Friday 24 August 2012

Corner Arbour part 1 (the cornerpiece)

  Gonna grumble slightly here: I got my GCSE Maths results yesterday.  I put in an A's worth of work and should've gotten an A, but because of all this malarchy I got a B.  If you take something that's mine, with neither my permission nor the reasonably justifiable use of some granted authority, is that not theft?  I wonder if I can shop Edexcel to the polis for theft of an A.  Certainly it can be said that tweaking everyone's grades just to avoid the annual Daily (Hate) Mail grumble about how "exams are getting easier [and this covers for how the youth are actually thick]" (I paraphrase) is not a reasonably justifiable way for an examining body to behave.

Ah well.  I've started planting the lawn today.  Drought-resistant grass for the edges and for beneath the tree.

  Grumble over, we'll start with the most important piece of a corner arbour: the cornerpiece.  The arbour gets much of its balance from the cornerpiece and this particular upright bears more weight than any other single upright in the structure.  For this reason, I've made the cornerpiece twice as thick and sturdy as any other upright.

  Bill here reckons my carpentry's pretty tasty, look:

  The wood is 2"x4" sawn softwood from Wickes.  £5 for 2.4m.  It's been sawn in a mitre to lengths of 1.8m and 0.6m respectively and stained.  A mitre box is cheap as chips and you really do need one for a job like this.  The triangular section was some £4-odd for 2.4m and I've done the same again.  The whole thing is screwed together with 3" timber screws and stained again.  

Next week I'm fitting the sides in place.  

In other news; George is interested in grass seeding and is happy to trot along after the box.  Bill, however, does not like the noise one bit!


Until next time xx

6 comments:

  1. At the risk of using this as a college messenger service, could you get in touch with Jan asap about Fresher's Fair on ext 2393? She doesn't have an e-mail address/mobile for you.

    This is looking good. I get the feeling the cat is in charge of the dog...

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    1. Their relationship is complicated. I have no mobile, but Jan has my home number. Still, I'll drop her a bell after this brew.

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    2. Actually, Bill's kinda doing that face you do whenever I get bored of the written and start fucking about with the pickled molluscs.

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    3. I sought a second opinion from Paul. He agrees wholeheartedly - Bill has The Look.

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    4. So the thing's all built. I'm just waiting on getting the photos off of our Diane's phone and we're in business.

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