A bit of a break in the weather (by which I mean “it stopped raining for a while) this afternoon left me an opportunity to get out and do some of the cladding on the observatory.
My plan is to try to clad as much of the sides facing south and west in full lengths of boarding, then do the northern end with as few joints as possible, leaving the side facing east with the majority of the joins as it is longer than a full board length anyhow, and is largely sheltered by the “beer shack” and a stone wall.
Today I cut and fitted all of the full boards to the southern end. I need a cut-down board for the top, but that can wait until I’ve done more of the rest. The lowest board I trimmed down by about 15mm above the concrete pads supporting the outside joists so that it can sit 5mm off the concrete and 10mm below the bottoms of the joists to shade them from any rain running down the face of the board.
Just to check for size I also fitted on full-length board to the eastern side. I’ll leave that until last now.
No photos today though. By the time I’d finished hammering in the last of my lovely stainless ringshank nails the heavily overcast skies had ensured that darkness was not far off.