The outdoor kitchen project

I will get back into the shed at some point, I’m sure of it. Our daughter & son in-law gifted me this La Hacienda wood fired oven/BBQ/smoker as part birthday, part retirement, and part thank-you for services rendered.
I built the tandoor last year, and had plans for an outdoor kitchen at some point in the future. I guess that came sooner than expected.
I still have the shelter to erect, but the maiden voyage had to take place on Sunday. It was sunny, with hardly any wind, so could have been the Summer.

With luck, this wind will do one, and we will not have a Summer like 2024 where it was windy every day.

I guess I can always buy a rocking char and sit in front of it to enjoy the heat.

Finally, a kitchen

I anticipated a month to install the kitchen, and was just about 6 weeks. This was mainly down to the weather. It’s not easy trying to cut sheet material outside in January. Add to that the horrible mess the original plumbing was in, and most things took longer than this little fat bloke expected.
I’m happy with it though. I would even go as far as to say I’m delighted.

The window wall has the sink, with the draining board swapped to the left. This provides much more worktop space in a very small kitchen.

Window wall with sink

The cooker wall took quite a bit of jiggery-pokery, including a custom base cabinet on the LHS of the oven housing.

Cooker wall panorama

The gable wall is now home to the appliances, each with a separate drain. These previously connected under the sink, emptying into the sink trap. Having both empty simultaneously caused nasty water to come up the sink drain.

Gable end panorama

All the under/over cabinet lights are extra low voltage LED tapes allowing low profile pelmets/cornices on the cabinets, and giving us extra lighting on the plinths.

The walls were stripped back to the brick and dry lined, and the ceiling was over-boarded to give a flat smooth surface. Once tiled and painted etc. it looks very swish.
Every bit of this project was done by me, with the exception of the gas hob. I brought in a gas safe engineer for that.

Just so I don’t get bored, I have started building an outdoor kitchen to accommodate the tandoor and my new wood fired oven.

Base started for outdoor kitchen.

Watch this space.

Lang May Yer Lum Reek

It has been quite an eventful year for me. Finally finished all of the double glazing, installed the new back door, built another shed, re-arranged my workshop, installed a diesel heater, fully rewired our Daughter & Son In-law’s new home, oh, and retired.
Yes, I know I am far too young to retire, and have several years to wait until I am eligible for my state pension. My employer made me a very attractive offer however, so it would have been rude not to accept. It wasn’t an offer where refusal would see me waking up with a horse’s head beside me, just a very nice and generous offer.

“What is next then?” I hear you ask. Actually, I don’t because I think I only have one person who actually reads my drivel.
In the coming year, we have a new kitchen being delivered, so kitchen out, strip to the bricks, dry-line, and new kitchen going in. Should only take a month or so. I fitted a kitchen in our last home, which was still in almost perfect condition over 20 years later. My hope is this one will see us out.

I have some plans to start a series on how to get started in a wood related hobby without spending ridiculous amounts of money. The purists and gate-keepers will have you believe only the most expensive tools and equipment will do. I came across a similar theme when I first started taking photographs. “Oh that looks like an expensive camera, you must take good photos.” Absolute tosh of course. I know folk who have spent huge amounts of cash on cameras, and their photos are gash. I also know many amateurs who, like me, started with a cheap 2nd hand DSLR and take fantastic photos. Like all hobbies & crafts, you also need skill. Skill is most often learned. It is very rare for anyone to be a natural anything.
I already have the bones of what I want to achieve in another blog. All I need to do is decide what kind of platform I want to use, and plan format etc. I have fallen behind on social media platforms and YouTube etc. so will need to do some research. Hey, it’s not like I don’t have time.

I fully intend posting more here. Whether I do remains to be seen. In the meantime happy og maidne and have a very happy ne-erday when it happens.
Slàinte mhath!

