My place

57, Front Steps, part two.

2011-07-13T12:48:00.008+10:00

Back to the stairs themselves, next, one step at a time, I set up boxing on the substructure and, again in small batches, mixed enough concrete to form each tread. I concentrated on the upper flight first, as the area below the central landing proved to be of a height suitable for a working platform and about the limit for comfortably pushing the loaded wheelbarrow up to.

The work progresses, most of the top flight is done as well as the side landings.

Ready for the Concrete for the central landing.
Being a typical Victorian winter, (which we hadn't seen for a number of years, owing to the drought!), there weren't too many days that were free from precipitation. This made it necessary to keep fiddling around, arranging temporary covers to work under and to protect the uncured concrete.

With the upper parts done I could then fill in the bottom section. A change of plan, (how unusual for me!), now included outward curves to the lower outer wing walls. This pushed the structure beyond the existing footings. To accommodate this, I excavated more footings alongside, epoxied a number of starter bars into the main mass, heavily reinforced the lot and formed it all together with the lower steps. I don't think that there will be any differential movement.

The concrete structure, all completed, after about 4 months of toil. A tally of the used 20kg cement bags came to 135. This does not include any that may have been blown away by the wind, into the dam or onto the neighbours properties. The conservative guesstimate for the total amount of concrete used, is in the order of 14 cubic meters.
There is much work still to be done, the bullnosed bluestone steps, about 350mm wide and 170mm thick, are yet to be cut, shaped and fitted. This will be done at a much later stage, but, I now have good access to the ground floor, making it a lot easier to work on, for the fitting of flooring, window's etc.

56, Front Steps, part one.

2011-06-13T02:32:00.019+10:00

Most of my time from late October until March was spent doing internal work, altering the girls room to give them more space. With this taken care of, and with my holidays approaching in late March, I sat down and came up with a final design for the front stairs for the house. The access to this area has been a bit of a problem during the build, as the ground level at the front lies about 2.3 meters below the house floor level. The original plan was for a single flight but it became fairly apparent that this was not going to be practical or aesthetically pleasing.
My inspiration for the design was from a house that I had previously photographed in Hobart, Tasmania in 2005;

In 2008, when I headed over Bass Strait to purchase my little Kubota mower I relocated the house and gained permission from the more than helpful owner to take a closer look and get some better pictures.
The design, with the incorporation of three landings, resulted in a fairly large footprint and not wanting to risk any future movements to cause any breaking of the, yet to be sawn, stone treads, I over engineered the foundations and substructure.

When my holidays arrived, I got underway. The trenches, I dug by hand to more than a meter deep to ensure a solid foundation in the clay subsoil, the spoil being carted well out of the way to a low spot elsewhere in the yard. A lot of backfill will eventually be required when retaining walls have been constructed, but would be a nuisance and in the way at this stage.

With my intention to mix the concrete by hand, I poured the main footings in two stages. Firstly, I partially filled the trenches, to within about about 450mm of the ground surface, with blinding concrete. Next, I fabricated the reinforcing steel work, bending and welding the 16mm bar into sections ready to be tied together in situ.

As 3 to 4 cubic metres of concrete required for each of the 2 stages of the footings, (blinding and main), sufficient supplys of aggregate, sand and cement were required. I am fortunate, to have in the area, quarries that supply the local Gherang Gravel directly. The gravel, which normally contains a lot of clay is generally used for roads and driveways. However, when it is extracted from the pits, some pockets are found which are free of the clay. This is suitable to be used with only the addition of cement to form a good mix. Costing about 15 to 25 dollars for a loaded trailer, depending on the mood of the operator at the time, it is also very economical.

At the end of a long day, after mixing on my own, over 3 meters of Concrete, the foundations are done!.

Rising out of the ground, more concrete was mixed, this time in smaller doses. I formed a series of criss crossing beams, still being heavily reinforced to ensure the structures rigidity.
The Verandah, I had also redesigned to incorporate a central gable, stepped forward to enhance the whole shape of the structure. This necessitated the rebuilding of a portion of the base stonework to accomodate the offset. To support this work, I formed a heavily reinforced concrete beam, set into the existing wall and bearing on the original foundations.
By now, my holidays were over and the above photo is what I had to show for them!

Stone quoins were required for the offset. This occupied a considerable amount of my time in their preparation, owing to their size and the dressing of the margins.

With the stone ready, I was then able to get on with the job of reconstructing the wall. I used concrete bricks below finished ground level and in the infill area, which will be covered by the steps. Although dismantling already completed work is very frustrating, the existing stonework on this wall was among the earliest that I had laid, therefore it was also among the roughest. So, replacing this with much neater work was certainly a consolation.

To be continued.....

55, Where have I been?.

2011-06-12T23:49:00.005+10:00

In the months since my previous post, most of my "computer" time has been spent working on the digitising of my slide collection. This was made possible following my acquisition of a good quality, dedicated slide/film scanner, purchased from the U.S.A. via EBay.
The subject matter of the vast majority of my accumulation of images is rail related, ie. trains!. From an early age I was captivated by the atmosphere of the Australian rail systems, with an ambiance of a working museum along with some fascinating architecture.
As I could see the decline in the network accelerating, it was obvious that the future was not going to be too kind with this part of our heritage. I photographed extensively from the mid '70,s to the mid '80,s, when corporatisation and rationalization took a firm hold and "sterilised" the whole scene. I was particularly interested in the vanishing branch lines, their very nature, through reasons of economy, prevented them from much modernization. My travels, with camera in hand, took me to all Australian mainland states, with the exception of Western Australia, but my heart remained in Victoria. Here, I gained employment with the "Victorian Railways" at the start of 1977 and, with the exception of a sojourn in the Building industry, I am still there, currently working for the current suburban franchise operator; "Metro trains" as a Train Driver.
I regularly upload some of my better pictures to; http://www.flickr.com/photos/24609616@N05/ pending a decision on a more permanent site. Other images, more related to the rail infrastructure, I have submitted to the "When there were stations" site, an ongoing work in progress.
An interest has also been shown to have some included in a couple of publications, the first, soon to be released by Nick Anchen, from Sierra publishing, is about Victorian Enginemen.

A more relevent posting, detailng my progress on the front steps for the house, will be up soon.

55, Sill(Cill)(s) 2.

2010-10-16T19:11:00.010+11:00

As fortunate as I was in the procurement of the window sills, (or cills if you prefer to spell them that way, I still can't make up my mind!), I was still left 1 short. This was needed for the side window in the main bedroom. The profile of my sills is a little different to the standard variety usually found in this part of the world. The shoulders on either side junction at a sharp 90 degrees with the upper sloping surface whereas on the common garden variety, of which I also have a small stockpile, they are concaved.
Not wanting to mix and match the sills on the house or cannibalise one of my other ones, I decided to make a new one from scratch.

The smallest stone in my collection with enough length to provide a sill of the required size, was, in a previous life, a capping stone. It came off the abutment of a small bridge located on the railway line near Little River, situated about mid way between Melbourne and Geelong. It was rendered obsolete many years ago when all the bridges and culverts along this line were strengthened, carried out by replacing the steel decks with new steel reinforced concrete ones. This necessitated the removal of the upper courses of stone and the installation of cast in situ concrete bearers.

Firstly I removed the rough back of the stone and then sawed off a slice about 5mm thick, (seen on the bench on the right). This was to ensure the soundness of the block, any unseen cracking would certainly become apparent on a piece this thin. Being happy with the result I then removed a suitable slab, cutting it about an inch thicker than needed to allow for final trimming.

I was a bit annoyed to find that a drill hole had been made into the base of the stone at some stage, for no apparent reason. The bulk of the original block, just shy of 600kg had made it a bit impractical to roll it over for a visual inspection. The hole ran about 3/4s of the way through and my saw cut had passed right across it. Fortunately though, with its angle and depth I was able to locate it within the waste area of the top bevel.

With the block positioned at the correct angle I then proceeded to make consecutive cuts about 1/2 an inch apart to remove the bulk of the waste.

The fingers were then broken and chiselled off.

The blade was then dropped slightly and the face tidied with the blade being moved sideways 1/16 of an inch after each pass.

With the bevel completed, the next step was to form the step to the front vertical face of the shoulders. I removed the bulk of the waste with a small angle grinder and then chiselled the surfaces true. Having completed these I then chiselled out the rebate to house the timber window sill at the top edge of the bevel.

Having all the upper profiles completed, the sill could then be trimmed to its correct dimensions. I started with the front face which received the same treatment as the bevel using consecutive saw cuts to emulate a tooled finish. This process testing out my sanity with a steady, continuous and monotonous 2 hours of back and forth for each face.

The Back, Head and Bed were next, with normal saw cuts sufficing.

The drip groove under the overhang could now be formed, taking care to stop short of the ends.

After some light chiselling to remove the radial saw marks on the seen areas of the trimmed ends it was ready to go!

3 days toil later and it's in its final resting place.

54, Enough scaffold!

2010-09-23T20:50:00.007+10:00

Following the purchase of the scaffold frames in February, I received the call I had hoped for in mid March. A scrap metal dealer in Laverton had for resale, a large number of steel planks. The asking price of $400 per 50 2.4meter planks had me making a couple of trips to transport about 110 of them home. These included a number of 1.8m planks, needed to make the correct run lengths. Many of them had seen better days and with a few nights spent in the shed with my welder, I was able to bring them back to a serviceable standard.

