Summer shade

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Moneybox

Philip & Sandra Box
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
4,184
Reaction score
17,676
Location
Cue, WA
Mrs M saw me sitting in front of the computer, obviously with spare time :eek:

She asked what I was up to and I made the mistake of saying "Not much". If only I'd have a chance to answer that again....... :(
There's a whole big whiteboard in the study and on it a list of jobs for Phil. Somehow she pulled another one out of the hat. It wasn't even on the list.

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We'd just returned home. It was a good trip but it was getting hot by the time we packed up to leave. Somewhere along the way a thought must have sprung into Mrs M's head because after a sleep or two she had this sudden urge to see the bus parked in the shade over summer.

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Somehow she suddenly produced these awfully large pieces of shade cloth and to top it off she had a plan. Of course the plan seemed simple enough, just put up a few posts and string the shade cloth in between. Yeah sure Mrs M. That sounds simple enough :/

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She said "Haven't you got some posts behind the shed?" What could I say, she had it all worked out, and I was sitting still at the time :|

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It was going to be a heavy job and up high so the first thing I did was fire up the forklift and run it outside. Of course nothing goes all that easily so as soon as I drove off the concrete I was bogged to the axle in the gravel.

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Of course I've had a bit of practice in bogs so I got it out ok, turned it around and promptly bogged it again. That's just how a job starts out when your heart's not right in it.

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Mrs M soon got the hint and came out to give me a hand. We need a heap of big bolts to hold those posts down so that was her first job. We usually keep a few bolts but we needed more so I upended a box of assorted old bolts and she set to work matching bolts with nuts. She did a good job too, I couldn't use the No Bolts excuse any more.

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After measuring the posts and the height of the bus it was clear that the shade cloth had to go higher. That meant a quick trip to Cue Bunno (our Bunnings) to see what was on offer. Fortunately, somebody had supplied some old bore casing but you know what it's like, the bit you want is always on the bottom :argh:

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It's heavy too but Mrs M came to the rescue with her old race jack.

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They are all 6m lengths as well and we have to get past the local cop shop on the way home :eek:

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And then sometimes when you get somebody's reject it's not in perfect condition. Well this is seriously solid pipe but it has some sort of bitumen stuck to it so it had to be chiseled clean.

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Fortunately, the forklift helped with the heaving lifting once we got home :)
 
She said "Haven't you got some posts behind the shed?" What could I say, she had it all worked out, and I was sitting still at the time :/

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Love the Cue Bunno store :Y: :beer: out of curiosity MB what would a length of bore casing weigh.
 
"Mrs M saw me sitting in front of the computer, obviously with spare time yikes

She asked what I was up to and I made the mistake of saying "Not much". If only I'd have a chance to answer that again....... sad
There's a whole big whiteboard in the study and on it a list of jobs for Phil. Somehow she pulled another one out of the hat. It wasn't even on the list."

We must be married to the same woman Moneybox! :)
 
RM Outback said:
Love the Cue Bunno store :Y: :beer: out of curiosity MB what would a length of bore casing weigh.

The one I was trying to tow out from under the dozer tracks has another tube inside. I think it must be near 200kg. The forklift can't lift it from the end without driving on two wheels. I got it back out of the van by dragging it with just the forklift drive wheels on the ground.
 
Rockhunter62 said:
Looks more like a drill rod Phil, pretty solid them suckers.

Cheers

Doug

Yes Doug I think you are right but I don't know much about drills and drilling. It has another tube inside.
 
The instructions that came with the sail shades state that the post holes should be 400x400x1200 deep. Whoever wrote those instructions must have worked for a government department where it's ok to spend a couple of days digging a hole and then have an unlimited budget for the concrete to fill the hole.

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I'm digging holes with a jack hammer to break through the rock so there's no chance of me ever getting near a metre let alone 1200.

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We're in Cue where a mate panned gold from our driveway so Mrs M couldn't miss the opportunity to test the holes.

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I heard something like measure once and cut twice, or was that the other way around? Well I guess I should have clarified that before I started. My pipe ended up too long on one end and too short on the other :(

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And then to top it off my new Kempi mig welder failed to operate in even moderately hot weather. It started to operate like a spot welder with 1 second weld intervals. The over-temperature light flashes on as it cuts out. The temperature had just struck 35C when the welder failed. I had to quit as the thermometer kept rising to 38 before the day was done. I went back out after dark and it still played up although by about 7:30 pm it seemed to come good again. Very poor performance from a very expensive machine :mad:
 
I set about cutting the pipes to length, sometimes right, sometimes not quite right.

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Then as I welded the shade cloth anchorages on, Mrs M coated them with a rust preventative coating.

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The next job was to stand them up. We have a nice little forklift, compliments of a good friend, but it only has a 2.4m lift. The pipes are more than double that length so it was a bit difficult to get the long end up. We had to lift the top enough to lead the bottom into the hole and then drive the forklift forward under the pipe until it was near vertical.

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I already had a chain fastened to the top to prevent it heading in the other direction, then it just needed a few ropes heading off in opposite directions to keep it there.

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I tinkered with the ropes while Mrs M set the angle at 5 from vertical.

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We mixed the concrete in the wheelbarrow a small batch at a time. It seemed a waste to use a concrete mixer, then have to tip it into a wheelbarrow to just tip it out again. Sort of double the work and double the cleanup.

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Taz stuck his nose in just enough to leave his mark. Of course.

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That first tall post was a bit of a challenge so we held off putting the next tall one in until Zimba came home. "Whos Zimba?" Well, thats the name of our new CAT, named after our beautiful Burmese cat who passed away at the hands of a house sitter a few years back.

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Zimba can reach over 3m in height and is much easier to manoeuvre so it made standing the next post much safer and easier.

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Eventually the shades were up. We overlapped the centre mounts to counter the curve on the meeting edges. There is just a small band of sunshine moving across the solar panels on the bus each day but otherwise its nice dense shade.

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It looks to be very high but once the bus is parked underneath it fills the gap nicely. We had a severe wind gust the other night that lasted for a few minutes and the shade sail stretched down to wrap over the bus roof. Those big heavy 5 pipes were bending back and forth at such a rapid pace that the turnbuckles unscrewed. I had to scale the posts and lock-wire all the turnbuckles and d-shackles.

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Were happy with the result but time will tell whether it will stand the weather up here throughout the summer storms. ;)
 
I had one of those 8 x 4 shade sail up for 12 months. Its very tough fabric and standing up to some very strong winds on the east coast.
 
Looks great.
The two of you are a real team. Its fantastic to see.
Being Moneybox built I made sure itll stand true and proud through anything Mother Nature throws at it.
Well done!
 
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