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21 Jun 2015

Old School Slates

Saturday involved Jaimin doing a bit of housekeeping in the barn "store room", then doing some patching up / cementing on the loose stone on the wall head of the lean-to and the east gable.  The existing lime based mortar is highly friable and the more you remove the more comes off, so it's a gently gently approach to get to a point where you can add some cement based mortar. This went relatively well,  although perhaps it's not pretty.





Next Jaimin had to think about the join where the west side of the lean-to roof meets the main wall (1st photo) because previously we had a chimney there (the liner is visible in the photo) but since removing it on safety grounds we will have to build up some kind of timber frame to make up for missing wall so we can slate and water-tight it. Hopefully.

A few bits of C16 were subjected to the mitre saw with a 20 degree cut, and hey presto a half lap joint was screwed in to the trusses with a few of the Simpson structural screws. A rafter extension was then cut and added on. The bathroom sarking was then completed.



Otis's birthday party at the McMillan's was a welcome lunch break, and a minor miracle occurred when Sasha's brother in law, a tattie farmer in Forfar :-) offered us his Paslode IM350.... There's enough behind  the detail in this story to fill another post so believe us when we say it was good timing.

Sunday provided the blog title. It turns out that our cottage was slated with 7 x 11 inch slates. These are rare, because people now discard them due to their low coverage and thus their high cost of installation. Thankfully, "Brian in Carnoustie", a lifelong slater,  had a bunch which he recovered off his old school which is being torn down! They have probably been in use for over 50 years, given that Brian retires this year. Jaimin headed down with Neil's trailer and loaded them up. They look like they're a bit thicker than our ones, and mostly in decent shape... Probably a ton or so in weight, and hopefully we can renew their life....

After loading them up it was off to get the Paslode from the Forfar farm, back home (slowly) for lunch and then to the plot to unload the slates. Finally it was time to play with the very cool nail gun, which enabled some quick sarking progress on the North side.





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