Welcome to the home page of VK3HOP, QF21
The Radio Shack that Meg built!
I wasn't too sure how to structure this so I figured that I would make it one continuous sequence of entries, much like a webblog but without the bloggey frippery.
Page Navigation:
- The Shack Earth I personally think this is the one of the most important part of the shack, so I decided to build a Bentonite earth.
- The Building This will be a lined wooden garden shed.
New Content:
- 23-Aug-2009 More construction work.. The floor, the trusses and the roof.
- 22-Aug-2009 More construction work.. Issues with joints.
- 05-Sept-2009 Lifted the roof.. Fitted the sizelation and put the roof back!
- 13-Sept-2009 Fitted the door
- 19-Sept-2009 Fitted Air Conditioner and insulated and lined roof.
- 27-Sept-2009 Extended cladding and corked walls.
- 03-Oct-2009 Oceania Contest weekend.
- 17-Oct-2009 Insulation Part.. I got that itch!
- 24-Oct-2009 Wall cladding and trimming.!
- 31-Oct-2009 Painting and some floating floor.
- 03-Nov-2009 Somewhere to work.
- 29-Nov-2009 Week of varnishing.
- 05,13-Dec-2009 Low Voltage Supply.
- 28-Feb-2010 Wrap up.
The Radio Shack Earth
Before I got too creative with the assembly of the shack I took a moment to sink the first of many Bentonite Earths.
Figure 1, Bentonite Earth Overview Diagram
Figure 1 Shows an overview of a Bentonite earth.
To Build A Bentonite Earth
Not sure if build is the correct word here, probably "dig" is more accurate.. However lets begin with the description.
What is an auger? An auger is a device for moving material..
Step One.. The auger
I purchased an auger from my local hardware store, it came with a handle about one meter long which I had to extend. This auger used a piece of 3/4in water pipe as the shaft so I purchased some lengths of water pipe and some fittings and screwed them together to extended the auger.
Figure 2, Extended auger with 3/4in pipe section,
the auger is just under 2m long
Step Two.. Drill The hole
The theory is good, but in practise it turns out to have a few twists in it! In this instance I got lucky because while the first 50cm was a bit hard the remainder varied from clay with 1mm aggregate, to a really sticky wet clay that sets like rock when it dried out.
Figure 3, Three clay samples lined up (L to R) in order of top to bottom
Figure 3 Shows three clay samples, the left most sample was taken from the top of the hole.
The first clay sample changes colour (possibly due to oxidation of iron) after a few minutes exposure to the atmosphere, it is also extremely hard. The second sample from was from the middle of the hole where there was a marked change in the strata, this clay is soft with evenly dispersed ~1mm sized aggregate in it. The last sample was taken from the bottom of the hole and is similar to the second but was extremely sticky to the point where I needed to scoop it out of the auger.
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Figure 4a & 4b, The auger in the hole, having done what auger's do and
The second shows the whole of the hole.
Figure 4a,b After an amount of twisting, the hole was dug, there was one moment when I thought the clay would not hold in the auger bit so I could lift it out but my fears were unfounded as the clay was so sticky in the end I had to push it out with a stick.
Step Three. Make the earth rod.
My earth rod is a sealed piece of copper tubing with a big thick copper wire soldered in one end and the other end squashed and sealed.
Figure 5 shows the Earth rod with respect to the auger,
the spade was someones friend whom gate crashed the party and got in the photo.
Figure 5 Shows the earth rod with respect to the auger, its about 1200mm long.
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Figure 6a & 6b, Shows the top and the bottom of the earth rod respectively.
Step 4. Install earth rod and backfill with sodium bentonite
I ended up shoving the end of the copper pipe into the bottom of the hole which enabled the rod to stand by its self. After that I started to backfill the hole with sodium bentonite.
I was able to obtain my bentonite from my local produce store where it is sold as a product for horses. You can also find it in cat litter but be sure to check that it is sodium bentonite. As far as costs go to give you an idea the 25Kg of bentonite cost approx AUD$8.00 where the two 5Kg bags of cat litter which I needed to top the hole off cost me AUD$18.00...