Back in the Saddle

After a 7-year hiatus, mainly because I have been renovating the house, I actually got back into my shed yesterday to do some turning.
I have taken the opportunity to retire early, and now every day is my own.
I would like to say I have been doing serious turning, but this is far from serious. Absolutely a bit of fun.

I turned most of this project using a skew chisel, normally the nemesis of novice turners. I still class myself as a novice because although I have owned various lathes since 2011, my exposure has been limited to a few hours on a Saturday, weather/life permitting.
I do love to see those fine ribbons flying from the tool.

It’s a cannon. Barrel is holly, the gun carriage is yew, and the wheels are oak. The string gives away the purpose. It is for party poppers. Pull the string and the cannon fires confetti. Linky to viddy

I gave it a light spray of clear lacquer.

Now I have much more time available, I hope to invest more time in my turning. I have a massive list of projects I would like to have a bash at.
As ever, watch this space.

Adventures in the garden

Since we moved I have had plans to build a tandoor in the garden. I have just had a week off, so with the planets aligned, I went and collected all the gubbins needed for the tandoor project. Entire cost was a few pence under £65

I don’t have a tool for bending circular metal parts, so the lid was hammered and dollied. The bungee is there to hold the lid on if/when it gets windy.

It’s essentially 2 flower pots, glued together with fire cement, then placed inside the bin and the voids filled with vermiculite. The end cut off the top pot is inverted and sat in the bottom of the bin. The bottom pot is then cemented to the cut-off after drilling additional holes in the pots and drilling holes in the bottom of the bin to allow air flow.

The insides are scrubbed with a salt water solution, and the top pot is sealed with a salt water and yoghurt solution. This is to make it easier to remove naans after cooking.

I cut a hole in the bin lid to cover and protect the vermiculite. Once I am sure the vermiculite has fully settled, the lid will be sealed with fire cement to fill the gaps.

Next weekend being Easter, I will fire it up properly and get some lamb tikka on the go.

Don’t fence me in

We have been threatening to build a fence since we moved in 6 years ago. We will soon have new neighbours, so we decided to bite the bullet and do it before anyone moves in. If new people move in, and the fence is there already, they will simply accept it. If we put a fence up after people move in, there is always the risk of animosity.
We lived with anti-social clowns for years before moving here, and have no wish to repeat it.

4 hours work for part #1

All done and dusted in a little over 6 hours. That means 1m per hour. Not bad for a wee fat 60-year-old who drives a desk for a living.

Next job is to re-install the benches in my shed. I had to strip everything out to track down a leak. All dry now, and insulated behind the particle boards on the front wall.

It’s all go.

That time of year

Once again it is Og Maidne with little output from the shed of wonders. It has been a busy year however. I installed heel-drains along the side of my garage to stop water entering through the brick work. The garage is buried about 18″ along one side. The run-off from my shed gutters runs down a path, which unfortunately allowed all of this additional water to run against the side of the garage. The heel drain catches most of this water and re-directs it into the rainwater gully at the corner of the house.

Hopefully this will see the garage as close to water-tight as possible.

I also replaced the remaining windows in the house, meaning I only need to source and install a back door to complete that project. I renovated the spare bedroom too, meaning all rooms inside the property have now been upgraded. Next project will be to design & install a new kitchen. We previously gave the kitchen a facelift to see us through. I have the beginnings of a plan, I just need to pull it together in a formal plan and decide on bespoke or off the shelf cabinets.

I had to demolish a wall in the garden during the summer too, as it had become dangerously unstable and was a potential danger to anyone walking past. I re-built part of it using the old bricks, but as some half-wit decided a single brick retaining wall was a good idea, I now need to take it down to the footings, expand the footings, and rebuild the retaining wall in double brick.

Next year sees a significant birthday for this little old fat bloke, so the countdown to retirement begins in earnest. If the lottery would play the game, I would be able to retire early.
2023 has been a quick year despite the pretty dreadful weather, so hopefully 2024 will stretch out with plenty heat & sunshine.

All the best to anyone reading this. Lang may yer lum reek.

