Little jobs

There are a few little jobs that need sorting on the scooter, so I'm going to spend a bit of time doing those to ease myself back in to the rebuild. Things like changing the rear bulb holder on the new back light unit (because the one that's on looks as though it is made of cheese), polishing the brake pedal (because, despite hints, it doesn't look like I'm about to get a new billet pedal with matching kickstart) and allsorts of little niggly things which aren't expensive to sort but all take time.

So, typing this ain't getting no stuff done...

I have light, now for the heat!

My brother gave me a wood burning stove, and he came over yesterday to help me to fit it. I cleaned the stove thoroughly (wearing out 3 wire brush attachments in the process), to get it back to bare metalIt took about 15 hours to get it all done, as it was quite rusty in some places. And Cath at work supplied the chimney... Well, her dad did. Thanks for that, Cath's dad!

So, we cut a big hole in the roof, installed a collar (meant for barges, incidentally), manhandled the stove into position, then put the chimney in. A load of fire cement later, and we were ready for the test... Fired up the stove, and the job, as they say, is a good one!

The shot shows the back of my workshop, while the other shot below shows the front (the door end). The final shot is the window wall which contains my workbenches and drill station.

So what do you think? I like it, and it is light, warm (or hot, most of the time) and it even has a disco ball in the middle of the ceiling!

More workshop details

The workshop is wired for Electricity, courtesy of Ady who pulled a blinder getting it all wired and correct. Cheers, mate!

I wanted to have loads of sockets and light in there, so I have got fourteen sockets, three flourescent tubes, plus a couple of tasklights and an external security light on there too. One of the tubes is set on the back wall, at waist level, so that any project can be viewed without difficulty on the turntable.

... I didn't mention the turntable, did I? As part of the deal for letting me work in the kitchen over the winter, Carol wanted a new dining room table, so being a cheapskate (and a bit skint), I re-used the old table to make a turntable. I routed out a groove on the floor, put a corresponding groove on the underside of the table, and filled the resulting channel with greased marbles... Hey presto! One turntable. Scooter goes in, work, work, work, turn and scooter goes out! The turntable has a retaining pin for safety, and this can be locked off at every quarter turn.

The floor and half of the interior walls came from Jimmy, who also played a blinder. Cheers mate!

So do you want to see more of the workshop?

OK... The workshop is (nearly) finished...

So, for the past few months I've been building the workshop so that I can carry on with the Lambretta rebuild. And I've reached the stage where I can move in, now. So this is what the workshop looks like from the outside...

As you can see, it needs a coat of paint, which I will do over Easter. It measures 16' by 8', and I built it myself from a big pile of wood. In total, the wood for the shed cost me about £1,200, but the ply is all exterior grade, and I treated all the timbers myself. I need to put a permanent roof on too, but for the moment it is weathertight.

The construction is double walled, which gave me space for the insulation, so the whole space is nice and warm and windproof. I was also lucky enough to get hold of some double glazed units (thanks, Hayley) which I fitted into the workshop. The original plan was to have a set of double doors to facilitate easy removal of scooters, but the single door is more than adequate, as it measures 1m x 2m... More than wide enough for even the fattest of Vespas!