Now that I had enough gear I was able to completely encircle the whole house and have enough frames to take me up to final roof height. My tube and clip stuff mainly being used to support the temporary roofing over the work areas.

With the scaffolding taken care of I could get back to the stone laying. The aim at this stage is to raise the first floor walls to window cill height, about 600mm above floor level, around the entire perimeter. This is to allow the temporary roof, covering the ground floor timber framing, to be flashed sufficiently to prevent water entry. It will also, hopefully, enable me to seal the completed work sufficiently to prevent spark and ember entry in the event of a bushfire.

The East wall coming together. The limestone string course had to be stepped and broken, (just visible behind the inclined steel plank,) to allow for the stepped flashing over the existing roof.

For added strength I used a high proportion of full width tie stones for the first course above the limestone string course and reinforced concrete beam.

53, Helping out.

2010-08-18T14:20:00.008+10:00

During July I was able to assist a friend, Steve, by cutting for him some 40mm thick slabs. These were to cap off some rubble stone retaining walls that he was in the process of constructing in the backyard of his and Maryanne's house in Footscray.
I had a large rock in my collection that was to be surplus to my requirements, as, externally it showed a texture that varied greatly from that which I was using. Steve was happy to use it, regardless of the texture, so I picked the 2 tonnes of it up with the loader and moved it next to the shed and power supply.

We first split the stone the easiest way across its width using the plugs and feathers. This proved to be a bad mistake for me, as the texture proved to be, for the most part, of very fine grain. Had we split it lengthways I would have been able to use it to provide me with 4 decent window sills or steps and I would have found another rock for Steve. Oh well, too late now!

The next step was to halve those pieces again to create more manageable blocks of about 250kg to load onto the saw.

These blocks I then sawed to the 300mm slab width that was required.

... and then laid these over to saw the 40mm slabs. I squared the ends of some pieces and left the rest at their full length for Steve to cut and mitre as required to fit.

The (almost) finished product! Job well done Steve!.

52, More scaffold!!!

2010-03-02T02:08:00.005+11:00

My constant perusing of eBay, once again, paid off and I scored myself another deal. This time it came in the form of a quantity of scaffolding. A large number of steel "H" frames comprised the listing and were compatible with the frames that I already have. I negotiated a cash price per frame on the condition that I take the whole lot.
There was, however, one small drawback with the purchase. By road they were about 930km distant, in Liverpool, just out of Sydney.
I obtained a couple of quotes for transport to Melbourne of $600 and $650, which, to me sounded excessive, especially considering that I would still need to transport them the remaining 100km home. Having a third party pick up the frames would also have further drawbacks, as I needed to pay the seller in cash for all of the frames, the exact number not being determined until they were sorted and loaded.
Unable to procure a small truck for a reasonable price and all other options exhausted, I hitched up a trailer to my van and set off.

It was a pleasant drive and got me away from the place for a couple of days. The van, as in the above photo, paused for lunch on the return trip at Violet town was itself loaded inside with about a tonne. It handled it well, albeit a bit slow up some of the hills.

2 days, $305 of diesel fuel, 1 flat trailer tyre, a $68 overnight stay in a motel in and a couple of meals later I arrived at home. The final purchase totalling 72 frames .
I now have more than enough scaffold to completely encase the whole house, one more hurdle overcome. I am still on the lookout, however, for more steel planking.

51, Ground floor stonework completed. (for good, I hope!)

2010-01-30T12:53:00.005+11:00

The blog's been quiet for a while but the work on the house has continued on relentlessly. After completion of the string course my attention was shifted to the state of the limestone that I had capped the rear wall with for the past ??? years. I had left it uncovered, exposed to all the elements but with a channel formed behind it in an attempt to divert any rainwater. This proved to be a mistake as the water tended to form pools, soaked into the stone and kept it wet, causing it to discolour severely. This was not an issue in the area where the rear balcony was to be located, as these were to be re-laid with bluestone in a similar manner as I had done on the front. The 4 blocks, however, forming the string course at the top of the rear laundry wall, the first section of wall completed, were a different matter and were so badly stained that they needed to be replaced.

Work on the rear wall completed, ready for the balcony.
With only about 60mm of the string course to be seen above the balcony floor level I felt it better to use bluestone here, as the wear and scuffing to be expected in this area would be extremely detrimental to the much softer limestone.

Staining is still evident on the top of the east wall on the right of the photo, this is not as severe as it was on the rear. I am hoping to be able to bleach it out, as I do not wish to have to replace these as well.

The rear wall, now finally re-laid. The stonework can now continue upwards.

The north end of the west wall abutting the existing house. The block work has been arranged to keep the, yet to be installed, step flashings at even increments.

50, Ground floor stonework completed. (for now!)

2009-10-13T13:59:00.010+11:00

Back to the bluestone, it was time to cap off the ground floor stonework. After much thought on how to construct and secure the first floor balcony I finally reached a decision and was able to cut the blocks to suit. The blocks were to be a depth of 165mm and, to help to tie the wall together I cut them 440mm in width, the full wall thickness (excluding timberwork). Where the windows are situated this thickness narrows to 265mm to allow the flooring to extend into the opening.

For these blocks I used some large stones, ex railway platform coping's, as well as one squared stone weighing in excess of 450kg, (which yielded 2 blocks), from my stockpile of "scavenged and hoarded" bits and pieces. As the maximum cut of the saw is 440mm and I wanted the blocks slightly wider for later trimming the last bit of stone was broken apart and cleaned up later.

Once roughly cut I needed to saw a 45deg bevel to one top edge to match that of the limestone in the string course. Rather that adjust the saw for the angle, I found it easier to set up a simple cradle in which to mount the stone.

With the bevel cut accurately it was a simple matter, albeit time consuming, to hand chisel the exposed surfaces. This completed the next step was to cut a rebate in the lower face to allow the flooring to slip slightly under the nosing, this is to enable it to be better sealed to help prevent water egress. Following this, a drip groove was sawn on the bottom to ensure any moisture which does penetrate can be sheeted to the outside, this is of particular concern over the bay windows.

The weight of these completed blocks averaged about 180kgs which raised the problem of being able to gently place them in their final positions. To overcome this I made a lifting clamp specifically for this purpose, with a bracket hooking into the rebate and a pin which locates in a shallow dimple drilled in the back, it worked like a dream. This clamp can be modified down the track to handle any other shaped stones of similar thickness.

A four foot doorstep was also needed, but my stockpile did not include any blocks clean enough to be used "as is" for this purpose, so one needed to be trimmed down. Rather than spend the time hand chiselling, I opted to try a different method, this entailed making successive light saw cuts across the top and front face of the step, simulating a tooled finish. The process took a little longer than I had envisaged. The top, needing a saw spacing of about 1.5mm for a nice finish, took 4 continuous hours to complete, while the face, at 2mm spacing, took 3 hours. The saw blade, by now has had considerable use and the cutting tips have become very rounded. This necessitated the close spacing required to avoid having the corrugations too deep. The lighter blotches visible on the finished step are areas of quartz which naturally occurs in basalt, this tends to fade and discolour over time, becoming much less obvious. I am very happy with the end result and feel it was well worth the effort.

Lifting the blocks to their rough positions.

The lower front wall finally complete, showing the recesses for the upstairs windows.

The almost complete east wall. The top bevel on the limestone in the string course will be trimmed true once the blocks have dried out.

49, The threat of bushfires.

2009-07-30T18:17:00.006+10:00

The cooler Autumn weather and the lifting of the seasonal fire restrictions saw my attention diverted away from the house for a couple of months. The major fires which devastated much of north eastern Victoria, (about 150km away), were of a ferocity and intensity which was unprecedented in this country. Many of us, who were lucky enough to be spared the ravages of these fires were served a far from subtle wake up call. The front end loader and chainsaw were pressed into service and most of the trees in close proximity to and threatening my sheds, fence lines and driveways were removed and the ground rubbish cleaned up. Bonfires were lit and were kept burning non stop for about 7 weeks, to dispose of the tops, stumps and litter.

The bulk of the wood I cut into short pieces suitable for splitting into firewood as it was unsuitable for milling.

Having a friend who, in the 2 years since he procured his explosives licence, has not had the occasion to put it to use, gave us the opportunity to remove one of the more stubborn stumps the fun way. After the placing of 3 sticks of gelignite under the offender only resulted in blowing the dirt away, we drilled 2 holes into it with another stick placed in each. The end result of which is shown in the above photo. Click on this link for the video of the event.

The removal of the native eucalyptus trees threatening the drive also afforded me the opportunity to complete the planting of elm trees to fill the voids in our avenue.
With enough cleaning being done to satisfy me for the time being I was able to re divert my attention back to the house.

Next on the agenda, while I was still set up for cutting bricks, was to form the upstairs bedroom fireplace and raising the stack as high as possible underneath the temporary roofing. The front of the opening is formed to the same dimensions as on the ground floor but the breast needed extra width to provide ample insulation for the flues. This I achieved by stepping the stack out by a 1/4 of a brick and narrowing the internal width of the opening by the same amount.

The completed lounge chimney with the bedroom fireplace and hearth over.

48, More floor joists.

2009-04-19T20:52:00.010+10:00

The fireplace brickwork erected to the joist level for the first floor, the central bed is formed to accommodate the upstairs hearth.

The view down the kitchen flue showing the angles required to bring it over to the upstairs chimney breast.