My advice would be to find yourself a produce store.
The bentonite is quite interesting to work with, I part filled the hole with water and kept adding the bentonite and mixed it with a long stick. I kept doing this untill the hole was filled.
I do not have any photographs of this while I was doing it because it was completed in a few minutes. I will cap the top of the hole and the surrounds with a layer of scoria to stop the rain eroding the bentonite.
Figure 7, This is a photo of the finished bentonite earth less the scoria topping.
After a few days the benontite had expanded above the top of the hole a little
which was packed down again with a piece of wood.
Step 5. The Post Modern Earth
It should be a thing of beauty, but I know that to some people its just a hole in the ground filled with clay. I like to think of it as a post modern expression of an electrical earth.Rather than simply pounding a rod into the ground till it bends blindly following the same old convention. I propose in a bentonite earth that the rod is merely an unconventional static participant, and the hole is formed not through crass dispersion from a hammer strike, but through a gentle twisting action that shaves a layer of material away to form a space.
The space is then reclaimed through backfilling to form a conductive column that provides one component in a bridge that spans continents...
The Building
The shack is a prefabricated shed that is just smaller that the maximum allowable building size before you need a permit. The section will discuss the shack as it gets built.
The ground was not level where I needed to put the shack so my only realistic option was to build a frame to create a small level platform and sit the shack on that. We had a heap of 200mm x 3000mm x 50mm planks so I used those.
Figure 8, This is the basic perimeter of the frame, there will be more structure
added when I can take a look at the floor panels of the shack.
Figure 8 Is a photograph of the frame, it looks quite big from this angle but it is not, the shack earth is at the back and the radio's will go on that wall. The structure can be unbolted if needed.
Big weekend this weekend, not as windy and not raining. For anyone not from Australia this is the middle of winter for us and please note the absence of snow, sleet or rain in these photographs. Which to be honest is not such a good look and the state (Victora) is going to have a very bad fire season this year.
Ok so today was the day we put the frame up, my mother is also getting involved in the action and there was an amount of framing and general screwing together of panels. We had a lull in the wind for about 4 hours and we were able to get the wall panels erected and screwed down the bearers.
Figure 9, This shows the support frame and some wall panels in the
process of being errected.
Figure 9 Is a photograph of panels as they are being erected. If you take a close look you can see the floor bearers and a diagonal piece to stiffen the base up.
The shack is composed of panel sections and the idea is you screw these sections together and "hey presto" you get a shack.
Well thats the theory the problem was the jointing areas lacked sufficient timber to form strong joints with the supplied fittings. The designers want you to drive a 5mm diameter countersunk screw into the edge of a 30mm timber rectangular section without splitting the timber.
To resolve this I had to add extra timber to increase the surface area of the joint so you could drive the screws in as you needed to and capture all three sections of timber.
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Figure 10a & 10b, show the intended joint design and the modified joint design I ended up using.
Figure 10a,b Shows the existing joint and the joints after I added the extra timber. This process was repeated through the whole shack and also for the long sidewall joints as well. Chris from my local hardware store commented that in nearly every situation they have to add extra timber to the structure just to assemble them properly.
The remainder of the wall panels are quite good, once its a closed box it is a fairly solid structure, even less the trusses.
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Figure 11a & 11b, Just some shots of an inside corner and form the front.
Figure 11a,b After modifying the joints the shack assembled quite easily, mercifully the wind had lulled and lifting the sections into place and screwing to together.
The process was helped significantly by my neighbor Jim who a few days earlier had helped me identify the panels and lift them into a position where they could be used without having to man-handle them. Basically some of the panels I had no hope of dead lifting so his help was invaluable.
To conclude this section I butted the shack with a sledge hammer till it was properly centered on its supports, checked it for distortion and then screwed it down finally finishing up by screwing all the panel joints together properly.
