Sunday, June 22, 2008

The Fence Day 3 and 4 - a pair of strappy hinges



Here's the fence so far, I finished putting on the rest of the stats during the week, it only took a couple hours. I kept the template for the curve from the back fence, it's just an old piece of OSB plywood, with a 10' radius cut in it. It worked well on the longer spans, it doesn't quite look right on the shorter spans though.



Here I am putting on the gate. I tried putting it on earlier, only it was 8" too small. I made it 42" instead of 4'-2" and I had it all sanded, the curve on the top cut and ready to hang this morning. So I had to take it apart, I broke a couple slats taking it apart, plus there were already holes from nailing them on. I decided to use screws instead of the casing nails, since it's a gate and it gets more abuse than the rest of the fence.



Here's a picture of the "strappy hinges". They're 36" wide, and I used 1/4" lag bolts to attach them. There's 6 - 2" screws holding each hinge to the post. The gate is 50" wide, so it needs something, or it's going to sag. The posts don't seem to be quite as stong as I hoped, maybe I should have had 4 posts for the arbour, we'll see how it last, I might have to add more concrete around the sonotubes or something.



Next was the latch, it went on without a lot of problem. It seems like a heavy duty latch, we'll see how it lasts. We put a spring closer on it too, so it doesn't get left open. We still have to do the post caps, and there's a small section to close in against he existing fence. We're going to wait probably a month, before we stain the fence, it's still really wet the wood, it's soaking wet when I drill in to it.



Here's a picture of the old douglas fir table that I stripped, and stained. It looks a lot more glossy in real life. I've been working on the cedar couch as well, hopefully a couple more weeks and it'll be done. Well, not the cushions, since we haven't ordered the outdoor fabric for them yet. Now the fence is there, we're going to start working on the front of the house. I bought new clapboard for the one side, for some reason, it's been removed on one side behind the stone. The stone has been redone on that side too (it's a lot better job too). I think there was an oil tank in the basement, maybe some oil leaked around that side of house, it's been reframed, and the sheathing is new too, as well as the stonework being new. There's a pipe that comes out at the bottom of the wall too, so probably something to do with the oil, seems really low for filling the oil though. We're going coat the foundation wall and finish the draintile around the front. We'd like to redo the pipe to the water main as well, since it's galvanized, and mostly plugged with rust as well, looks like we have our work cut out for us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love what you've done to your place - I check back regularly. I've got a 1912 Edwardian in N. Van and see that you've bought clapboards for the side of your house - where did you find them. I haven't looked that hard but so far can't find anything in siding except cedar...

Derek said...

Our house had cedar clapboard, or bevel siding, maybe I'm using the wrong term. The side hasn't been replaced, it's the original that was covered in stucco. Under the stone at the front, the siding is missing on one side, so we bought siding to replace that, when we remove the stone this summer. What kind of clapboard does your house have? The exterior trim on our house is all douglas fir, which has lasted quite well.