual end-of-day shots, starting with the front corners.

And now the rear corners.

Here are two shots looking into the building through the front doorway.

And finally a couple of shots taken in the interior.

It’s now looking much more like a proper building and tomorrow should see me raising the roof, a job that I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning. I hope that I manage to get that done even if I don’t get the doors on, because there is a possibility that we will have some light rain in the early part of next week and it’ll be nice if I at last have somewhere dry where I can begin to store things.

I’ve still got the two ‘tounelles’ (small marquee-type tents) that I bought in the early part of the summer under the caravan and when I moved up from the bottom of my land I found that the carton of one of them had been damaged by damp. It didn’t look as though the ‘tounelle’ itself had been damaged, though, but even so I will be much happier when both of them, plus some other items, are in somewhere that has a roof on 🙂