Having Been in Düsseldorf for the best part of a week (my regular trip to the Medica exhibition during November) I had three days off to make up for the time spent away from home. some of this time was spent with the family of course but I was also able to get some jobs done on the studio.
The first job was to finish the link for the multi-core between the two buildings. I'm running the multi-core through a 22mm diameter conduit but the largest size drill I could get was 20mm but I figured I'd be able to make this work with a bit of wiggle in the hole. This drill is only long enough to get through a single brick skin so not much use for the double skin of the garage, so its going to have to be a few holes using my long 10mm drill from the inside of the garage.
You'd think it would be easy wouldn't you...drill pilot hole through both skins with the long 10mm drill then open out the hole first from the inside of the garage then from the outside!! Well not quite as there is not enough space between the two buildings to get the drill and the drill bit to access from the outside. Besides, I didn't have the 20mm drill bit at the time so I had already drilled a few 10mm diameter holes from the inside of the garage. It looked a bit of a mess but with a bit of filling it would look OK. It took a little while and I had to use a chisel for the last bit to complete the hole inside the garage. The main problem was that because I could not gain access between the two buildings - how do I ensure that the two holes lined up? well with a bit of measuring and counting of bricks I managed to determine which brick to drill through from the inside of the studio. I had already fed the length of conduit through to get the position and you can imagine how tense a moment it was to drill this last hole...but thankfully I was within 1cm of the conduit, easily enough to push through the holes in each wall with the aid of my mallet!! On paper an easy job but its these ones that catch you by surprise - quite a relief to get this job done, especially considering that the cable may never actually be used!!!
All that was then required was to feed to cable through and clip it into position along the stud-work. All-in-all a good job done and another step closer to mineral wool/drywall!! >>photos<<
Because I intend to build a couple of silencer boxes for the ventilation system, effectively enclosed inside the super chunks in the back corners, I need to ensure that I have sufficient means of securing them into place. I figured that some support from the ceiling would be ideal so I fixed two lengths of timber between the two joists in that space either side. The back right doubles as the feed for the two ducts so they were spaced to allow for the ducts to pass inside. I also added a cross member to help position the 100mm ducts when fed down. I attached some soft material to the top surface of this cross member to provide a soft edge where the duct turns down and into the super chunk area. As always the images will probably explain this better.
OK, as the mineral wool time is edging ever closer I decided to cut a pack open and see how best to cut this stuff. I have read several builds using this material and from using the electric bread knife to using a chainsaw...not really but you know what I'm getting at! I remember reading that a serrated hand bread knife works well and I have an old set of knives around somewhere. I picked the bread knife out of that set and did the first cut using it against a straight edge. I have the tool for the job :-) - it worked wonders and to celebrate I cut a piece to size and pressed it neatly into place and here's the photo to prove it!