Dining Room Cabinets & Bookcase Part 7

Back to the cabinet....back! I'm making the back panel from three separate pieces of plywood. The central strip is 42" wide, and the pieces at the sides are about twelve inches each. This is with the first piece fitted:

With the central piece added:

All done:

The three back panel sections will be joined with biscuits - this is not really necessary from a strength perspective, but helps with alignment and also helps with my reputation for over-engineering at every  opportunity. I can put a piece of tape across the join, and mark where I want to put biscuits:

The tape can be cut by sliding a razor blade between the plywood panels:

...and biscuit slots can be cut accurately at both panels:

Similar methodology was used to cut slots in the central section of the back panel..

...and at the bookcase:

This was one of the more difficult glue ups. The next couple of pictures were taken the following day:

There is a lot of fine glue residue inside the bookcase which needs to be sanded off, but otherwise it is looking in very good nick.

Fixin' The Deck Part 9

It has been a little over four (4) months since I last worked on the deck. Most of that time it has been raining, or I have been busy with commitments such as Goodguys and what not. Or both. Not to mention that this project is not something you can work on for an hour or two here and there. When I left off, the week before Christmas, I made a sloped plywood bridge between the remaining section of the roof and the new deck, and I was optimistic that this would be waterproof. It mostly worked.

This is how the deck looked when we got back from the Christmas vacation:

Water was ponding at the ends of the longest boards, which I wasn't bothered about because these areas were incomplete...

...and at the boards that I thought were finished - which definitely was concerning:

Ponding water = leaks in the garage. After about three months, the garage ceiling checked out:

By this time there was mold all over the outside wall...

....and fungus growing on the garage floor:

So, fast forward to last weekend, and hey presto, back to it! We took a couple of days off work either side of the weekend, so we had a solid 4 day stretch to move the project forward. The first morning was lost to stocking up on provisions and finishing up a few work-related things and then it was full speed ahead.

The boards have to come up one at a time, starting with the one that was installed most recently. We stacked the first half dozen loose boards on the remaining section of the original roof, and then just slid each additional board in that direction. The last few went on top. The deck doesn't look that much different at this stage.

 

We kept a total of eleven boards - the first eight are fine and slope (and drain) correctly. The next three are very close to the correct slope and we couldn't get them out in one piece anyway, so they will be staying by default.

After that, we took a break and then began the tedious process of re-installation. Essentially this consists of measuring the slope, correcting as necessary - we're aiming for at least 1/8th of an inch per foot - and then installing the board and re-checking the slope...and making additional adjustments as needed. And rinse and repeat. The next photo was taken after three boards have been very carefully re-installed and the slope checked and re-checked. That was as far as we got on the first day.

The rest of the time was spent doing much the same, interspersed with taking lots of short breaks inside the house. The heat wasn't exactly overbearing, but it was warmer than would have been ideal. At least it wasn't raining!  

Made it past the first corner...

One third done....

Made it to the apex...

There was a LOT of measuring with the laser level, adjusting and re-measuring...

Creeping toward the next corner...

You would not know it from the next photo, but the last board we installed was the narrow L-shaped section that goes (just) past the corner of the office. The next dozen or so boards were just placed in position without correcting the slope. 

Which looks like this from further away:

Next time out we have about a dozen more boards to install (correctly), and then it will be time to remove the last bit of the original roof....