August 2009
The purchase of a Homebase Laser level ment and the realisation of how inacurate the first survey was ment a resurvey of the whole site.
1/2 August
Completed the new survey. full lenght 330ft. The compost pit behind the summer house/Station is now gone thanks to Mr Bash (The gardner).
Having replotted the gradient profile it seems we only need drop 152mm (6ins) into the ground at the patio/Summerhouse/Station not 254 (10ins) as originally intended. just clearing the path outside the french windows is still possible, then on to the lifting section still at 1:120 .
9th August
Just three of us Today. Joicie, James and I
we removed the old summer house. Much balancing of the roof on heads etc. Anyway we got the whole thing apart without breaking any glass!
I marked out the area through the patio/Station and under the conifer, James and Joicie dug a trial hole by the tree and as expected straignt into a mass of roots. Without cutting the roots we wont get down to even level through the station.
16th August
Even less this weekend… Just me. James was at Mini in the park at Santa pod. Just adjusted the alignment under the fir tree and into the curve through the shrubbery. It’s still not right. Aiming to have a propper look at it on the 23rd.
23rd August
Just me again for most of the day James was replacing a front knuckle joint,rear radius arms and brake cylinders on the Mini. He got very frustrated as thing were not roing right so came and dug part of the station area.
Had a bit of a branwave today. We should have a loop in the station so a second engine can pass. If we use the two righthand points the exit point has to go hard left and points the track in the right direction, it also makes the layout look right. So it was all pegged out and sure enought it looks good. I have pegged the level both sides so we can get the bottom level without too much problem.
30th August
August Bank Holiday weekend a very successfull sunday. James, Phil and I only today.
Although there were only three of us the first 70ft that was pegged out is now dug and ready for its hard core base.
We also made a start on lifting the slabs that are in the way in the new station area. Phil said that his brother had a stone cutter and a friend had a kango hammer so he and James went to collet them. While they were gone I had a closer look at the slabs. We knew that they had been layed on concrete and that the edging bricks would not come out whole, but I found a loose slab! Carefull use of of a pair of pribars and up it came in one piece! I put the bar under then next one and it came up too! By the time that Phil and James got back I hand them all up bar three bits. Only one of the slabe broke so we can reuse them all to make the platform.
Phil then cut the concrete into strips ready to be broken up. The Kango never materialised so plan B was put into place. James has a pneumatic braker for splitting car body panels so we tried that. The concrete just broke into tiny fragments ideal for the bottom hardcore. It might have taken nearly all afternoon to break up half of the area we need but it is just a case of pulling it into the trench and compacting it.
[nggallery id=10]
