Scraping the barrel

The Chausson lorry arrived on Friday with seven and a half cubic metres of concrete on board - according to the delivery note that was 17.6 tonnes. I'm not sure we really scraped out the inside, but there wasn't a lot still inside when it left. 

We started pouring it into the centre section of the hangar:



At first it was possible to drag the concrete back towards the other end of the hangar with a rake and a shovel -



and of course with a lot of Gary's help too. After pouring in a certain quantity down the sides of the pit, we struggled to get the reinforcing grille into place:



Once it was there we kept tripping over it or catching it with the end of the rake, and eventually we ended up using the wheelbarrows to get the last of the cement to the back. But the next day it had all set and looked pretty good:



There's something of a slope down from the pit to the right at the back: a combination of wanting to get the edge of the pit as level as possible, and not having had quite enough concrete the last time to get the level there as high as it should have been. But concrete's not cheap: these two loads came to a touch over €2,000.

We also struggled to set in the drain at the front of the hangar, and in the end we found that we were short of just a tiny bit of concrete - if we'd had the drain a little closer in we'd have had enough. So there's a small area on the left that will have to be done later..



The last picture shows a small amount of the shuttering removed, with the wooden bar at the top keeping a space for the planks that will eventually go over the top when the pit is not in use. The electricity conduit just shows, too: we'll eventually have lights and a socket for power tools inside the pit.



On Tuesday I'll get some more sand and cement and try to finish off the last parts of the floor - weather permitting, anyway.

A coffin for a giant

I've finally got the pit ready for the concrete. It took a while....

The bottom is almost flat, but isn't yet concreted over. Down there I've done the bottom 60cm of the pit in hand-mixed concrete, and a bit higher at each end. 



I used the boards sold by chausson as "coffrage" to do the lower sections, but they were badly warped and I decided I didn't want curved walls for the upper parts. So the structure you can see is made almost entirely out of OSB (oriented strata board), and as it isn't quite as rigid as thick plywood, it's been substantially braced all over.

Here's a general view:



The concrete has been ordered for the coming Friday, and before then I have to add a couple of square-section bits of wood to the top edge (to give a ledge for the boards that will cover the pit) and cut and bend some of the reinforcing grille  to make the whole thing as strong as possible.

Mark and I both (separately) calculated how much concrete we'd need. I came out with a figure of seven cubic metres, Mark with eight (but he reckoned there'd be a bit over. As the biggest lorry is only seven and a half cubic metres, that's what is coming.

Le tourne-bille de Jean-Pierre

Our next-door neighbour is a forester, and his ancient log-rolling tool (tourne-bille) had seen better days. It needed both a new handle and some welding to the metal-work.

I volunteered to have a go. Here's the welding - not a terribly professional job, but then I'm not a terrible professional....



This holds the metal ring onto the top of the shaft. As it's under some stress, I added a second metal strap around at the back:



The handle was in pieces and only held together by the big metal collar:



That's the old pieces and the top of the tool as repaired.

Here's the whole tool:



The handle is in fact a pruning from the ash trees in the hedge between our garden and Jean-Pierre's field, so it is actually his own wood. I just hope that ash is strong enough for this kind of tool. It's a lot heavier, for sure.

 

I treated the handle with xylophene to kill the woodworm, which is why it looks a little damp. When it's dry I will sand it down again to give a comfortable grip.

I'm sure I don't need to explain how you use it... or do I?