Spalting is rot. Beautiful rot.

I had to replace my better half’s pen today, after selling the last one. This timber is really punky and is at the stage where it is almost firewood. The spalting is spectacular however.
If you look closely, you will see the ragged edges where the barrel trimmer was just a tad aggressive. The pen body is turned as “comfort fit” because of severe arthritis.

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I made another little stool from scrap pine too. Our neighbour had new windows fitted earlier this year, and I begged the scraps from the window fitters for kindling.

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It’s still a bit rough and in need of a sanding and some kind of finish. I might just use some Danish oil on it. I will decide that later.

Future Project?

I saw a video by another maker who built a jukebox from pallet timber and a scrap PC. Being in the industry, scrap PCs are widely available to me, so I am very tempted. I think all I will have to actually pay for will be the track selection buttons. We have some de-commissioned Intel NUC devices at work which would be a good fit, as they are all solid state. I have a 19″ widescreen LCD monitor in the loft. We are just about to buy a crate of firewood for the Winter. The crates are made from birch which looks lovely with an oil finish.

Could be a go-er for a Winter project.

A Welcome ReTurn

I actually got out to my shed and did some turning these last 2 weekends. I turned a baby rattle from holly for a family friend. Delivered it yesterday, and it went down a storm.
It’s always a treat to me seeing folk examine the rattles looking for the join where the rings were added.
Finish is organic beeswax.

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I have also turned a tooth fairy bell from a lump of very spalted and very punky beech.
I think it turned out very well. Finish is spray lacquer

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Hopefully this will be a regular thing now most of the work in the house is finished

Another year gone

Yes, another year all but gone. I’m not sure anyone still reads my drivel, there is so little of it these days.
I have done no turning, and very little making.
It has been a very busy year for me. My daughter was married, I renovated the main bedroom, had to do some significant welding on both cars to pass their respective MOT tests, and repair/refit a badly installed loft ladder. The ladder may on the surface appear insignificant, and the actual repair was. Lifting the loft flooring and undoing the poor structural work however was not. I will never understand how supposed trades people can rip elderly customers off. Every job we have taken on in this house has uncovered botched work the previous owners commissioned trades to carry out. From nails through electrical cables, to the shower back-feeding a redundant water tank, to the massive hole behind the boiler. It really is a disgrace. Shame on each and every one.
The coming year will see a milestone. The last two new windows will be installed, and the spare bedroom will be fully renovated. This will see the last of the electrical being upgraded, new ceiling, party-wall being dry lined with acoustic plasterboard, new door, new skirting boards, and new flooring.
Once complete I can rest, and start saving again. None of this has been cheap, but much cheaper than if I had employed people to carry the work out. With the exceptions of the roof, boiler, and log stove, I have done every bit of work myself. Not bad for a little old fat bloke.
I also have a plan on the back burner, to start some kind of introduction to new makers. This will involve re-assuring people that you don’t need to be rich to embark on the making journey despite what the “purists” may say. I started with nothing. I got my first lathe free, bought the cheapest tools on the market, and survived. Almost all of my machine tools have been from either budget ranges or used from estate sales. It can be done.
Hopefully I can start turning again. First job will be a baby rattle for my daughter’s best friend who had a new addition to the family in this past year. I also need to try to finish a quaich I started earlier this year. I need to either buy or build a pressure pot for resin, as the wood is an extremely punky piece of sweet chestnut. It was to be a wedding gift, but at this rate I may have it finished for the happy couple’s fifth wedding anniversary.
We also both came down with Covid-19 after dodging it since 2020. We went out shopping without masks for the first time since the pandemic began, and tested positive 3 days later. I do not care what people say or think, I’m wearing a mask outside again and will continue to do so until this plague finally disappears. (if it ever does) I never want to go through that again. I shudder to think what it would have been like were we not vaccinated.
Wishing you all a very happy Og Maidne. Lang may yer lum reek.