Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

[Xene]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Wow~ wow! I haven't caught your updates in a while, but I'm so glad I marked this to follow back when I saw you getting started on it. This is incredible! What a vision you had for your space. I live with woodworkers and we consider ourselves pretty handy, but your build is art. Absolutely lovely, just perfection. Bravo!

[the_dr_masuess]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Awesome Work! I really enjoyed reading over the build

[Bert]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Good to hear from you Sharkey!
Couple of questions for you.
1. I noticed you have one of those expensive Italian aluminium peels...worth the money?
2. Hows your wooden front holding up? I was thinking about doing my front in 130mm head decking and maybe making it look like a boat deck. I.e. Filling in the gaps with sicaflex or something similar. I figure the wood can be replaced easily.

Take care and looking forward to some more pictures.

Al

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Very nice set you have there. You have some serious rock in your yard.

[tractorman44]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Being new to the forum and to the WFO crowd, just let me say I am duly impressed with your vision, skill and tenacity. An incredible build. I am joining the others just waiting to see your updates....

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Thanks for all the positive comments. I was fortunate to have such a great location to build my oven area and knew it would take a lot of time and effort. However, as it is a hobby and I don?t have to make a living from it, I really enjoy taking my time with a project like this. I can?t sit down and design something from scratch and then build it exactly as designed. I need to do it a bit at a time and think about the next phase and change my mind about things. Usually it turns out in the end.

Here is another example of what a great location I have. On the side of the same rock outcrop that the pizza oven is built into I spent about a year shovelling and jack hammering and carrying tons of materials in and out by hand to build a pond and deck. This project started as a simple pond but ended with the pond, a 2m high waterfall, deck and even taking out some windows in the house and replacing them with a sliding door.

Here is the pond right near the end of construction. The pizza oven is about 20 feet away in about the direction my shovel handle is pointing.



And here is how it looks a few years later. Actually, the big ferns either side of the waterfall can be seen in the last of my pizza oven photos in my previous post.





Bert
1. The aluminium peel was a gift that I really appreciated, but I don't think it is worth the money. The home made round one gets used 95% of the time.
2. The timber is still perfect, but I think the stainless wrap in front of the oven is required.

[deejayoh]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

You've got a great eye for building in natural looking surroundings Sharkey

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The next job was to put a railing on the edge of the deck. Technically we don't need one because the deck is less than a meter high. We made sure it was under height by raising the height of the garden under it. However, I wanted a rail not just for safety but for somewhere to lean with a drink and contemplate.

The plan was to bolt three 4x4 posts to the edge of the deck and then fit a nice piece of hardwood as the top rail. Of course any work at my place seems to involve jack hammering, so it wasn't quite as easy as it sounds.

Here you can see I have checked out the edge of the deck to take the post. You can see a pencil mark on the rock below indicating where I need to jackhammer to. You can also see my trusty jackhammer - probably the most used domestic jackhammer in the country.



And here is the fitted post - absolutely rock solid.



For the top rail I ordered a length of Australian hardwood. It weighed a ton and was only rough sawn but after a couple of hours planing and sanding (up to 240 grit) it came up looking great.

When the 3 posts were in place we sat the top rail on top and I marked where the posts met the rail, then routered out the outline to half depth, and then chiselled out the mortise. The joints were so good that we had to put a block of wood on the rail and hammer it on each post, with a bit of wood glue in each joint of course.




As I said, the main purpose of this rail was not for safety. Here I am giving it its first important test.

[hodgey1]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Sharkey, you rock! Railing is at perfect height.

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

After finishing the timber part of the railing on Sunday afternoon I ordered the stainless balustrade cables online that night from All Things Stainless. I know there are DIY kits but they all use chunky shackles and turnbuckles. The pre-swaged kits are so much better looking.

I ordered on Sunday night and they were delivered Wednesday afternoon. That is great service. Plus they were absolutely perfect.




The hardest bit of the installation was getting the hole through the middle post to line up on each side. It took some precision measuring and drilling. The plastic grommets finish it off nicely.




Here are the tensioning fittings ? all very slimline.




The next jobs are:

1. Oven enclosure - actually I have decided not to enclose it so have some other finishing work to do.

2. Lighting - the lighting that is there is just temporary to work out what I need. I will do it properly.

3. Awning - we are having a cantilevered waterproof shade sail mounted on top of the rock. It will just hang out from above the rock and cover the entire area.

I might even finish this thing in the next month or two.

[mirassou]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Really nice job!

[the_dr_masuess]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I like that all things stainless store! Railings like the ones you built would cost about $100 a foot here in the states.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

You have an exceptionally cool looking yard to work with, the koi pond and water feature just add very nice touches to you WFO.

[softy]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

inspirational and stunning.

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

There always seems to be too much to do so I hadn't managed much work on the oven since I built the deck and railing. The tarpaulin was only ever a temporary cover until we could organise something that would do the area justice. We needed something to enable the pizza oven area to be used in wet weather that sat above the rocks so as not to impede the visual impact of all that sandstone.

So we found a company that does cantilevered structures and after much discussion and planning we came up with this fantastic awning that is mounted to the rock and just hangs out over the area creating a fantastic outdoor room.

Holes were bored nearly 1m deep into the rock and poles inserted with expanding grout.



Because the rock at the top is narrower than the deck below, spreader bars were run across the main beams to widen the coverage.



The main beams are 115mm steel that are 8.5m long. They were carried in by hand, inserted into the top posts at right angles and then swung out into place.



The structure is larger than it looks in the photos. The height from the deck to the middle spreader bar is about 4m.