Big Shed Project Part 4 

Once all the the woodwork was removed, (as carefully as possible as I'm hoping to reuse much of it.) The pieces were loaded into my Skoda estate and ferried home. 

As you can see the garden was a little overgrown, however our new neighbors were putting in a new fence, which made the left hand side of the garden look a lot more open. You'll maybe also notice the pear tree which has been happily growing in front of the blue shed in the picture above is not looking much less happy at the house end of the garden. hopefully it will recover next year! 

So next on the list was the shed. Well actually, next on the list was emptying the shed. It was full of stuff, garden things, lawnmowers, bits left over from the beach buggy build and lots of car parts. Everything was emptied out and 50% sold on ebay, some of it making pretty good money, certainly more than I expected!

With the contents gone I went to town destroying the old shed, it was pretty rotten, it was old when I got it and rebuilt it in our garden. The wood was stacked up and anything that might be useful was put with the rest of the wagon. Over the course of a week the rest was burnt in a dustbin incinerator.  

With the remains gone I was ready to start preparing the foundations. 

Big Shed Build Pt 3

So after clearing away all the foliage and getting rid of the old joining roof this is what I was left with. Most of it was in very good condition, even some of the wood will be cleaned up and re-used. 

Some on the other hand was a little crusty, this back corner for example, where it was completely covered by a large tree and had obviously been damp for decades!

Once I had stripped off all of the wood (and the good doors) I was left with just the frame. By now we had a JCB on the site to prepare the ground for the new sheds, so as they could see I was struggling slightly to meet their timescales, They offered to move the frame down the field slightly, this gave me more time to dismantle it and ment they could get on and put up the new sheds without me getting in the way!

Once apart, all of there bits were loaded into the back of the Skoda and moved in several trips, back to the house where with lots of heaving and swearing they were piled up in the back garden. 

More soon.

Karl's Big Build Pt 2 

Once I had cleared the trees and plants from around the sheds (With the help of a couple of guys preparing the ground for new units)  I could get a better look at what we had.

One of the issues was the roof fitted between the two sheds, whist it looked like it would fall down in a light breeze it was actually pretty well attached and took a reasonable amount of force to remove!

The video above was after the first days demolition and clearing. For the first time I could walk around the wagon and get an idea of what we had.  Overall i was amazed at how good it looked!

Lunt Fort and Roman Armour

My roman armour had an outing recently with a trip to Lunt Fort. Just outside Coventry in the UK. Its the only recreation of a wooden roman fort in the UK. To be honest its seen better days, original built in the 60's (Well originally built by the Romans, but you know what I mean!) the fort has not had a lot spent on it since. Until recently, when with some grant money, the central museum building has had a makeover.



Its still an impressive place the image above is the Gatehouse that is first thing you see. 

This is the museum building itself, they have made a lot of effort to make the content appealing to kids and the two guys that were manning the museum on the day we went were fantastic, really enthusiastic and keen to get the kid trying on clothes and armour and really engaging with the to bring it alive. 

Seth wore some of his armour I had made last year, which fortunately still fitted him, but when I pinched his Hat I found it a little tight!

The "real" armour was pretty impressive, as they were dressed the guide explained what each part did and was called before trying to stab them with a short sword to show the strength of the steel.

 Molly initially tried on mail armour, but then tried the plate on too. 

I took lots of reference shots for the next time I need to make some! (I still want a set for myself)

Overall it was an excellent morning out and I'd recommend it to any one with kids with an interest in Romans!