The need for the remainder of the first floor joists coincided with the arrival of my annual leave from work in late March, it was again time to start making large quantities of sawdust. The kiln and my stockpiles of sawn and previously dried timber needed to be unstacked and sorted, extracting all the lengths of 12 by 2's. These all had to be planed true on one face and edge and then dressed and sized to the finished dimensions of 290 x 45mm.
After machining, to give the wood some short term protection from the elements and longer term protection from the local termites, (which have already made their presence known around the place,) I am now painting all my timber with a concoction consisting of turps, linseed oil, paraffin wax, bee's wax and a product called permethrin, a residual insecticide. Into this mixture I also added some tracer dye to allow easy identification of treated pieces. The only cheap dye that I have so far been able to procure is pink in colour and made for weed killer, this stuff tends to fade out after a couple of days of exposure to the sun.

The Joists, all finally in position after nearly four weeks of toil, I had thought that I was going to have had these completed within the first week, but as usual, my guesstimations were again, way off.
Much of the time was spent having to continually re erect and re position the scaffolding to allow the correct positioning of the members.

The framework in place to allow the pouring of the concrete hearth, a couple of days were occupied cutting the wedged "tusk tenon" joints for the trimmers

On the last Sunday night of my holidays I had the concrete for the hearth mixed and poured, finally completing this stage of the construction
With the four weeks I had up my sleeve being almost entirely consumed with this, it was a bit disappointing for me.

47, Fire places.

2009-02-26T01:44:00.008+11:00

With the ground floor external walls complete, the next item on my agenda is to brick up the back to back Lounge room fireplace and Kitchen stove recess. Ebay, once again has been very helpful, allowing me to purchase the bulk of the required bricks for good prices. I generally pick these up around Melbourne before work, (I work permanent late shifts). The downside of this being a number of heavily laden trips, with my van and a borrowed heavy duty trailer the 100+k's home in the wee hours of the morning.
I need to complete this structure to the first floor level to enable me to frame up the remaining ground floor internal walls.

The Lounge room fireplace with the arch completed. The top row of voussoirs are cut to angle inwards to correctly align with the throat. I am still on the lookout for firebricks at the right price with which to line and form the correct internal profiles up to the height of the smokeshelf, this will be installed later.

For the wider opening and narrower breast of the Kitchen stove recess I opted to install a lintel rather than an arch, shown above, freshly sawn from one of my rocks.

Lifting the lintel into position.

All done but it wasn't all smooth sailing, after moving the lintel into place I realised that when cutting it to suit the brick courses I hadn't allowed for the mortar joint. Rather than remove the block and lug the 200kg lump back to the saw, I opted to hand chisel out the beds and roll it 180 degrees. With this hiccup sorted it was now back to the bricks.

The structure is growing, the flue from the loungeroom fireplace, seen sloping to the left, needs to be offset to the side to allow it to pass up through the breast of the upstairs fireplace, while the kitchen flue on the right, is angled at 45degrees in plan, to allow it to pass through the opposite breast. The brickwork for the kitchen stove recess will terminate at the first floor.

46, More scaffold?

2009-01-05T00:38:00.002+11:00

The new year has arrived and I have the scaffold ready for the next instalment. It took me close to two weeks to raise it the 1.5 metres needed and used nearly all of my remaining tubes. I am still looking out for more, if anybody is able to assist!
With the scaffold in place I was then able to place the reinforced concrete beam to tie together the completed ground floor walls, shown above, with the steel in place ready for pouring, and below, all done. Another hurdle cleared.

45, The bays, done at last!

2008-12-18T22:03:00.002+11:00

Wednesday, the seventeenth of December, I'm happy, much of my cursing is now in the past. The final block is placed for the bay windows, they are complete and so is the ground floor stonework. Next on the agenda is the raising of the scaffolding to enable me to install the string course and pour a reinforced concrete beam behind it to hold the house together.

44, Yet more distractions.

2008-12-14T22:56:00.005+11:00

That time of year had come around again, the grass had started it's annual migration towards the sun. With this part of the country suffering from a prolonged drought, water has been in short supply. With reticulated water not being available to us, we rely on tank water collected from our roof areas for domestic use. To help supplement this we had begun to pump water from our main dam for use in the toilet and for other external use. For this purpose I had laid out extension leads and a 1 inch poly pipe across the ground the 80 or so metres to the pump.
With there being no relief in sight from the drought, it was becoming apparent that this setup was going to have to be made permanent. Mowing the block with this stuff in the way was a pain in the proverbial and as for thepower leads lying in the grass, not a good idea.

In late October the digging started, I began with a trench from the house to the shed, in which to lay some poly, for dam water to be piped for use on the saw, enabling me to remove two lengths of garden hose from the grass. At the start of November I began the 600mm deep trench to the dam, in which to bury the conduit and pipe. The first 40 metres proved very easy work by hand, traversing the damp ground below our septic system. To make full use of this trench, I enlarged and deepened it near the house to pass below the footings to install some needed drainage pipes to connect to the cellar.
The progress came to a halt shortly past the mid point, nearing the eucalypt trees in the vicinity of the dam. The ground here, being so dry and full of roots, proved for it to be next to impossible for the pick and shovel to penetrate. I had no choice but to contract the services of a friend, armed with an excavator, to complete the digging.

Concurrently with this project, our attention was also preoccupied with the searching for a more reliable mower, our old MTD ride on, purchased new about 10 years ago was costing me far to much time in repairs and maintenance to make it worthwhile. We needed one that could take a bit of punishment. Happening across an hour old ad via the trading post online had me making a $50 direct deposit to secure a little? Kubota G5200, a sturdy ride on with a 3 cylinder diesel and a 44 inch cutting deck. This led me to my next problem, how to get it? it was located near Hobart, Tasmania.

Quotations from shipping companies varied upwards from about $300.00 with no insurance, so for a little extra I decided to pick it up myself. This entailed a 100km drive to the ferry terminal, a 450km overnight trip for my van and I aboard the "Spirit of Tasmania" and a further drive of about 270km to Acton Park, near Hobart airport. Impressed with the machine, I paid the balance of $2050.00, loaded up and began the trip home. On the return journey I stopped off at Hobart and posed the van at the "Queens Domain" for the above picture with the Tasman bridge in the background. I also took the opportunity to scout Hobart's streets and other various locations on the way to expand my photographic record of much of the beautiful Colonial and Victorian architecture this state has to offer. Another overnight trip saw me returning home the following morning, about 41 hours after leaving.

After a week or two's work on my return the mower was ready to roll and I was more than impressed, it runs well and cuts beautifully. The machine was in excellent condition for it's age but the deck was a bit sorry. I re-plated the entire front section with 3mm steel, turned 4 new "anti scalp" rollers and fitted them with new axles, fabricated new belt covers, installed new pins, clips and bolts, adjusted the angle of the tension pulley and cleaned and repainted the whole assembly.

43, The bays progress.

2008-10-31T23:31:00.006+11:00

To ensure a neat finish for the lining and mouldings to be fitted to the sloped underside of the first floor balcony, I dressed a raked margin on the top of the face of the uppermost blocks. Having this done, I can now get on with it and work on finishing the ground floor stonework.
With these blocks ready to to be installed my next problem needed to be resolved, how could I lift them into position?. The heaviest of these was in excess of 100kg, they needed to be lifted about 1600 to 1700mm above the scaffolding and there was insufficient headroom to mount a winch.

The solution came in the form of a heavily modified trolley. A pair of vertically lifting forks slide on a frame fashioned from 25mm square tube welded to the trolley uprights, this is lifted by a cable slung over a pulley and winched onto a boat winch (eBay again, $15!), secured on the back. A day and a half well spent (I think anyway!) and it works great.
The blocks are wheeled into position and raised to the required height, I then insert steel tubing through the forks and extending across the wall, along these the blocks can be slid. These tubes have lugs welded on the trolley end to prevent them pulling through. For added safety I also tie the top of the trolley back to the scaffolding. Once on the wall the blocks can be manoeuvred into position using short lengths of pipe.

42, Another Distraction.

2008-10-05T22:20:00.002+11:00

Just what I needed while I am trying to build a house!. My wife woke me early on the first day of October to tell me that water was seeping up from under the drive, Great!. Another three days wasted digging up and replacing the poly pipes. It was found that the roots from the "Sydney blue" gum tree, closest to the trench had crushed the low pressure B grade pipe I had used. Hopefully, replacing these with A grade "blue stripe" pipes should alleviate the problem. I had laid the two pipes, one for tank water and the other for dam water about a meter deep in a trench dug for power cables leading to an outlet in the front yard.
Also seen in the picture is our growing stack of welsh roofing slate, to the left beyond the shed, and some other procured slate pieces for fire place hearths (on the left of the shed) and coping's (on the right).

41, My inspiration.

2008-09-26T11:57:00.018+10:00

Having had a great love of architecture and history from an early age I was always captivated by the older buildings dotted around our region, generally constructed from the mid to late nineteenth century, the era of major settlement into rural Victoria. I was mostly fascinated by the asymmetrical constructions more Gothic in style, with the plethora of geometric shapes and all the nooks and cranny's, but when it came to the design of my own house I opted for the more formal and proportioned look with Italianate features.
I am amassing a large number of photographs of buildings that I personally find architecturally significant. From this I have selected a small number shown here that are relevant to my own house.

