Back to work

Progress on my new cloaks cupboard has been very slow but it hasn’t just been due to messing around with e-bike stuff. I’ve also had setbacks due to poor materials not working as they were supposed to (primarily fixings, which I’ve found to be of poor quality wherever I’ve sourced them from) and availability of items that I’ve needed for the construction.

But I’ve at last got the basic structure in place in the form of the two side-wall wings that create the aperture for the doors and the ceiling cross-beam on which the track will be mounted in which the door rollers will run.

The next job will be to plaster the two side-wings but before that can be done their exposed edges have had to be reinforced with metal edging pieces.

Fixing the edging pieces was quite tricky. The pros use compressed air powered stapling guns and do the job in a matter of minutes. I have a manual stapling gun and thought that would be suitable but it isn’t, so I’ve had to look for another method. I tried plasterboard nails of different lengths but they weren’t effective and I’ve ended up using small zinc plated staples, as shown in the above images.

This was easier said than done and very tedious as each staple had to be gripped in long-nosed pliers and then hammered in. The job took ages but after plastering them, the side-wings will be painted and finished to match the existing walls.

The ceiling mounted cross-beam will not have to support any significant weight as the main supports for the bi-fold doors will be on the floor. I bought a length of square section timber for it with enough height to take the ceiling coving that will finish the unit off, but afterwards decided to increase its depth by glueing and screwing a second piece of timber to it.

The fixings holding it to the ceiling plasterboard proved to be particularly problematic as three out of the seven of them failed and I had to spend hours making fixings that worked. The following shots show each of the cross-beams ends.

As well as working on the cloaks cupboard I’ve also spent some time today playing hard-ball with the supplier on which I placed an order yesterday for a new e-bike. I’m not prepared to wait for delivery of a more expensive bike with ‘extras’ and would be happy with the one on the Cdiscount web site, the more so as Cdiscount are offering me an additional discount voucher as a result of my previous purchases.

I told the Chinese supplier that I wanted to cancel the order and they accused me of breaking my word, which after my recent experiences I thought was a bit rich coming from a Chinese supplier on Aliexpress. The supplier took umbrage and I went ahead and cancelled it anyway.

Now I’ll have to wait for up to 48 hours to ensure that the cancellation goes through and I am ensured of a refund of the sums I’ve paid before going ahead and ordering the less expensive bike on Cdiscount. I just hope the offer stays available in the meantime.