Section 3. Roof and Floor
The floor consists of 2.5 sheets of a product called "Yellow-Toung" which is a kind of chipboard that is used to form flat floors for carpeting etc.
The floor is made from Yellow-Tongue, which went down with only a little tapping.
Figure 12 Is a shot of the floor. As far as the shack is concerned this is the acid test to see if the shack was square, and with a bit of judicious thumping the flooring went down without too much fuss, the only issue is the weight of the floor sections, they are long and very heavy but we managed.
The next step was to fit the roof sections and I had to modify the way the center truss was anchored to the frame, for some reason they designed this shack so that you would nail or screw the truss to the wall but they trimmed the truss in such a way that you had from 10mm to 0mm timber hold the fasteners.
Modified truss mounting, with heavy bracket.
Figure 13 For me this is quite vexing, because the designers of this shack expect you to anchor the truss to the wall with fasteners through 10mm to 0mm of timber. If you follow the angle of the truss down you can see what I am talking about. To solve this I used the heavy angle bracket shown in this photograph, also I had to add the timber it screws into on the wall side the day before just to get the walls to bolt safely together.
We were supplied with one length of a folded sheet metal section, presumably intended to act as a roof batten or something, after a moments deliberation I purchased some 30mm x 74mm graded pine to use as batons. You can see one in Figure 13.
The roof was supplied in sections, with two sections for each half, stupid me forgot to put the sizelation on first so I will have to fit it from the bottom when I line the shack out.
The inside of the shack after the roof has been fitted.
Figure 14 Shows the inside of the shack after the roof has been fitted, the fitting of the roof was an ordeal, a trial by roofing iron.
Anyway its all up and its square and I just have to trim it a little and add the flashing.
Random shot of the shack's window.
Figure 15 Yea the shack has a sliding window with this I will be able to know when the sun has come up during those long 24 hour competition nights.
Random shot this time behind the shack.
Figure 16 This is a shot from behind the shack, this is where I sank the Bentonite Earth. I am going to put some 12Volt batteries in this area under a small cover.
Ok, well thats it for this weekend, we are due for some massive winds this week so I hope the roof stays down. I piled some weights on it because I ran out of roofing screws to finish it off properly.
Big wet weekend.!
Way too windy.. And it rained, which is a good thing right now.
See you next week.
To roof. Two! ... Too much.
Just listening to this band The Crash Test Dummies.
For the last few weeks the weather has been less that ideal but today we could get a little more done.
As I mentioned previously I forgot to put the sizelation under the roof before fitting it and today we succeeded in lifting the roof and not all that effectively putting the sizelation in place in the wind. I also added another roof batten so I will be able to screw the ridge cap into place rather than doing it with the 500 odd rivets they supplied. (I still think they delivered the wrong roof.)
Shot of inside with sizelation done badly in the wind.
It does seal though.
Figure 17 In this instance the sizelation is intended to be a condensation barrier more than anything else, the roof will be lined and insulated with "pink-bats" and lined with plywood.
Yours truly on the roof.
Figure 18 This is the third time I have fitted some of this iron, and for the most part I could reuse the holes.
And thats me again.
Figure 19 I ended up taking the iron out of the frames they had mounted it in and fitted it sheet by sheet, as a side issue by the end of the day my arm felt like it had been twisted at the elbow by that drill.
And so the all roofing iron was mounted, and guess what? The iron for the other side was too short, Fantastic!
Fortunately we had some iron left over from a verandah we had put on the house, so I was able to use that fill in the gaps.
The 39/13 Steps
And so we continued with the roofing, finishing the flashing off and adding a little more cladding under the iron at the edges of the building. All in all it was a good day and I was able to get hold of a set of pre-fabricated steps which where fitted to the front.
In hindsight I probably should have done this from the start rather than stepping up 50cm each time we wanted to get in the building.
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Figure 20a & 20b Just show progress for today.
I am glad the really heavy work is over.