Ingleby Homestead, between Winchelsea and Birregurra is very typical of the mid Victorian style homesteads found scattered throughout western Victoria, double piled, three bays wide and very symmetrical in appearance.
It was the stately formality of this style of house that was my main motivation when designing my own home.

For the type of quoining I selected, one of my main influences was "Point Wilson homestead", located on Port Phillip bay, south of Laverton. A pale green sandstone, from a source that I have yet been unable to identify, was used very attractively to contrast with the bluestone used on this house.

Another early influence was at "Wiridgil", a rambling bluestone house near Camperdown, where the quoining was rendered over the stonework.

"Narrapumelap" another bluestone house near Wickliffe in Western Victoria, was also very interesting, with what appeared to be limestone, used for the quoining and carved into very decorative arches.

St Georges Presbyterian manse in Geelong, Built of local "fine" bluestone and Barrabool sandstone dressings in about 1865. This is my favourite building in the local region and includes many interesting details, it was the main inspiration for the coursing and details on my own house. The random stonework includes many courses of multiple blocks of matching heights giving a more formal look with elongated horizontal joints, the style which I selected. Another feature that I adopted was the relieving segmental and horizontal arches above the window lintels.
Unfortunately, for many buildings in the Geelong area, the passage of time has proved the poor durability of much of the quarried Barrabool sandstone. On exposure to the elements it tends to de-laminate and erode, as can be seen, particularly in the plinth and string courses. Having this hindsight I was able to avoid its use, opting for the readily available Mt. Gambier Limestone. This is a stone that is almost identical to one previously extracted from the nearby Moorabool river valley, which was mainly quarried for the production of portand cement and was only available for building in very limited quantities.

The Uniting church, South Geelong, built from local bluestone and the aforementioned Limestone.

Another church in Western Victoria, using a different limestone for the quoining. The exact location of this I am currently unable to identify with the picture taken on a family trip to South Australia.

A very inspiring house on Victoria Parade, Melbourne. I plan to construct the verandah on my own house to a similar design, with the gabled centre section protruding forward of the main structure.

Another grand house, Monivae, on the Port Fairy Rd. Hamilton. It features a similar style of verandah and has some impressive features, such as the intricate post plinths, but lacks a lot the finer, more delicate detailing.

The Gatehouse for "Werribee Park". With its neat stonework it is much more appealing to me than the mansion itself.

An interesting old church hall at Beeac, now a private residence. It is down the road from and using the same stone as the demolished church, from which I procured the bluestone.

A lovely double piled house on Kilgour St, Geelong. The Barrabool sandstone appearing to be well preserved, protected under the verandah.

And finally, the beautiful "Albert Hall", on the beachfront at Glenlelg, Adelaide, South Australia. It captivated my imagination with its exquisite detailing and form.

40, Increasing the stockpile.

2008-09-25T23:20:00.004+10:00

With my father facing retirement we needed to consider the ongoing costs of maintaining and running the truck. Before the inevitable parting we decided to make full use it and increase our stockpile of stone to ensure that we had enough to see my needs out.
A friend of mine owning a farming property on the southern side of Mt Porndon, near Stonyford over 100km away to our west, offered to us any stone that would be suitable for our purpose. On an initial inspection of the property the prospects were not looking real good, most of the more accessible stone was too brittle, however we did manage to locate some good, mostly submerged rocks and decided that it would be feasible to transport the loader down and dig them out. November of 2007 saw us on site, picking our way around the property.

The process of raising the rocks out of the ground proved to be very tough work with many shock loads taking their toll on the loader. The bottom of the bucket, suffering from the result of many years of digging salty sand and residing near the coast, virtually disintegrated after a couple of loads. Daylight can be seen through the many holes in the bucket in the above picture, shortly before it's demise.

After another couple of weeks of my spare time gone, we had the bucket rebuilt, ready to take back down to Stonyford and resume the operation. We removed a total of five loads of stone and decided to call it quits from this location as the remaining good rock was proving too hard to extract.

39, Bay Windows.

2008-09-25T20:26:00.007+10:00

With the arches completed it was time to finish the bay windows. With a total of 56 rebated limestone quoins, cut at 45 degree angles needed to complete them, a number of weeks was devoted to the shaping of these. In order to maintain the stability of the mullions during construction I formed rough corbels in the stones below and above the fifth course to support temporary, removable blocks.

The quoins in place on the West bay, ready for the installation of the lintels.

The lintels installed and the formwork and reinforcing in place ready for the pouring of the concrete stiffening beam. This beam is tied with the steelwork to the concrete above the arch.

The concrete in place, I could now move onto the East side bay.

Mid June 2008 and the Limestone work is completed on both bays.

For the amusement of the kids, (and myself!) I tried my hand at a bit of carving in one of the temporary corbels. These corbels and the bracing blocks will be removed later to make way for the window frames.

With the Limestone out of the way I then needed to prepare enough Bluestone quoins for the infill over the bays to bring them to the first floor level. A total of 25 were needed to complete this, requiring another prolonged monotonous stint in the stone shed, cutting an chiselling the blocks ready. By now I have had enough of the fiddly work and have firmly made up my mind not to continue the bay windows up through the first floor.

38, Third and final.

2008-09-15T01:19:00.004+10:00

March 2008 and the bay window arches were now complete. I could make a start on my last arch, spanning the front door. This one was similar to the two I had done previously over the french doors at the rear, segmental with stepped extrados. It also needed to be rebated on the inside to accommodate the door frame, requiring stepped formwork.
The earlier arches I had constructed entirely of limestone, but now, having the saw, I was able to cut accurate voussoirs from bluestone for the inside.

The inside complete and the keystone inscribed with Edward, my eldest.

The limestone face now in place. I inserted foam strips at the base of each bed to ensure a rebate into which I can key the finish pointing.

The front wall, with the arches complete. From inside,

and out.

37, Extra support and onto the next.

2008-09-12T19:26:00.008+10:00

With the arch in place, the next step, for my own piece of mind, was to build in some steel reinforcing. I wanted to be sure that the whole thing would stay as one unit, should any movement occur. To achieve this I created a cavity in the stonework into which could be poured reinforced concrete. For the reinforcing I used galvanised 12mm deformed bar. At each side I formed a return where the steel could be tied to another beam, set behind the bay window lintels.

The concrete done, it's now time to move the formwork and make a start on the next arch.

The west end arch is on the go. I had made a small trolley to run in some 50 x 50mm lipped channel and carry the smaller of my electric hoists. This made light work of the lifting of the voussoirs into position.

The second bay arch completed, this one dedicated to my middle child, Julia.

36, Back to the front.

2008-09-11T02:29:00.009+10:00

The ground floor East wall, at the start of 2008, finally completed and ready for the string course. I could now make a start on the arches over the bay windows.

The arch formwork, made from mdf and melamine faced chipboard, propped in position. These arches, being elliptical, took a fair amount of working out and cutting. Using masonite templates, the voussoirs, each weighing about 75kg, had to be cut to a different shapes and angles. I chiselled frogs into the beds to help to key them together and it took a number of weeks for me to have them all prepared, ready for installation. The arch had to be assembled in one go, to ensure that it set as a single unit.

The completed arch, I was very happy with the result, it all went together without a hitch. The alternating textures of the blocks was purposely carried out.

Being one to do silly things on impulse, I couldn't resist having a go at carving an inscription into the keystones. There being three arches on the front wall, I decided to devote them, one each, to my three children. The youngest, Sarah, was to have the first.
All this work, ultimately, will be plastered over, a bit of a waste really but it creates a bit of amusement in the meantime.

35, Releiving Arch.

2008-09-08T23:44:00.006+10:00

After pouring the reinforced concrete beam behind the lintel, the next challenge was to tackle the relieving arch over the three light window. This was, primarily, intended to be an architectural feature, but, being properly constructed it transfers the weight from the wall above outwards to the sides of the opening.
The first step was to lay the skew backs and position the infill, this needed to have the right curvature to maintain a neat joint with the intrados. I drew the profiles full size on some old masonite and cut out a template, seen in the above picture. With these in place, I then built up the walls on either side to ensure the arch had lateral support.

The voussoirs in place, ready for me to cut and lay the fiddly, wedged shaped blocks on top of them.

To support the first floor bearers, corbels are positioned in the stonework, these, to my inconvenience, needed to be formed in the backs of the arch. Alternate voussoirs were cut in 2 separate pieces to allow me to form the corbels on the back half, another tricky job, getting the angles right.

34, The front goes up.

2008-09-07T00:49:00.014+10:00

During 2007 I progressed steadily with the front, (south), and east walls. By September the bulk of the walls were raised to window head height, 2.7m, (9ft). The bay windows are to have elliptical arches spanning the openings to support the walls above and I have the springers in place. These I done in two halves and not being one to turn my back on a good challenge, I cut the outside stones in the complex shape seen in the pictures above to have them bond with the bay projections.
The slow progress I had been making on this project was leading to another problem, when the rain was falling and pooling on the tops of the incomplete walls, it was seeping through the mortar joints and causing efflorescence to form on the stone face. To help to alleviate this problem I extended the scaffolding higher to allow me to fix temporary roofing, this keeps the stone dry and also allows me to work on the walls during inclement weather.
The scaffolding planks appeared on eBay at the right time and proved to be a godsend, the only hassle being that they were just shy of 1000km away in Sydney. The $300.00 I had to pay to have the 95 of them shipped down, along with my winning bid, brought the price to about $12.50 per plank
The scaffold framework I have been accumulating, a bit at a time, since starting the project and are always looking out for more.

