In other less expensive news...

I spent my day today working through my list of things to do this weekend, now that I can’t actually get any real visible building done.

First cab off the rank was the formwork panels - I cut all the steel for these last weekend after the Hilux rescue and took them home to Yarraville to weld during the week, and these came out pretty well. However, the ones I welded a week or two ago on site were not quite as accurately assembled, and once the form ply was screwed onto the frames there was a slight wave where the steel bracing was a little off alignment. There was only a millimetre or two in it, but it was enough to be visible (to me at least and I’d see the flaws in the wall every day) so I ground those braces off and rewelded them.

Much better (so says the perfectionist me).

So now I have four formwork panels, which I’m hoping will be enough to allow me to build the walls to full height, by leapfrogging the lower panel up above the upper one. Time will tell whether the rammed wall will be strong enough to support itself while being rammed above…

Next job up was to drill the holes for the starter bars for the rammed earth wall. When I built the retaining wall I had to add more starter bars to the ones we cast into the slab, and at that time my old, el-cheapo Chinese hammer drill gave up after two holes and I had to hire a rotary hammer at $48 per half day!

Walking through Bunnings (my home away from home it seems) the other day I spotted another of China’s Finest, a serious looking cast alloy Ozito SDS rotary hammer, for just over $100. At hire rates, that’s cheap.. and it had a 12 month replacement warranty so even if it did die on the job, I could have it replaced. I figure if it survives the first 12 months on this job, it’ll survive a lot longer than that so it has found a home in my arsenal. China’s gain is Seymour Hire’s loss, sadly.

So today I broke the seal on the drill and it sailed through, drilling 40 x 14mm holes in the slab, each 150mm deep. About half of those I hit rebar too, and while that slowed progress a little it chewed through without complaint. Happy.

That’s about where I ran out of daylight unfortunately. I’m seriously not looking forward to the next 6 months as the days get even shorter and much colder…

So tomorrow if I manage to crawl out of bed with the sun, I think I’ll warm up the bobcat and dig this mini-slab for the test rammed-earth wall, then assemble the reo and forms in readiness for my expensive inspection during the week. Or more likely, Coda will wake me up at around 9:00 to be let outside…