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08-08-2022

Uplands revisited.

Click the image to step through the pictures.

Before the start.
Before the start

Way back in 2019 Uplands School asked The Shed to repair their climbing frame. As a small adjunct we tidied a gazebo that was approaching the end of it's life. Then the other week we were asked if we could modify it as the roof was becoming slightly dangerous.

Bill F and I took the job on:
The brief was to remove the roof boarding complete with all roof supports, cut the vertical support posts down flush with the lower decorative trellis panels and repair the timber floor is necessary.

We removed the roof and it's supports, nearly all the fixings had corroded, we used an old sweet container to store all the old fixings so as not to have them lying in the grass (safety first at all time). Then we stood back took a long look at it's construction and the amount of work needed to repair and replace broken and rotten members.

We had to remove all the decorative trellis and vertical posts, this allowed us to remove the floor, The broom was needed to clear the 75kG of rubbish that had accumulated below the floor and finally we are were left with a clean concrete slab, two full days into the project so far.

With the help of Alan the caretaker, we managed to collect some replacement timbers and I found some timber from my garage, Bill spent the next day in the workshop converting the timber to the required sizes and shapes.

Day 4 - We were joined by Mick, we set Bill up with a couple of picnic tables as a work bench and he started to remake the trellis while Mick and I set to and cut the posts to length. These all required a double cut as they all had signs of decay at the ends. Of course, just like taking the roof off of a car, once the roof had gone the body needed strngthening so heavy duty brackets were added to the base of most of the vertical posts.

With the use of power tools from the Shed we started to reconstruct the gazebo. We had to move Bill's work bench to the shade of a large oak tree as he was melting under the sun ,slowly but surely we pieced the gazebo back together. I think it turned out to be a job well done.

Work started 25-7 completed 3-8. A total of 20 man days.

Author: Colin Foskett

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