Saturday, May 17, 2014

Ticking Away


She's really starting to come together.  The rafters are nicely lined up like so many ribs on a whale.  Notice the stubby rafter tails.  I'm not able to have much of an overhang running the length of the trailer due to the 8'6" road width restriction.  With the trailer being 14' in length, I decided to install a pair of fly rafters on either end to support a one foot overhang, which extends the trailer length to 16' overall.  By doing this I'll have a little overhang protecting the door opening and window above the loft and I'll be making use of the full length of plywood sheets.    


Now that the framing phase is more-or-less complete, there are dozens of details to tick away at.  I need to figure out how to cut plywood to sheet the triangle of space on the gable end walls.  I'll also have to figure out how to finish the rafter ends before I put plywood on the roof.  Should I cut bird blocking or make a soffit?  And then there are mysterious siding and window details that need to be determined to keep the home building progress rolling along.

Today I set to figuring out how to frame around the wheel wells.  I was worrying over it, but it actually went together pretty smoothly.  So far I'm glad I decided not to have fenders installed on my trailer.  In my opinion, the fender openings have been a weak point in the design of many micro houses that I've observed.  The factory-installed fenders appear to create conduits for moisture, vermin, insects, and air to work on the structure.  There are probably some clever solutions that I just haven't seen yet.  With my design, I will have to fabricate a fender at some point.  I'm still not clear on the details of that, but after Nate showed me how to work sheet metal into desirable shapes for the undercarriage, I feel confident that I can do something similar for the wheel wells.

I may be finding my stride with the construction process.  Whereas before I was obsessing over decisions and overly concerned about putting things together with perfection, these days I've been approaching building with a little more calm and acceptance of a certain amount of error in the process.  The solutions to the framing problems I've encountered have mostly been intuitive.  I hope this continues to be the case!

I've been steadily nailing off my sheeting when I feel like beating metal spikes into wood with a manly mallet.  Sinking nails can be a pretty satisfying activity.  These days the art of swingin' a hammer is giving way to the efficiency of pneumatic nail guns.  With the meager size of my mansion though, I could indulge my old school tendencies.  You can see by the photo, it isn't always smooth sailing.  Sometimes I was inexplicably off, leading me to pull mangled, half-sunken spikes with embarrassing frequency.  Look at that total airball that I imprinted into the plywood for all to see.  And look at that blood blister on my finger!  It was hot and I got sloppy.   Other times the pounding never stopped.  I was like a machine I tell you...a machine!  I thank middle school table tennis tournaments for the hand-eye coordination.  

I decided not to glue my sheeting to the studs at this point in time.  I'm using 8d galvanized nails at about 6" on the edges and 8" in the field.  If I feel like the walls need more rigidity in the future, I might run some sort of construction adhesive or thickened epoxy down the inside of the studs at a later date.  A lot of folks are "screwing and gluing" their walls.  I have a tough time with that because I like the notion that I can deconstruct the materials if I need to.  Maybe it won't pan out but I'm an idealist.  

The quality of fasteners seems to vary a lot.  Initially I bought my 8d nails from the hardware store in bulk.  I went with "common" rather than "box" nails because I reasoned the former were thicker and would both bend less going in and provide more shear strength.  It didn't work out so well for some reason.  I bent a lot of them, used them up, and returned for more.  The second time around I went contractor-style and purchased a 50lb box of 8d galvanized "box" nails, which I bicycled home with great difficulty (not recommended).  These went in easier and I wasted very few.  I felt manlier too!  I even took my shirt off at one point and got into it (that is until the neighbor complained of the glare coming off my chest).  Galvanized probably aren't necessary.  I was thinking holding power and rust protection.  


A shout out to the humble impact driver.  What a work horse!  I now sleep with mine under my pillow.  These little guys make a terrible noise but are capable of great torque with minimal effort.  Screws are much more expensive than nails and, as I understand, they provide better holding power than nails but less shear strength.  I decided to frame with a robust 3" coated deck screw.  I'm glad I did because with the number of mistakes I make, I can use my impact driver to quickly assemble and disassemble framing without inflicting the sort of damage that sinking and removing nails can cause.  For the lonely carpenter, an impact driver can also act as a third hand.  By starting a screw in the material, and then placing the piece with one hand and screwing it in with the other, I'm able to work through those awkward moments when another humanoid is unavailable to help.

Oh!...a final tip:  leave the Phillip's head screws on the shelf for Grandpa to use.  Go with star drive.  They strip out less and take much less energy to push into the material.  They are simply a joy to use, again and again and again.

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