I had a lot visitors drop in today - probably 3 hours went on chatting to people.

I enjoy this very much and I am glad they came but it meant that I achieved very little today.

The first job was to patch up the building wrap where I had been forced to cut it. (I had a half hour battle with the nozzle of the sealant cartridge).

I also set up a low level scaffold so that I was not constantly jumping on off a ladder.

I succeeded in installing the last 3 runs up to the top of the window and then tentatively installing the run just above the window. This involved quite a lot of cutting out to fit the plank around the window.

On my next visit I will finalise this run and install the 3 header architraves and flashing before continuing up the wall.

I had to move the datum point upwards - a process that I am still struggling with.

Monday thru Wednesday

No time to do anything, even during work breaks - rushing to complete jobs for my client so that I can take a week off work.

Wednesday evening - I have started sharpening up a set of blades for the thicknesser on the wet stone grinder.

This is a rather slow process so I am hoping to do half an hour every day.

I have been a bit slack and have been occasionally using the thicknesser with blunt blades and slightly rusted infeed and outfeed surfaces - which means a lot of force is required to feed any timber through.

I am now starting to work towards sharpening and polishing everything up.

Thursday

First day off.

I headed down to Toolmart Midvale to pick up a router bit they had ordered in for me.

This will allow me to convert floor boards in to architraves at a fraction of the cost that I am paying to buy new jarrah architrave material from Bunnings.

I picked up kangaroo meusli to feed the 20 odd kangaroos that turn up at our place every evening.

Then on to Bunnings where I bought yet another storage box - there is an increasing tendancy for power tool companies to sell their products in cardboard boxes instead of the high impact plastic boxes of yesteryear.

This means that I end up with a scattering of accessories lying around in perishable containers.

I am working towards getting all these parts in to durable storage boxes with appropriate signage on the front of them so that I can easily find them on a shelf.

I also dropped in to Office Works for some suggestions on how to create and apply durable labels - they mentioned laminating - and this is what Linda helped me with later in the day - printing a sequence of headings ('Saw", "VAC", "Thicknesser", etc) on to A4, laminating it and then slicing it up.

I have attached these labels with just blue tack for the moment and the system appears to be working well.

Finally, around 2 pm, I headed out to site to finalise that latest row of planks (edge priming the raw cut surfaces and adjusting levels) and to set up a better system of scaffolding.

This worked out very well and I headed home at 5.00 pm

Friday

Yesterday's work set me up nicely for today.

A bit of a leisurely start - I had coffe with Ian first.

There were two tricky jobs to complete today.

Firstly, the horizontal architrave at the head of the three windows.

I always find this difficult.

The method I have developed is to mark up a 5mm offset on the staff beading and then clamp two pieces of timber vertically on either side to support the uncut stock architrave timber.

I then carefully mark the offset position against the bottom edge of the timber, markup the 45 degree cuts and put it through the drop saw.

After this, I replace the two pieces of vertical timber with some scraps of architrave cut at 45 degrees and using this support I carefully position the architrave so that it is level.

At this stage I am only fastening the three window head architraves.

The second job is to flash above the head architraves.

I am using some very thin aluminium sheeting for this and folding it up on my "poor man's break pan".

This is fiddly and takes considerable time to do properly.

Once formed up though, it is installed quickly using a few splodges of Sika Flex Pro and some temporary WeatherTex planks to lock it in place.

All of this took me up to 5.00 pm, around about the time that a storm came through.

I packed away all my tools, had some dinner and headed home.