Figures 20a,b Show the shack to date and one of the cats. The steps have been mounted to the building and I will cement some posts in for the front and put up a rail down the lefthand side once the door is fitted.
To the left and right of the door I will put some plant boxes, it will look quite nice and to be honest it will be good to work over the "building site" look with some colour.
Thats it for this weekend.
Die Tür
This weekend was taken up with other aspects of amateur radio.
I was fortunate to attend a lecture by Tim VK3IM discussing atennas and matching systems from a qualified scientific perspective, it was a good myth shattering exercise and I am personally very grateful that given the circumstances Tim was able to give such a fun an informative lecture.
This weeks work on the shack was based around fitting a door, which went quite smoothly thanks to this handy video I found online.
All I did in the end was follow the example from the video and all was good.
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Figure 21a & 21b When in doubt draw a door.!
Figures 21a,b Yes its a big blue door, complete weather strip, it will be painted soon.
Thats it for this weekend.
AC and Flux →
This weekend was back to work again, my air conditioner arrived so I took a moment to fit that.
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Its tiny little air conditioner.
Figures 22a,b Not a whole lot to this, basically I could fit it between the studs.
Today was a big day, but at the moment I am listening to this band from the 80's The Primitives
Before I could put the roof lining on I had to fit the insulation, I was fortunate to be able to obtain some R1.6 sound and thermal bats from my local hardware store. Apparently there is a government grant scheme to pay for insulation to be installed in houses so insulation is in short supply.
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This is R1.6 sound and thermal insulation.
Figures 23a,b Shows the insulation, to avoid the need to put extra structure up to hold the bats I installed some wire stringers to hold the bats in place before the lining is fitted. When the lining is installed the bats will be sitting snugly between the sizelation and the plywood lining.
The wire stringers bit wasn't my idea, Chris at the local hardware store gave me the idea.
After fitting the insulation, the ceiling panels were added.
Panel support made from scrap timber and clamps.
Figure 24 Basically each panel was cut and held in place with a support, after the first panel the process was quite straight forward. The panels were then nailed into place.
All the ceiling panels are up!
Figure 25 Well all the ceiling panels are in place, the next stop is the wall panels.
Anyway.. There is a cat in the road!
Time to stop for this weekend.. See you next week.
This is Nikki-Nooo the cat. She is an Oriental.
Big Wet Weekend!
Look at it this way... It rained, the wind blew and I slept in on Saturday which left me with a hangover style headache for the rest of the day.
We have had here in Melbourne a lot of wind driven rain over the last seven days. This kind of driven rain was good for the shack as it allowed me to see where the water was going to come in.
The roof didn't leak but some water managed to make it past the cladding around the center joints and the corners of the structure and some got in under the door.
I fixed the door on Saturday and I don't have any photographs of it as I was racing to get it done between showers.
Onwards to Sunday.
Sunday the weather wasn't so bad and in between showers I was able to do some work. Glenn from work who was a builder in a former life indicated to me that I needed to add some extra cladding to the shack so that the weather boards finish below the level of the walls.
And here is the result..
Figure 26 Here the cladding was extended by adding another piece.
Figure 26 I had to extend the cladding so that it finished below the level of the building, which is a good thing because it was leaking..
I extended the cladding around the shack except for the rear as I could not get boards long enough to do the cladding in one piece, for this part of the building I settled for a strip of plastic they use to seal around cement pads.
Figure 27 Here I lifted the cladding up and slid the plastic into place.
Figure 27 The plastic will allow the water to drain under the step and away from everything else. This area is where my shacks batteries will be placed, I am yet to make a little cover for them.
Since the shack is composed of panels it has center joints. The cladding butts up against timber in this area but when the rain was driven by the wind the water seeped so I decided to cork it with some expanding foam. You forget how messy this stuff can be.
Figure 28 All the joints were corked with spray foam.
Figure 28 It will take a little time to clean up the blobs before I put the sizelation on the walls. Quite a bit of it expanded the outside as well.
An aside.
