+ 31

I want to say all of the bricklaying is done, but I can't quite. All of the regular bricks are laid, including an extra layer on the ends that I hadn't intended on, but it looked silly without. I need to lay the little bricks under the windows, shouldn't take too long.

An interesting day really. I laid some bricks earlyish in the morning. Then I headed for church, but the lack of cars prompted me to remember that they were on camp, so no church.

Went to Mitre10 where I picked up a couple of bags of mortar sand - I didn't know where I was going to source them from on a Sunday, and had just run out of sand. I also bought a wheel for the hand grinder, but I'm not going to charge that to the expenses because it is a general tool. I'm going to use that thing to rip out my chimney hole when the time comes. I bought some nails for the lining from Hammer Hardware who previously had been good to me on nail prices.

$20.90 for nails and sand needs to go on the expenses.

Returned home, had a sleep then got into it. Dropped a brick and it smashed. Steve Connor stopped by. I just go for rides around that track every now and again. It's fun now. Just imagine what the track will be like when it is good.

+ 16

I wasn't feeling great so the big Saturday didn't really eventuate. Put some side walls on the jump and built it up a bit.

The first tears were shed on the the track as Rhonda and Phil's kids had some difficulties. Oh yeah, and we timed laps! I think 20 seconds will be the measure of someone with some riding ability, but the track will probably change a heap. I had a few low 21s and a 20.9. I spent a long time thinking about how I could modify a mouse to act as a timing device on a pressure pad linked up to a computer.

Man I hurt my finger day before yesterday. It is my right index finger, the one I use to poke the mortar to where it should be. The cement has burned through all of my skin.

458

After his laughter subsided, “I told you so” would probably have been Paul’s first words, had he been there at the time. The scaffolding structure to allow me to lay the high bricks consists of a sawhorse. I would occasionally put some weight onto the work table to pick up the next brick. I put too much weight on.

39 was the second highest day total, I believe. Paul came out about 1. We had both had enough at close of play, probably about half an hour too much by both accounts. Not even multiple toast could alleviate that feeling.

I got off to a hot start about 8 in the morning. I began by strating where the bottle bricks would go, and changed my original plan. I laid 16 bricks before I ran out of sand. Considered doing other jobs like the roof or lining, but knew I would lose my momentum if I did that. Raced down to Woodend and picked up a 3/4 bin of sand – hopefully all I’ll need.

I pulled down the bits of wood that were allowing me to string up the lines of bricks for straightness purposes. Good to get them out of the way, they were such a nuisance.

I’d been avoiding bricking in around the windows but armed with knowledge from the Justin visit, put a heavy layer of dpc down and got amongst it.

Paul reckoned I got 3 feet of air off the jump. Video evidence suggested otherwise. What a let down. I felt like I was flying.

Tomorrow could be the last day of bricklaying.

419

Shacktastic!

Work for the day began at about 4.40 after I returned from work. Paul came out and we laid a swift 9 before it was kind of getting dark. We watched the end of Rocky that we had begun some time ago, and were both better for the experience.

I went out again in the dark and dug a wheelbarrow load of stuff to make my start/finish ramp.

410

The plans for today changed a little bit, as Brad and Josh came to stay. I managed a quick 10 bricks before I headed in to work.

I had lunch with Justin, and when conversation turned shackwise, he pulled out the manual and we looked at how you are supposed to do brickwork around windows. Also discussed how to “seal” off the top layer of bricks from the roof. I’m still not comfortable about how I’m going to do this, but have a while to work this out.

400

I'm hoping I'll have laid all my bricks by the end of this weekend. I need to go in to work a bit, I've got to do 1.5 more days but I'm really struggling to be there during my holidays so that is going to take me 3 days doing a half day each day. That way I should be able to lay bricks before and after work though and not get too sick of anything.

Yeah so 20 tomorrow, 20 Thurs, then I have 3 days to finish up. I can do it.

They were going to charge me over $60 to fix the broken pane in my window. Get out. The glass cost me $20 and putty $7.50. I have a new skill to learn.

395

More time spent on the track than the shack. I cut down a heap of low-hanging branchs, and made a bit of a banked turn.

373

So yesterday I made 28 bricks before 2 pm and today I made 21 after. It’s not exactly hard work so there is potential for big numbers of bricks per day. But I’m down to less than 100 bricks to lay now so it doesn’t matter if I have 2 big days or 4 average days. 50 of my bricks are still drying anyway. Things are coming together!

It would be fair to say I could have used my time better today. I was busy practicing my tennis serve, reading, cooking, and sleeping. But I finished strongly and just had the most fanastic day. I loved it.

Yesterday I was pretty excited to strap the running shoes on and go for a jaunt up Bowenvale. At the start of that track I saw a guy grooming his backyard bike park with a hose. Today I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it would be to have a racetrack in the treed area.