The East wall features a 3 light window, designed to make full use of the window cills I had procured. The lintel for this needed to be 2640mm long, four times the standard 660mm length of sawn limestone. The supplier reluctantly agreed to provide me stone of this length but warned me of the likelihood of breakage. For insurance I had him supply four of these, hoping to have success with one of them. With my luck usually requiring me to redo things a couple of times until I get it right, I was pleasantly surprised to dress and install this lintel successfully on the first go. It is shown above, upside down, with drip grooves and rebates carved out to allow clearance for the window heads.

The lintel, finished and in position. To maintain the stability of the mullions during construction I cut full blocks to bond these to the quoins three courses from the top. The waste section in the middle of these will be cut out later.

33, The laying resumes, again.

2008-09-06T23:23:00.004+10:00

Towards the end of 2006 I had stockpiled a good supply of sawn blocks and cut enough quoins to start work on the bay windows. By December the stonework was high enough to position the cills.

The block from the previous post is shown in position on the upper right hand side.

The window cills in place at the start of 2007. To link them together I cut and chiselled matching corner blocks. These proved to be much more difficult than I had envisaged as the profiles of each cill varied considerably.

The saw was proving to be extremely versatile, it allowed me to cut bond stones accurately and in sizes that I had previously been unable to contemplate. Shown above is one such block on my stone barrow, ready to lay. Weighing 175kg, it is 680mm long, 240mm high and 415mm deep.

The same block again in it's final resting place.

32, Production starts.

2008-09-04T22:42:00.003+10:00

It was to going to take me a month or so before I went into full production, there was a fair bit of fine tuning to be done and minor modifications to be made. Screens to contain the water spray also needed to be provided. A pair of old industrial PVC door flaps were perfect for the 2 sides and for the back section I fashioned an annex from doubled, woven poly plastic sheeting.
The saw was exceeding all my expectations and was cutting beautifully. By mid June I had started to accumulate a stockpile of stone blocks, ready for use. The courses, although random, are spaced in increments of 25mm so the blocks are cut the same, less 10mm for mortar. I store the blocks according to height, with the smallest, (90mm), to the left increasing to the largest, (290mm), to the right. Smaller 40 and 65mm pieces are kept in slab form separately to be cut to size as required.
The first stage of construction that I wanted to resume work on was the bay windows, for these I needed a number of large quoin blocks with a chisel dressed margin, 32mm x 32mm at 45degrees. The saw has the capacity to tilt to this angle in both directions but I opted for a simpler method, this would dispense with the need to reposition either the stone or saw or both.

I aligned a number of blocks along the length of the trolley and set the blade to a height of 267mm from its surface. The wall thickness around the bays is 265mm, this gave me an allowance of 2mm for the hand chiselling. A series of cuts was then made, moving the blade across about 5mm for each pass, until I had a flat 32mm horizontal surface. This face complete, I then made further multiple passes, each time moving the blade about 3mm horizontal and 3mm vertically down until the angled surface also reached 32mm.

The same block, as seen on the trolley nearest to the camera in the previous picture, with the angled face roughly pitched.

The main face now also roughly pitched.

The corner margin chiselled and the block is ready for final trimming. It seemed to be a pity to chisel off the sawn surface but it looked too artificial.

For the quoin blocks that were to project from the main wall, I used the same method of sawing to remove the excess from the inside face. To reduce the amount of slurry produced I stepped the blade to do alternate cuts, leaving about 6mm thick fingers of waste that I could snap off before performing the final cuts. I left a raised margin adjacent to the pitched face that could again be hand chiselled.

31, Yay!!!!

2008-09-03T13:37:00.000+10:00

The more I worked on the hydraulic system circuitry, the more components I realised I needed for the machine to operate safely and effectively. I very seriously regretted going in this direction, A far better option would have been to make a 3 phase Generator, too late now! The list of bits, including swivel and removable couplings, control valves, pressure switches, braking valves, gauges, pipes and hoses along with the myriad of various sized and threaded adaptors to connect them all together seemed never ending.
I spent many months of scouring junk yards, eBay and the internet in general for suitable controls and fittings along with the designing and redesigning of the system. The bulk of the more expensive items I purchased from America, spending a total of about $600.00 including shipping. Paying the list prices in Australia for the same items would have set me back about $5,000.00.
By mid April, I had all the hydraulics in place and the moment had arrived for the inaugural turning of the blade, why, after 4 years of toil and a number of trial runs of the power unit too numerous to count, does the starter motor choose this point in time to fail? To say I was p****d off would be an incredible understatement!
Another couple of weeks went by before I was able to install a replacement and on the 22nd of April, 2006 all my work finally finally paid off.

A bluestone block, measuring 322mm wide, 215mm high and about 150mm thick, still wet from the saw, was carefully positioned for a photograph. As silly as it sounds this was one of the highlights of my life, this piece of stone had cost me about 4 years and in the vicinity of $20,000.00 to produce. This figure included the shed and is purely a guesstimate as apart from the main components, I kept no record of the money spent on the seemingly endless bits and pieces.

30, Handling the weight.

2008-09-03T10:44:00.000+10:00

The cutting capacity of the saw was going to enable me to cut bigger blocks than I had previously been handling, for this I erected an internal gantry inside the shed. I used a block and tackle suspended on a girder trolley to lift the stone onto the trolley.
A more recent purchase from eBay was a 250kg capacity electric winch, I picked this up for about $60.00 including postage, which has made the job far quicker an easier. So happy was I with it that I ended up with 2 more 500kg versions at about $100.00 each, one to mount on a barrow hoist, (to be described in a later blog), and one to replace my initial winch, which I now use on the house.
Another girder trolley, eBay again for $37.00, had to be modified to mount this new winch on.

29, Blade cooling.

2008-09-03T10:08:00.000+10:00

Being a wet saw it's pretty obvious that water is going to be needed, As we have no mains water supply and rely totally on the rain for our needs I needed to be able to re-use as much water as possible. The floors are all sloped toward the central well, into which the water collects, from here it flows into the 2 settling tanks. From these tanks it then spills into the main storage, situated under the floor below the pump. The pump, an ex swimming pool pump with strainer, I picked up for $20.00. It was looking pretty sorry and rusty but cleaned up ok and works a charm.
I fitted the pressure gauge to give me an early indication of the tank level getting too low and the pump starting to lose prime, it works well with the needle dancing erratically the moment air pockets start to form.
To direct the water onto the blade I fabricated a "Y" assembly from 3/4" copper piping and secured it to the blade cover. Onto this are screwed 2 straight tubes into which I drilled a line of holes along one side, more concentrated towards the cutting edge. These and their end caps are easily removable for cleaning.
The small assembly to the top left of the picture is an adjustable holder that I was working on in which to mount a laser, this was to assist when aligning the cuts. I found in practice that this is unnecessary and wasted no further time on it, much to the delight of the mud wasps!

28, Trolley drive.

2008-09-02T14:53:00.000+10:00

The trolley drive mechanism mounted below the floor level.
I connected a 1hp 180volt DC motor to the reduction gear box, this being housed in the brown case. A chain couples this to the shaft in the recess. This shaft, complete with pillow blocks and bearings set me back about $75.00 from a junk yard. The windlass, fitted to the near end, I fashioned from a 4 belt cast iron pulley.
Another product of my regular jaunts to the junk shops was set of odd clutch set-ups, possibly off a shearing machine, picked up for about $10.00. These I re hashed to produce the pair of guide pulleys.
To prevent the overrun of the trolley I installed 3 limit switches to the rails, one at each end and an intermediate one that can be bypassed to prevent the roller door from impact.

The cable return pulley. I fabricated this assembly from scratch, adapting the sheaves from an odd pair that I had floating around.
The trolley has a central arm projecting down into the groove in the floor, the cables are hooked under this before rising to be secured at each end. I fitted a turnbuckle at one end, but this proved inadequate, requiring a tension spring to be added.

27, Electrics.

2008-09-02T00:03:00.000+10:00

My employment at Connex trains in Melbourne afforded me the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time. The scrapping of a large number of Hitachi units as I was preparing to carry out the electrical work enabled me to rescue a large amount of reusable gear.
Enclosures, buttons, switches, circuit breakers, relays and contactors from these trains made up a large proportion of my requirements.

The main switch panel, constructed from the "PLC" box, fitted in the saloon area, behind the driving cab.

2 separate remote panels were made from enclosures located in the driving cab. The push buttons were from the drivers door and park brake controls.

The design and installation of the wiring took me about 5 months to complete and consisted of 240volt AC mains supply, 2 separate 180volt DC supplies for the for the trolley drive and head positioning, 24volt DC control for the aforementioned, 12volt DC control for the power unit. 6volt DC for the cooling fans and 3volt DC for the 2 speedometers, which were rescued from dead treadmills.

26, Power unit.

2008-09-01T21:10:00.000+10:00

2 years flew by as I worked on the electrical controls and the power supply, but, by December 2005 I did have something to show for it. For versatility I built the power unit as a portable appliance.
The trailer frame I fabricated from scratch. Onto this I fitted the rear axle and wheels from the Nissan, with the guards being salvaged from an old boat trailer. The radiator and motor, complete with gearbox were mounted in the front, with a new drive shaft made, (for $130.00), to couple it to the hydraulic pump.
3mm steel plate, salvaged from scrap, I used to form a hood to weatherproof the engine compartment. The tailgate struts, saw new life supporting this hood.
With all the main parts completed I delivered it, (along with the stone trolley), to the galvanisers for dipping.