Its been a while but the recent weather reminds me of the old weather pattern we used to get in this part of the world where the cold fronts would spin up from the Southern Ocean and move into the southern parts of Australia. Is seems in recent years that the cold fronts have been forced towards the south by larger high pressure systems in the north. Not that I am a meteorologist but I find it quite interesting all the same.
Figure 29 Colour MSL chart by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Figure 29 You can see the cold fronts moving up from the south.
Time to stop once again.. See you next week!
Oceania Contest Weekend.
Once again the GGREC contest team formed, lead by our glorious leader and the club worked the Oceania contest.
For me each contest is a learning exercise, this time we were able to work a fair bit of Europe.
Weekend off.
Bit unwell to be honest decided to relax instead.
Insulation Party!
Its an experience to work with insulation, I must admit that I was glad to get it all into place and to be done with the stuff.
I got that itch..
Figure 30 is another action shot of me, I had to cut nearly every bat so I had fibers everywhere in the end.
This is the back wall, the gaps in the insulation suround
the access ports.
Figure 31 This is the back wall finished, the gaps in the insulation are for the access ports and after the wall cladding is in place and the benches are fitted I will cut these out and replace the wall clad with aluminum. The port to the left is for DC power and the port to the right will be for coax. The walls will be lined with plywood.
Cladding and trimming.
Ok this weekend was the big one after a bit of a pause I was able to get some work done.
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It went quite well in the end.
All the cladding is in place now.
Figure 33 This shot is a little under exposed, for the most part the claddding butted up quite well together, never realy done this before so for the most part I was quite happy with it. I used brads and a nail gun to fit the cladding.
Trimming.
The trimming took all day from about 10:00am till about 7:00pm with a stop for lunch and to get some groceries in the middle.
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It went quite well in the end.
Figure 34 More trimming.
Truss all trimmed out.
Figure 35 This is the truss that spanned the middle of the shack, it was easier to box it in that cut and fit pieces to fit with in it.
Hopefully this week I will be able to get the undercoat applied but that will depend on work and study.
An aside.
I decided to start learning German this year (2009), which is something I have been wanting to do since the mid 80's (Think: Amiga Demo scene, RSI et al, West Germany usw..). Anyway I have been using the Iphone app edition of the Collins DE/EN dictionary and to be honest, it a great little tool but its just fractionally too easy to use and I found myself looking words up more than commiting them to memory.
So to solve this I ordered the complete Collins DE/EN dictionary without any consideration to just how big the dictionary would be.
By way of example here is My Helmet, My Dictionary and 501 Verbs!
When I ride to class I will have to lean forward a litle to keep the front down.:)
Figure 36 Anyway.. When I get the shack built I will have a place to sit down and do some proper study and not just the homework..
See you next week...
Painting
And so armed with a roller and paint brush I set to and painted the shack a semi-gloss white. I had to patch a few nail holes and some joints could have been done a little better but I intended to paint it all anyway so I used some "No more gaps" before I applied the undercoat.
I like white.
Figure 37 This is the undercoat going on, undercoat always looks a bit average.
It was also about 30 degrees as well.. Welcome to Spring.
Onwards to Sunday...
Sunday was much cooler and we could put the floating floor down, this floor was a European product and had an integrated sound buffer already applied to the bottom. Over the last 5 years I estimate I have laid a bit over 100sq meters of floating floors.
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Floating floor with integrated buffer,
you can see a bit of the buffer on the upturned piece near the hammer in the left image.
Figure 38 Shows the beginning of the laying of the floating floor and the last section near the door.
The floor was edged with a piece of quad section it was all done in about 40 minutes.
Anyway thats it for this weekend..
Somewhere to work
Bit of a sad day for me as one of my cats has disappeared and as of the 04-Nov-2009 there has been no sign of him.
On Melbourne cup day for a distraction I made the benches for the shack.
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The bench spans two walls to a depth of 600mm.
Figure 39 Shows both benches, they have made of plywood and some construction pine, there is only one leg and thats in the corner.