Paul came around at the start of things today, and I felt sure I would have an ally in him for some track creation. No. He was relentless in his push for MORE BRICKS MORE BRICKS MORE BRICKS!

We laid bricks and chatted away. By the time we were done we had managed a lame 11 bricks. I did manage to talk him into shooting one of the bricks with a gun. That was fun. The brick (a reject one) didn’t even care. We shot at it several times and weren’t even really damaging it. The brick didn’t handle me swinging at it with a piece of wood so well though.



I mowed the track. I walked round out there plenty, planning where the turns would be, the jumps and the banked turns. Good times. I snapped and moved around some branchs to make way for my track. I then rode round the track many many times. There is quite a gradient there which I wasn’t really aware of. It wasn’t that fun riding up hill, couldn’t go fast, but awesome downhill. I’ll be able to alleviate the first uphill stretch a bit by creating a starting launch ramp.

Finished laying bricks in the dark with the halogen on, perfectly acceptable conditions.

352

Good progress.

Another 23 made, I think I’m done making full bricks. I’ll probably need to make a few more partial bricks though. I had to go and dig a wheelbarrow load out of quarry 2, so that slowed me down a bit.

I also put in the next row of brick ties, and stacked up next bricks to lay. Bought some more cement too.

At 20 bricks per day, I’m only 7 days away from being done with the laying. Awesome. 20 a day is a joke too given full days.

I'm not pleased with diminished daylight hours. I'm just grumpy in general today though.

The shack laughed at this morning’s earthquake. If anything, the quake actually made the shack stronger.

I don’t remember disenjoying brickmaking, but it wasn’t much fun today. I do remember not liking having to put the frames together. I made 28 bricks, I wanted to have 50 made in 2 days. This was a good start.

Same

A disappointing day. Sure enough, I had a headache for most of the day, and a nauseous feeling for some of it too. Took it pretty easy.

I bought some more building paper, and some nails too. I’m not going to include the price of the nails on the cost sheet though, because I’ll only use about 8.

I put the black paper up, so it is fully enclosed. Inside it feels like a proper room now. The lighting inside wasn’t bad either which was good news. However, most of the light was probably coming through the door gap.

I did a little more chopping of the iron, that will be ready for the roof tomorrow.

In need of more sand, I paid another visit to North End Sand and Shingle. I showed the guy my camera with a photo of the shack on. We agreed upon a price for the sand – he wants to be invited to the celebratory end of project bbq. Awesome.

I did the calculations. I need 144 more full bricks; I’ve got 99 on hand. This was good news – I’ll be able to make those bricks in a couple of days. And it won’t matter if they’re not ready, by that stage there will only be a bit over a layer left to lay, so it should be liveable then.

324

What a great day. I was out there before 8 a.m. having a look at things. Simon came out about lunch time and we worked for something like 4 hours, breaking to cook up some amazing salmon pasta.

We managed to fit the window today. During, I wondered why I’d shirked it. Really fun cutting wood and smelling it again. It probably did need the feeling that there was a full day there to be able to do it.

The day began with me wondering where the window would go. Astheticly I wanted the window in the center of the wall, but that would mean that the options for arranging bed and table inside would be limited. Eventually convinced myself it would be ok off center. Is that how you spell center? Centre? I’m lost.

We had to make room for the window. We cut off two of the studs part way up and put a whole new stud in. One of the studs I had mucked up when I put in originally. It was on a diagonal. Unfortunately, this was the key stud, would form one side of the window frame. We loosened the nails that held it by way of a hacksaw then belted it where it was needed. I was scared of this because there were brick ties underneath on this same stud. Eventually got it.

It was quite a tight fit in the end and we had to do a heap of hammering and chiselling to make it fit. A pleasing sight.

I spent a lot of time just thinking about what was to be done, I wasn’t exactly sure how to. I think it went ok in the end though. Used a table to check that the height of the window was ok. Eventually just attached it to the top wood.

There was some accidental miscellanery knocking of the bricks today. They crumbled. I didn’t like that.

I ran out of big nails at the end. Si had done a great job all day banging crazy ones back into straight. I’ll need to buy some.

The arc of the window is troublesome. It bangs on the truss meaning it doesn’t open fully. Maybe I’ll need to go to work on the truss.

Justin gave an inspection later on at night and pronounced all well.

I even managed to start cutting some of the corrugated iron, another of the feared jobs. Awesome. Jobs for tomorrow: locate or buy more black paper, get more sand, calculate bricks needed, make bricks, buy nails, finish up stud changes, do roof.

I pushed it all day today and my body, soul, and life cherished in it. Come on health, hold together for tomorrow.

Finished up just before 8 p.m. with a quick 3 bricks layed. There were a couple of tennis sessions in there too. I loved today.

In case you were unsure which line to cut

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