Other recycled van parts included the fuel tank and filler, fuel filter, air filter, fuse panel, gear stick, gauge cluster, ignition switch, battery clamp and the clutch, modified for hand control. I also used the heater controls, connected to the injectors, to control the running and idle speeds.
A solenoid operated 3 way hydraulic control valve and 2 pressure relief valves, along with the associated plumbing and couplings, completed the unit, which has proved more than satisfactory.
The retaining of the gear box allows different hydraulic flow rates to be selected, with 3rd gear being the optimum for operating the saw.

To maintain the correct running speed I connected a cruise control unit, purchased from a local car boot sale for $30.00. After much time wasting fiddling, it proved unreliable and cantankerous and I replaced it with a simple solenoid which pulls the injector control lever a set distance.

25, Shaping up nicely.

2008-09-01T16:23:00.000+10:00

By December 2003 the bits were coming together beautifully . The fabricated bracket fitted snugly and gave good solid support to the arbour.
The hydraulic motor had to be bought new. At a price of $1500.00, I was starting to discover the real price of hydraulics. Very few hydraulic motors are capable of transferring 40hp at 600rpm, the optimum blade speed, so it was nigh on impossible to locate one secondhand. A perfect fit of the shaft into the arbour made me very happy and it then only required a collar to prevent it rotating.
I used inverted 30 x30mm angle iron fixed to 30 x 30mm square tube for rails, these were supported on 2 piece slotted brackets which I had made. I was able to shim and adjust these to ensure the rails were true and straight. I had all this hot dip galvanised to prevent any problems with alignments due to rust build up.
The trolley I made from 75 x 40mm "C" section. With a length of 2.1m and a width of 1.2m it was to give me a good work surface. This too, when complete, I had galvanised.

24, Some progress is made.

2008-09-01T02:25:00.000+10:00

March, 2003. The floor was finally done. I completed this one section at a time, mixing it in my concrete mixer.
My son, Edward, is looking at the frogs that had found their way into the settling tank. As the roof plumbing was connected to our main water tank, I had some odd roof sheets laid out to collect rain water. The floor slopes toward the hollow on the right where the heavier sediment will collect. The water from here, via a raised drain, will flow to the settling tanks. The groove, central between the rails, is to accommodate the endless cable. This will be operated from a drive system positioned below the floor panels on the left.

This isn't what I had in mind when I started, I'm feeling, by this stage that I've bitten of more than I could chew! It's a bit late to turn back now.

I sourced a pair of axles for $100.00 that, with lengthening, would be suitable for the trolley.

Scrounging was unable to find me a suitable arbour, at least for a reasonable price, so I had to have this one made for $450.00. Thread was tapped to suit a large large lock nut which I had procured and a hole with a keyway was machined into the end to allow the hydraulic motor to be fitted directly to it.

I made a mock up of a bracket from mdf, on which to mount a pair of 75mm pillow blocks that I had paid $20.00 for, to establish the correct positioning of the saw. The tilt on the head was necessary as the pivot adjusting gear was damaged at the point where it sat vertical. This would have made it very difficult to adjust the blade to run true.

The bracket, shown above, which I cut from 1inch plate, tacked together and ready for final welding. I thought that my little 240volt welder might be a bit small for this and had it professionally done for $50.00.

The power source that was attached to the gearbox was a 240volt, 67hp, 230amp DC motor, as there was no way that could I could supply this power I needed to do a bit of head scratching.
My solution was to completely strip the guts out of the inside of the motor, leaving only the main shaft. To this I mounted a hub, machined to attach a motor bike chain sprocket. On the outside of the housing I fixed a frame to hold a standard AC mains supply, 1hp motor. A surplus 3 phase motor mounted in between serves as a support for a reduction pulley and a way to convert from belt to chain drive.
I later replaced the AC motor with a 4000rpm, 180volt, 2hp, DC motor, removed from an exercise treadmill to enable me to control the speed.

23, It starts to come together.

2008-08-31T13:37:00.000+10:00

The time had come to start putting things together. I dug 2 big holes in which to pour concrete footings to bear the weight of the machine. Being winter, the rain became a bit of a problem causing the recycled concrete surface to start disappearing below the mud. I used templates, supplied by the manufacturer of the supports, to position 25mm anchor bolts in the pads.
With the concrete cured, the supports were loosely bolted into position, ready to take the main frame.
We contracted the services of “Knight Crane Trucks”, from Geelong to transport the main frame the 90km from Brooklyn to home. In late June 2002 it arrived and the $500.00 charged proved to be money well spent, with outstanding service being provided by the operator who was able to lift the 4.5tonnes perfectly into position with no fuss whatsoever. This task would have next to impossible using the front end loader, with pneumatic tyres, lifting its maximum weight on the muddy ground.

With the frame in place, it seemed pretty obvious that it needed a lid to keep the rain off, so the hayshed was reincarnated. I erected 2 rows of treated pine poles about 5.4m apart onto which I fixed 300 x 50mm pine beams, wedge shaped fillets were fitted on top of these to support the battens and give the roof some fall.
Once the frame was erected it became apparent that the work area was still very exposed, this being due to the height the walls had to be to allow clearance for the machine. I then decided to enclose the south wall to keep the worst of the weather out. After completing this, I couldn’t help myself and continued around the other sides. On the north side I angled the cladding across to the retaining wall to gain some extra space and avoid having an unusable strip down the side.

A recirculating system was needed to be installed for the water. For this I dug a hole in the floor and formed a concrete settling tank, roughly about 2m long by 1.2m wide and 1m deep, to allow the sediment to sink to the bottom. A central baffle created 2 separate tanks with the outflow pouring into a separate storage. This third tank consists of a 1m diameter concrete pipe, about 1.5m long, upended and concreted into position below the floor level.

Some old tram rails we happened to have lying around came in very handy. I set them up 1200mm apart and as true and straight as possible with the top surface at floor level. To these I would be able to the weld adjustable brackets to take the trolley rails. I carried them out the rear of the shed to enable me to load and unload stone outside, this later proved to be unnecessary.

22, Accumulating more bits.

2008-08-29T00:52:00.000+10:00

The first hurdle to be crossed was what I would use to spin the blade. As 3 phase power was out of the equation, an alternative had to be found. Stumbling blindly along without doing too much research, I followed up with someone's suggestion of a hydraulic system.

Scouring the local junk yards around Geelong, I happened across this piece of machinery at a tractor wrecker in Breakwater. It was an experimental contraption designed and built on the Mornington peninsula to form planting mounds, it was a failure. The good news was that its operating system was hydraulic, consisting of a 200 litre tank, a high volume pump, motor, heat exchanger, return manifold with filter and various lengths of hose and fittings. Great, I thought, my complete drive system and all for only $750.00, ....wrong, ...again!.
The motor was found to be far too slow, and, as more homework was done the list of more hydraulic parts required for the proper and safe operation of the saw continued to escalate.

The next thing from my shopping list to be located was a 250:1 reduction drive, procured from the same supplier as the main frame and thrown into the deal. This was to be used to transfer power from a variable speed electric motor to an endless cable. The cable was to be set in the floor to propel a trolley that would carry the stone.

The second most expensive component was to be the diamond blade. I splurged out the amount of $1800.00 and purchased a 1200mm, (4 ft), blade from "Australian Diamond Tools, in Heidelberg West, Melbourne, (highly recommended). This size would give me a maximum cutting depth of 460mm, I figured that anything smaller would be a waste considering the size of the machine. With this in my possession I was then able to match the rest of the bits to it.

The next major hurdle to be overcome was a power source. Given the size of the blade I had bought, I calculated that I would need about 40hp to run it effectively. A diesel motor seemed to be the logical answer, however, the asking price for an engine of this size was in the vicinity of $3,000 to $5,000. Time to think laterally again!. The solution, this time came in the form of a Nissan "Vanette".
After a bit of browsing in the "Melbourne Trading Post", I headed out to Epping after work one night and, after handing over $700.00, drove this little beast, part of the "Australia Post" fleet in a previous life, the 130 odd kilometres home. The 4 cylinder diesel purred along beautifully and I managed to get a bit of mileage out of the 3 months of registration left on it.

21, Where am I going to stick it?

2008-08-29T00:11:00.000+10:00

My next problem was finding a flat spot to put the saw on, a bit of a problem with our block. I opted to hide it behind my existing workshop, which meant flattening our hay shed as well as the ground.
I constructed a new retaining wall using pine posts and sleepers which I had previously milled and had treated. We then spread a load of recycled concrete gravel around to give me a stable surface to work on.
The rocks were pushed aside from a previous retaining wall that ran alongside the hayshed. Once again the trusty old front end loader earned its keep, digging out the excavation and carting the earth to a heap, out of the way in the paddock behind.

20, I'm off, sideways.

2008-08-28T22:55:00.000+10:00

The time came for me to think sideways, I figured that a machine capable of simply spinning an adjustable blade could be built for far less than that which I had been quoted. One recommendation later and there I was, at the start of May 2002, speaking to the owner of an engineering firm in based in North Shore, (Geelong). A simple phone call from this chap had me on the way to Brooklyn, in Melbourne, to inspect an adjustable head onto which I may be able to mount an arbour.
What was needed was a simple mechanism with "x" and "y" travel, (horizontal and vertical).

