I was up very early and visited the site to measure up the lengths of the internal stud frames.

There is an error of 10 mm in the placement of the internal support columns meaning that one set of frames will be 3890 mm long and the others will be 3910 long.

At the end of the day this will not be noticeable - the most important objective is to keep the hallway parallel and the floor boards within it the same total width.

Friday

I was up very early and visited the site before starting work.

I brought home 28 lengths of timber for milling in to studs for the internal framing. I parked my utility at home in such a way that it was easy to carry the lengths in to the processing area.

I processed each piece one by one - carried it in, examined it, marked it up for the optimum docking dimensions, docked it and stacked it.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

I processed the timbers through the planer/thicknesser.

Some time was lost to fire prevention measures - blowing leaves out of gutters, sweeping, raking up leaves, picking up branches. This work will have to run in parallel with my on going house building efforts.

Wednesday

I assessed each piece of timber.

We did not do a very good job with this lot 8 years ago when Tony M and I selected them at the salvage yard.

Of the 28 pieces, 7 I immediately rejected and did not even bother putting them through the thicknesser.

of the remaining 21 only 3 were absolutely perfect, beyond reproach and immediately classifiable as usable for studs.

The remaining 18 I have stacked ready for Tony M to look at.

He is very conservative in what he lets through but I am hoping that he will pass a few of these ones that I am uncertain about.

I need 40 good studs in all to build the first four, nearly identical, stud frames.

Once I have Tony M assess them then I will know how many trips I need to make out of site to collect raw timber.

hursday

First thing in the morning I visited Tony M for half an hour and had him grade the 18 pieces.

End result 11 good for studs, 3 needing docking in to short studs, 2 usable for bracing only, 2 that can be used in joining studs.

Taking in to account the 3 studs aleady put aside - that give 14 out of 28 yielding studs - ie 50% as before.

That evening after I had finished all the work for my clients I visited site and loaded on another 27 raw timbers for milling.

Friday

During any breaks from work I started processing the timbers.

This lot seems even worse than last week.

Over the ensuing days I immediately rejected 10 out of the 27 pieces.