The Walls

I put a 12V and a USB into the mount and slewed my first pier mounted slew! With an 1800mm wall height I can see down to 15° which is lower than I need to go, so that's good. With the mount parked at 180° az 0° alt I get 50mm clearance to the roof section. It was designed to be 100mm but I haven't cut the M16 stud back yet. I'll get the disc cutter out tomorrow. My park coordinates point the telescope to where I'm hoping to put the flat frame light box.

Starting to look like some sort of building now! Uprights are in, top section is on. 

Next step is to fix in some 2"x2"s for timber cladding on the outside and OSB sheets on the inside. Not sure whether to recess the external cladding to expose the corner posts as a bit of a feature or to do the cladding over the corner posts to hide them. I'm leaning towards the former. It might be wise to do the floor first though.

First fix walls are done. I've been cutting up noggins all day. I started a bit early so didn't want to annoy the neighbours with the electric saw. Today was just 2" x 2"s and I have a new hand saw so I've been using that all day. I had forgotten what a joy it is to use a sharp saw! This observatory now officially has my blood in it! Next step is to get some of the OSB internal cladding in to stiffen the whole thing up before I put the roof on. I suppose it might be good to finish the walls completely before I start on the roof.

OSB on the inside is all done. I put a tarpaulin on the top because rain was forecast.

I made a start on the external cladding yesterday but I'm not happy with it! There were some rolls of roof insulation left over in my loft (the stuff that goes over the rafters) and I stapled sheets of it to the out side of the timber frame and then fixed the feather edge boards over it. The plan was to fix the feather edge with my nail gun but it didn't hold too well so I screwed them in, but I don't like to see the screw heads and they split the board at the ends, even when drilled first. So I'm contemplating taking them off again, taking off the insulation and using Correx boards instead. I can use the insulation to in fill the void behind the Correx. Then I can seal round the boards and I'll have a nice flat surface to fix the feather edge boards to. It's raining today so I have some time to think about it!

Today was the first dry day for almost a week. I took the external cladding and the insulation off and tried plan B. I decided to cut the insulation into rectangles and fill each of the wall cavities with a double layer. It's a slow solution but the Correx boards I got will lay nice and flat, seal the walls and allow a much better feather board cladding install.

Finished the insulation and boarding today. Much happier with the finish and I think the feather board cladding will go on a lot more securely now.

Feather board cladding 50% done. The wood stain looked too red when it was wet but it's dried to a nice shade of oak. With the insulation done more carefully and the Correx board holding it in place, the cladding is going on ok. There's a narrow 12" gap to the rear but the fence panels come out ok. Looks like I'm going to have to put a 2" trim around the top!

External cladding continues. It rained yesterday afternoon so the tarpaulin roof went back on. The cladding is now 3/4 finished today. I used a 4ft spirit level with a piece of roof batten tapped to the bottom edge to space and level the feather board planks and copied my son's girlfriend's fence fixing method with a hidden nail under the overlap and another single nail on the bottom edge. Except that I used a nail gun loaded with staples, banged in across the wood grain on each upright under the overlap and a single unobtrusive nail on the bottom edge. 

Looks like I'm going to have to paint the fence!

Well the walls are done and I've got a door. The hinges were a pain in the rear! They're extra wide to allow for the cladding and they don't close flat. I'm taking Rivaroxaban for a DVT I had at the end of last year so there's more blood in the build now because every nick and scratch keeps bleeding! Still need the 2" trim around the top. The roof section is made up, the trusses have been cut and the steel angle iron for the runners was delivered this week. Tomorrow the roof!