Another lull in proceedings in the last couple of weeks but I'm still here.
Before getting the outer door under way I have just to finish securing the frame and filling the surrounding gaps. I already had quite a few framing screws in place but I wanted to be sure that the frame was suitably strong to deal with the heavy door. I had already ordered another 10 of the 150 mm long fixings - good old ebay!
First job though was to fill the remaining gaps around the frame between the brickwork. I was considering using some sort of flexible filler but in the end decided on using mortar to create a rigid join between the frame and the wall. Also, the gap varies between 5 - 12 mm so would require a lot of material and I have plenty of sand and cement.
It was a fairly fiddly task as I was filling from the inside a gap that is recessed into the frame by about 35 mm and only just the width of my larger spreading tool. However, after a bit of experimenting I developed a pretty good technique using the large tool to offer the mortar up to the gap and smaller tool above to push the mortar into the gap on both sides of the frame. The large tool also caught any mortar that fell down. It's one of those jobs not to rush, otherwise you end up with more mortar on your feet than where it's supposed to be. Another good job done though I do have some small gaps to fill at the top and re-mortar below the lintel on one side - for another day.
I left this for a couple of hours before pre-drilling and securing the remaining frame screws into place. In fact I used 19 of the 20 screws I had so I don't think the frame will move any time soon!
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