I have no progress photos of any merit at the moment, but a bit of activity is going on.
I'm prepping sides, roof, door openings, etc, and expect to have a mighty big installation weekend soon.
Sorta planning to have a few precut, pre-polyurethaned jigsaw puzzle pieces ready to glue, screw, and staple.
Finally used my mates stapler in earnest the other day - what a time saver. My prejudices, based on cheap stapled furniture falling apart, were proved unfounded.
Couldn't get the damned things out when I wanted to.
The wife had a doctor's appointment in the smoke. The city doctor's office is is 222 km / 138 miles away.
Took the Tonka Toy so we could stock up on a few things at the big green shed.
(I've failed miserably at keeping the accounts, and soon I will have next to no idea what this flaming thing has cost. Of course, it hardly matters - you get to a point where you've got so much in it you just have to finish it.)
So I grabbed four sheets of super bendy looking 7mm structural ply at $37 per sheet.
The way the big green shed is laid out, I tend to buy all the smaller stuff like extra sticks of timber for framing, more polyurethane, brushes, etc., and roll them out to the ute in a shopping trolley. After I load up, I drive in the timber entrance to get the plywood as a separate trip. Works OK, as long as you don't lose the receipts for the first part of the purchase. Unless you like paying twice.
So by the time we got to the plywood, which was high up in the racks and required a storeman's assistance to get it down, I was at the end of long day and still looking at racking up another 138 miles. Sling it in the truck bed, pay, tie it down in the carpark, and get the hell outta there.
Work the next day and I'm already cactus so I paid less attention than usual. A quick scan for excessive checking and knots in the dimly lit warehouse, and in the tub it went.
Unload in the dark at home, skip dinner and hit the sack ready for a 5:30 start.
So the next afternoon, in the daylight, I was somewhat concerned to see the ply wood had quite a bit of black staining.
A test squirt of bathroom mould killer did nothing. Sanding another section did bugger all too.
Didn't really look like live mould - I thought maybe live mould would have colonies that would wipe off to a certain extent.
This morning I hit the manufacturers website at 06:00 and used the contact form to ask what the deal was with my plywood.
They surprised me by actually calling me before lunch.
There is a possibility it is blue staining fungus which is considered an aesthetic problem only, but the more probable explanation
really set me on my arse.
Wanna know how bad the bush fires were?
Carter Holt Harvey say their plantation timber has been burned and all of their structural ply is coming from fire stained wood.
They are busy salvaging as much timber as they can before Mother Nature takes her course and rots the dead trees.
I told the guy what the timber was for, which lead to an interesting discussion.
I said my budget was a bit light for marine ply and I also found it pretty damned stiff for bending.
I explained the 7mm structural ply seemed to bend easier than 4mm marine ply, I'd be saturating it with marine grade polyurethane and then painting it so I wouldn't see the stains anyway, I just wanted to be sure I wasn't using mouldy wood.
He said that structural ply was fine for what I wanted it for, the polyurethane and paint would work, and I didn't need marine ply for my project.
After being thanked profusely for buying their products and being understanding about the difficulties of production at the moment, we parted friends.
by tony.latham » Sun Jan 19, 2020 1:28 pm 