What I was shown, buried behind a large pile of machinery, was a 4.5 tonne lump of cast iron, in the form of a gearbox fitted to a 4 metre horizontal slide, onto which was mounted 2 adjustable heads. At first I was gob smacked, but as I climbed around it, contemplating the logistics involved and the $1,500.00 price tag, I figured that maybe bigger is better and the deal was struck.
I now had the main frame for my own saw, around which, everything else could be designed and assembled, even though it was about 5 times the size that I had envisaged!.
That was the hard bit out of the way, or so I thought!!!
The services of the engineering firm were then engaged to construct 2 stands onto which I would be able to mount the machine. Each of these were to consist of 2 vertical uprights, 1550mm long, of 450mm x 190mm H section steel beams, which I had scrounged from scrap, along with a base and top bracket manufactured from surplus 25mm plate. The bill for the production of the stands came to a total of about $2000.00, this made these the most expensive single item(s) of the entire saw project.
From this point on, with the exception of the machining of an arbour and a small amount of specialist welding, the machine was entirely of my own design and manufacture, with a bit of specialist advice gleaned along the way.
Design is probably the wrong word as the entire saw actually evolved around the mainly scavenged components.

19, An easier way to do it?

2008-08-28T21:50:00.000+10:00

By this stage of the construction, the sawing of the stone was starting to take it’s toll on me, using a 9” (225mm) dry diamond blade fitted to an angle grinder is an incredibly dirty and dusty job. Each time I was to do some cutting I needed to don protective coveralls, a respirator, ear muffs and safety glasses, very time consuming and uncomfortable. The work was very laborous as the the blade only allowed me to cut a maximum of about 3” deep for the initial cut, this meant that I had to either do an extra cut from the back, or for thicker blocks, the waste had to be chiselled away to allow for each subsequent cut. These cuts could then only be cut angled, to a maximum of about 2 to 2 ½” depth, which resulted in the surface being rather corrugated.

The surfaces in this state were excellent for bonding, but, too often for my own sanity, I always tended to be left with high spots. Murphy's law always dictated that a high spot on a bed would always correspond with another on the head of the stone below, requiring removal of the block and extra chiselling needing to be done. This tended to be frustrating and time wasting on the days that I would dedicate to laying.
While reading the book “Building with stone” by Peter Kincaid, I was inspired by his use of a hired “wet” saw to shape his blocks. This had led me, early in the year, to begin searching for a saw suitable for my own purpose. I perused all the “used machinery” catalogues I could get my hands on and scoured all the available media classified advertising for quite some time, but to no avail. I placed “wanted to buy” ads in various publications, but also came up dry. The only machinery that appeared to be available were basically oversized “brick saws”. These machines are only designed for the re-cutting of already dimensioned stone, they were not suitable at all for doing parallel cuts on rough blocks.
My search then took me to suppliers of new equipment. Ultimately the most modestly priced machine available, that was capable of meeting my needs, was going to set me back about $35,000.00!. This was a 3 phase machine with a blade size of about 600mm.
With the costs of bringing 3 phase power about 5km to reach my front gate and then a further 200m onto the property, along with the shipping charges and import duties etc. the price was going to be, at least, double that. This was out of the question.

18, A start is made on the East wall.

2008-08-28T12:37:00.000+10:00

April, 2002 saw me commence work on the East wall, projecting south from the existing cottage.
Behind this first course I used common concrete bricks to ensure a solid, flat surface was available for the fixing of the internal framework. I was doing the same at heights of 1200mm, 2400mm and 3600mm for the intermediate fixings and the top plate. The rubble that I was using to fill the backs of the walls was too irregular to guarantee suitable anchor points.
An example of a bond stone with the head chiselled true to maintain neat jointing.

By mid May 2002, I had the window cills in place. At the end of the month, with the wall about 25% complete my attention was temporarily (or so I thought at the time!)refocussed. The laying was to cease for about the next 4 years, another related project was about to consume my life!.

17, Keystones.

2008-08-28T01:13:00.000+10:00

By the 1st of February 2002 we had finally purchased our first digital camera (no more scanned pics!), and I had the keystones ready to put into position. They are to sit over the Limestone lintels on the West wall.

These Keystones help to support the wall loads over the window and door openings. As no steel lintels are used I wanted to make sure that the structure is solid.
Behind the lintels I poured reinforced concrete beams These, I hope, will prevent the limestone from cracking should any movement occur. Above these and behind the Keystones I formed rough brick arches to ensure the load is spread to the sides. It all sounds like an overkill, but you tend to be more pedantic with your own house.
The ground floor west wall finally completed on the 19th of March 2002 with the string course in place.

16, The laying resumes.

2008-08-27T13:23:00.000+10:00

February 2001, and I was back into the stone laying, by this stage I was very seriously regretting having used the Beeac church stone for the base walls. My skills with the chisels and angle grinder had vastly improved and I was much happier with the quality of the stonework that I was producing. I don't mind so much the poorer work that I had done on the back walls but have been considering re-doing the front section.
I covered the framed rear section with temporary roofing and clad the sides with used weatherboards to protect the pine, this also allowed us some extra sheltered areas.
By mid March I was up to the halfway mark with the southern end of the west wall. The concrete slab for the front verandah, which will sit on the red bricks on the right will be done at a later date.

15, Splitting, big time.

2008-08-26T22:53:00.000+10:00

With a large stockpile of rocks to work with I needed to rethink my method of splitting the stone. Up to this point I had been enjoying the old manual method of using plugs and feathers in drilled holes, needless to say, this is very time consuming. In early June we bit the bullet and contracted in some outside help for a few days, we needed some heavy artillery. This came in the form of the massive home made splitter seen in the above pictures. The proud owners of this machine are a family business, based in Anglesea who operate quarries in Aireys Inlet, for sandstone and in Harcourt, for Granite. The splitter was operated hydraulically, a three phase generator on the truck powered an electric motor coupled to the hydraulic pump. Wheels are attached and the machine is lowered to the horizontal position for transportation.
Over the three days we split down about half of the rocks. We produced a nice pile of blocks suitably sized for final dressing and shaping, with an average thickness of about 150 to 250mm.

14, A good supply of stone.

2008-08-26T16:12:00.001+10:00

May of 2000 and my search for a supply of good stone had taken me to Warrion, a small town nestled on the eastern slopes of Warrion hill. This cone is situated at the northern end of the Red Rock volcanic complex on the east shore of lake Corangamite and to the north of Colac. It was from this same lava flow that the basalt had been sourced for use on the church in Beeac. I had been looking in an ever increasing arc including the Winchelsea, Wingeel, Little River and Stonehaven areas with no success.
I was fortunate as I found a farmer who had recently had large areas cleared of stone for cropping, the rock had been gathered into large piles, this enabled my father and I to select the better ones for my purpose. Our truck, pictured above carries about 22 tonnes, with it we carried about 6 loads the 90 or so kilometres back to my place with an extra trip back to pick up the front end loader.
This stone was much superior to that which I had previously tried to work, it split cleanly in straight lines, had few, if any,inherent cracks and had a very consistent colour and texture.

13, Internal framework.

2008-08-26T11:33:00.000+10:00

With the floor frame out of the way, The next step was to frame the internal walls within the completed rear section.For these I used 140mm x 45mm radiata pine which I sourced from local farm windbreaks. This timber, after I milled it, needed to be seasoned. For this purpose I constructed a solar kiln into which I placed the sticks after the initial air drying.The Kiln, ready to go with a load of wood, the side panels are removable to allow easy access.
The kiln again, with the panels in place. The small extension on the left was added to enable me to fit 6 meter lengths inside.
The kiln works by fans, mounted in a false ceiling, sucking internal air through holes in the bottom of the side panels, up through these panels and under the roofing to heat it. The air is then forced down behind a false wall in the back and out through a series of holes and through the wood stack. The small movable flap in the base of the centre panel allows me to exchange a small amount of air to prevent it from getting saturated. In cooler weather I simply place a small column heater inside to warm the air. The kiln works ok but it still takes many weeks in warm weather to dry the timber to below the 12% moisture content required for pine, but, who's in a hurry?

12, Floor framing.

2008-08-25T15:04:00.000+10:00

Starting in 1998 I worked on the installation of the stumps and piers and the construction of the cellar, pouring a reinforced concrete floor and erecting reinforced double brick side walls. With these ready I then had to concentrate on the timberwork for the ground floor.
As I knew the floor frame would be exposed to the weather for some time, I had to source some durable hardwood. This I managed to locate about 150km to my north west. It comprised a mixture of Yellow and Grey Box. Initially I had the offer of some yellow box on a farm near Raglan, felled the previous year, I milled these logs on site with my portable sawmill. Being dry this was very hard to cut, but yielded some beautiful timber. Happy with that lot, I had a chap from Lamplough, near Avoca, deliver to my place some green Yellow box logs. I milled these with mixed success owing to the fact that when sawn while still wet they tend to split apart along the growth rings, a bit like an onion.
To make up the balance of what I required I hitched up my mill again and returned to this area and selected on site, suitable Grey box trees for felling and milling.
I used 125mm x 75mm Bearers, supporting 100mm x 50mm Floor joists over the entire house except over the cellar where 150mm x 50mm joists were used.

