A long weekend! Starting at 7.00am Saturday with a visit to Bunnings to get compressed cement sheet and pre-mix concrete before Ben (renderer dude)’s arrival. The day ticked along with the measuring, cutting and placement of the Hebel slab, followed by cutting and placement of the cement sheet. Whilst I swore like a sailor building the formwork, Ben (Grub) worked on the first coat of render for the oven stand. Finally at 2.00pm I’d finished one section of formwork and Ben was putting the last touches to the render coat.
Things I’d learnt from todays experience: Im no carpenter, and with crappy drills, crappy bitts and little idea it made the job harder. I battled with shitty Tapcon screws that never bit in properly, battled with an assortment of other screws that barely worked and developed 3rd degree blisters from heavy horrible AEG hammer drill. Next time I will use the Ramset plugs I eventually used for tabletop 2 and get it done in a quarter of the time. Next lesson, when you buy a circular hole saw from Bunnings and the pack says it is 32mm bit, measure before buying. This piece of crap chinese tool was not 32mm – it was more like 29.876mm. Which meant with my 3rd degree blisters previously mentioned I had to hand file the compressed cement sheet hole to size. And finally the Demolition Saw I hired from Kennards was probably the most dangerous tool Ive ever used! Noisy, angry, noisy, sharp, messy, dusty, evil weapon.
Come Sunday i was up at 7.00am again to start mixing concrete ready for the tables. Mixing went well and pouring equally good. Tip for this section would be, dont leave it too late to add the aggregate to the tops. The sun and hot 33 degree day meant the tops dried fast. I was warned not to add too early as it will all sink very quickly. Just as I started to get concerned Ben arrived to pick up his tools from the previous day, and with Peroni in hand and trowel in the other he worked the tables back into life! I cant wait to grind these back to reveal the mirror chips lurking under the surface.
Well done Charlie Jr for all your good helping – very patient girl!
