drywall, n. - A flat panel with a gypsum plaster core sandwiched between heavy paper
Each of these last few phases really does something radical to the appearance of the Vespiary’s future home. We recently finished wiring and insulating, as well as putting up all the drywall and paneling. We ran out of sheep’s wool and for speed’s sake, we opted for regular ol’ insulation to finish the job. Working with the wool was far and away a much more pleasant experience than fiberglass. That stuff is evil.
It’s getting close to the end and I’m starting to look at workbench and bookshelf plans. If you have any favorites, pass them my way. I’m hoping to use up some of the smaller (but very wabi-sabi) leftover pieces. Here’s a link to a website that had a bunch of woodworking benches. I think they’ll work out well slightly modified.
Oh yeah, one update I hadn’t put in - see this panel with the holes in it?
Unhappily, it caused me a fairly major injury. We drilled comparable holes into some 2×4s as vents for the roofline. The paddlebit on the drill I was using caught in the wood and instead of the bit spinning, the drill spun, and ripped my right arm out of socket. I’ve got dislocation in my genes it seems, as this is not the first time, but everyone please do your rotator cuff exercises, and watch out for those paddlebit drills!
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I agree fiberglas is horrible stuff. Did you use washed wool? Do you worry about moths finding your insulation? They love wool buttered up with lanolin. Tucked away in the dark, it seems a perfect place for them to lay eggs that will hatch to a wonderful buffet spread out before them.
Maybe you don’t have wool moths. I have a constant battle with them here in the swamps near the gulf coast.
Hey Diane,
If you haven’t checked out this other post:
http://thevespiary.com/blog/2009/04/22/sugarloaf-n-a-high-conical-hill/
it tells you all about where we got the wool from. The insulation is sealed away inside the wall, so I can’t imagine that we’ll have any problem with moths. We don’t seem to have too many of them here in Montana anyway.
Just wondering what you ended up with for your workbench design. I’m considering options myself and was looking for examples from folks with more binding experience.
I salvaged some blonde wood sets of drawers that were being replaced at my local university dorm and as a stop-gap, just stretched some pieces of plywood over the top. I liked the storage the drawers gave me and will be keeping them, but am going to replace the plywood with some of the nice old salvaged wood from the shed teardown. Will take pictures as soon as it’s finished.
You can kind of see the temporary worktable here, and there are photos of the rest of the shop in that set.
Your build turned out great!
I also found a blog from Popular Woodworking with lots of workbench ideas.
http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/CategoryView,category,Workbenches.aspx
The 2nd or 3rd entry is “Joseph Moxon’s Double-screw Vise”. Looks like a lying press on steroids. I like that you can clamp it to the worktable to move around or store when not in use. My plan (today’s version of the plan anyway) is finding a used butcherblock top at a sale or craigslist.
Yeah, that’s a great vise. It even looks like he’s using it as a book press, no? I almost bought a chunk of salvaged bowling alley floor at our local recycled building material store, Home Resource. But because of the way it is constructed and how hard it is to cut, I skipped it.
My coworker at the library I work at is a wood worker, and I may have to hire her to build me one of those fantastic double-screw vises. Thanks for the link!