11, Lower back wall.

2008-08-25T11:07:00.001+10:00

December 1997 rolls around and the rear ground floor wall nears completion. Up to this stage of construction I had been splitting and cutting other basalts, sourced close to home, intermixed with the Beeac stone with mixed success. The nearest, from the south west slopes of Mount Duneed 15 km away, proved to be too cranky and brittle with uneven texture, rather unfortunate considering its close proximity. The next closest source was from Gnarwarre, a lava flow to the east of Mount Pollock about 20km to my north west. I found its texture to be a bit fine, it was also very hard, with a large amount of quartz and seemed to have the effect of dulling or clogging the cutting edges on the diamond tipped cutting blades which I was using in a 9 inch angle grinder.
The arches over the French doors were laid using timber and chipboard formwork and are solid limestone, both inside and out. Unfortunately no photographs were taken of their construction.
Around the same time I had decided that the area below the floor toward the front of the house was wasted and I excavated the section below the central stairwell deeper to allow for the provision of a small cellar.
If you were eagle eyed enough you would also have noticed the fireplace base in the background had grown since the picture was taken in the previous post, this was to allow for the installation of a wood stove in the kitchen, an item I had overlooked in the original design.

10, The walls start rising.

2008-08-25T11:04:00.000+10:00

By the middle of 1996 the walls had started to rise, the thickness of the beds on the stonework is 415mm. Temporary formwork is erected on the inside and rubble is used to make up the space behind the face stone. Bond stones, the full thickness of the walls are placed at regular intervals to tie the whole mass together. Common bricks were used to construct columns adjoining the existing cottage where the walls are completely hidden.
As mentioned earlier, due to planning rules, we were unable to erect a separate dwelling, we had to build on as an extension. When completed, it will appear to be the reverse, as if the weatherboard section was added later.
We are not making any plans until completion for the fate of the cottage, whether it too be clad in stone or not and what purpose it will serve, either a granny flat, garage or an extension of our living space.

9, Limestone.

2008-08-25T11:01:00.000+10:00

The middle of 1995 saw the delivery of 18 pallets of Mount Gambier Limestone, about 21 cubic meters, enough to clad a complete house in veneer construction for a total price of about $1700.00 including freight, (it pays to shop around). The sizes were many and varied allowing for the various quoins, lintels, string courses and corbels, All heights were 290mm, widths 100, 140, 190, 240 and 290mm and lengths in 660mm increments to the 4 longest blocks being a whopping 2640mm, (8 feet, 8 inches). Only 1 of these longest blocks was required for a triple window but I was so worried about easy breakage at this length, I made sure I had spares.

I set about trying a few different bevel sizes on the quoins and arranged them in a mock up to see what I preferred, the different bevels being on the left; 56mm, centre; 45mm and right: 37mm. I opted for the more subtle 37mm giving the stones a 26mm (1 inch) horizontal protrusion. Now in hindsight with more wall areas to look at, I feel I should have had them even more subtle, probably about 26mm.
Further information on this stone can be found at the following web site;
http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/10905/mj28_gambier_stone.pdf

8, Cills.

2008-08-25T10:52:00.001+10:00

The window cills seen in the above picture were one of my most fortunate acquisitions, after reading in the local paper in early 1995, of the protests against the demolition of "The Priory", a federation style building associated with "Ariston", an historic house in Geelong West, I took a drive past on my way to work the next morning to see what all the fuss was about. What I saw had my got my heart racing, the timber window and door frames had all been removed and the complete set of bluestone cills were sitting loosely in their positions. Following a few frantic phone calls I was in contact with the demolition contractor, disappointment was my initial reaction, with me being told that the purchaser of the windows had first option on them. Persistent harassing on my part during the course of the day finally had him relent by mid afternoon, provided I would part with the sum of $500.00. Needless to say that within the hour I was back there with my father, his truck and a couple of extra hands. The total sum of my purchase being 26 window cills of varying sizes, 1 large front door cill, 2 smaller door cills, 4 large steps and a few roofing slates.

On tallying up the 7 different cill sizes and comparing them with my plans I was amazed to find that they matched almost perfectly with very minimal resizing of the windows being required, I couldn't believe my luck.

7, Base and Plinth course.

2008-08-25T10:45:00.000+10:00

November 1995 and my learning curve for stone masonary was getting incredibly steep. When construction on my place was first beginning I had no intention of doing the stonework on my own, however, as things started to happen no stonemasons were knocking on my door and nobody in my acquaintance new of anyone capable of such work. Me, being the impatient, pig headed person I am, just started to lay the stone myself. I used the Beeac church stone as it came to build the base walls to a height of 900mm, onto this I needed a plinth course with a dressed bevel to bring it up to floor level. My original plan was to use Limestone for this as well as the window cills.
A close friend of mine had procured some bluestone plinth blocks from an earlier demolition near the barwon river in Geelong, he had them stored in his backyard for quite some time, waiting for his own special project. After much pestering he finally bowed to my pressure (and his wife's!) and allowed me to "borrow" them. The quantity looked quite impressive, however, when laid end to end there were only enough to do the west wall, this meant that I was going to have to make my own matching blocks for the rest of the house. This work occupied most of my spare time for the next few months, with each block taking more than a full day to complete.

I roughly cut the dressed edges using a diamond blade fitted in a nine inch power saw set to the right bevel, the hours were then spent using a hammer and chisel to dress the edges to the true angle and plane. The faces were then pitched using a pitching chisel.

The same plinth block shown above roughly wedged into position. The gaps left in the stonework are for the sub floor vents (cast iron).

6, Bluestone.

2008-08-20T23:02:00.001+10:00

During 1994 we procured a large amount of bluestone (about 60 cubic metres), that had been salvaged from a church at Beeac, demolished some 10 to 15 years previously.The previous owner of this stone, who had dismantled the church, relocated it twice, it finished up at Anglesea where he had planned to use it to construct his own home. His dream, unfortunately, came to an untimely halt when he suffered from a fatal coronary.
This stone varied from the stockpile we had already accumulated in that it was vesicular basalt (honeycomb). This type of stone is formed in faster cooling lava flows when the bubbles of gasses are trapped in the solidifying mass.
The total volume procured included a large amount of dirt and rubble with a lot of the good blocks having been siphoned off somewhere between the demolition and our place.
We purchased this lot with the intention to use it for fill in the backs of the walls and anywhere else it would not be seen, however, the more I looked at it as it sat around our drive, the more I began to admire the natural looking texture on it's split faces. Ultimately I decided to reverse the roles of the 2 different types, with the only exposed plain stone being used in the plinth course and for window sills and door steps.
With a few rough calculations I guesstimated that this lot provided us with only about 20% of the total face stone required, resulting in a further supply of similar stone needing to be sourced.

5, Sub walls

2008-08-20T22:40:00.001+10:00

By January 1995 I had Constructed the sub walls. The front yard will be terraced on completion of the house, bringing up the ground level to that in the foreground. With this part of the building being buried I could see no point in wasting good stone on it, hence the cheap bricks and concrete.

4, The real work starts.

2008-08-19T23:38:00.000+10:00

October 1994 and work starts on the main house. The original proposal was for a separate dwelling to the original cottage with the latter being retained as a garage/granny flat. We decided to shelve these plans mainly due to the local councils planning rules which prohibited the issuing of a permit for a second residence on the same property.
We had the footings designed to be solid enough to allow us to not have to include expansion joints in the masonry (for obvious reasons when you look at the stone work).

3, Retaining walls.

2008-08-19T22:58:00.001+10:00

By the summer of 1993/4, (this is the southern hemisphere), I was well underway with the retaining walls around the back of the site cut for the main house. The stone for these walls is Basalt paddock rock from Gnarwarre and Wingeel. My father had dug the cut 5 years previously and it took a fair bit of work digging away the silt that had accumulated.

2, Shed needed

2008-08-19T21:00:00.000+10:00

By 1991 I had started constructing my shed/workshop, the most important thing to be found in a blokes backyard. The hardwood for the wall frames and roof purlins was accumulated over a prolonged period from leftover roofing materials. These surplus sticks were consigned to the tip when sites were cleaned by a large house building contractor with whom I was working for at the time.
The old rail vehicle is an ex Victorian railways refrigerated (by ice)"T" wagon number 161. This "shed" was purchased by my parents from the Ballarat workshops in about 1975/6, it resided at their property at Torquay until 1990 when we relocated it to "my place"

1 The beginning.

2008-08-18T02:23:00.000+10:00

After purchasing the property in 1986, I immediately set about erecting an initial cottage.

This house was built around the 2 front windows. These windows I had procured as souvenirs from the demolition of one of the last remaining, original victorian cottages in Torquay, which stood on the Geelong road at the corner of Peubla St.

Introduction

2008-08-14T10:12:00.000+10:00

Back in 1994 I began a project to build my own dream home in Bellbrae, Victoria from scratch, at the time I had no idea what I was to be in for. Being a bit fussy I was loathe to farm out much work to others hands, as a result I have spent most of the last 13 years building with my own hands.
The house is constructed from Bluestone (Vesicular basalt) sourced from paddock rocks from various localities within 120km, most of the face stone being from near Warrion, north west of Colac. The quoins and string course are of Mount Gambier Limestone.
At this stage I have almost Completed the ground floor of this 2 storey construction.