The will be sanded and varnished later and I still have to edge around the door.
Varnishing
I don't have any photographs of this but I sanded the bench tops down and applied successive layers of varnish over the week. They came up really well.
Low Voltage Supply
I will merge the last two weeks into one entry.
The shack has a 12V battery based supply for powering the radios, I have done this in an attempt to obtain a clean supply.
The charging system is separate from the load side and can be isolated if necessary. The charging system should at best produce 10Amps under ideal circumstances, the regulator is rated for a lot more than this. The charging system is fused at the panel and the batteries for 10Amps.
Mounted solar panel.
Figure 40 The solar panel, mounted on the roof of the shack, the mounting is made from slotted angle iron which I purchased at my local hardware store, I added a fuse at the output of the panel and wiring is all 6mm house wiring.
Solar charge regulator is mounted inside the shack.
Figure 41 This is the solar charge regulator, it is fitted inside the shack and I have added isolation switches to both the battery and panel sides.
Two 6 Volt industrial batteries in series.
Figure 42 I opted for two 6 Volt industrial batteries having had limited life from car batteries in the past, my understanding is that these batteries are not specifically designed to supply cranking currents but to supply a moderate output until completely discharged, without getting destroyed in the process.
Load Side:
The load side of the low voltage supply is simply a fused distribution network, it is fused at the battery for 60Amps and each outlet is fused at 30amps, so far I have fitted two outlets.
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Two low voltage distribution points each point is fused at 30 amps and has an isolation switch.
Figure 43 The 12V distribution points are wall plates with terminal posts mounted through them and an isolation switch The first outlet is for the HF radio (ICOM 7200) and has externally changeable fuse.
Thirty ampere fuse holders like this are expensive so for the remainder of the outlets I have opted for a internal 30Amp fuse, a little less convenient to change but none the less still fused.
Each outlet has a connection back to the earth.
Battery Cover.
Figure 43 I needed to keep the weather off the batteries I used a UV stabilised plastic container, that has had holes drilled into the corners of it. Next weekend I will mount it properly so it is supported at the front else it will sag over time.
An aside.. Fuses..
It might sound like I am going a little over the top with fuses but I had a little story to share, one night I was driving home from Melbourne and at this point I lived in SE Gippsland, and it was about 2:30am and quietly driving because of the local wildlife (Wombats, Wallabies, Kangaroos and the occasional bit of live stock). Anyway I following a left hand bend in the road and the motor stopped dead.
Not a "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" stop, just a clunk and no motor type stop and all the while the custom engine management computer was going nuts, beeping and flashing warnings about low external battery voltage and how it was running off its own internal supply.
It was easy to see what the problem was but the big question was how?
What had happed was that a connector had opened up approximately 2mm, and the edge of a bolt head had managed to touch the exposed connector. The circuit provided power for the EFI system and at that point was a 6mm wire back to the battery. If my father had not put an in-line fuse at that point it would have been quite interesting.
In the end I replaced the fuse and wrapped up the connector and home I went.
In hindsight it was a good lesson in:
- Fuse as close to the source as possible.
- Never underestimate the power of vibration in vehicles.
- Carry spare fuses, wire, aluminum foil in your car.
See you next weekend.
Wrap up!
... but first I must apologise. I have had the shack finished for about a month and have half moved in. I don't have any photographs of this as I did it in one afternoon in a hurry.
I have also been studying every spare moment before my German classes start again.
New and noteworthy during the interceding period..
- Christmas
- Moved into shack..
- Holidays in Canberra and the French masters exhibition.
- My Computer ceased to function..
I think I will conclude the shack building thread at this point, I think it started out with the best intentions and vacillated between being a pain in the butt and a lot of fun.
Which is not to say I am disappointed with the result.
What was interesting is that it has turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax reminding me strongly of my cubical at work.
Funny how the ending is never what you expect it to be..
Copyright © VK3HOP, Megan Woods 2010 All rights reserved.