New pics from yesterday are here:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=ZGs4b1l6MlZoREZlRWNYOUtoLTNxSzllTzlOelBB
This past Friday I bought about $320 of plywood and deck screws, along with a chalk reel & chalk. I also returned some surplus lumber from the project - about $60 worth - so my net cost this weekend was about $260-$270. I ended up buying 1/2" plywood instead of 3/4"... this is something I've given a lot of thought to lately, and I'm happy I made the decision. I'm not sure the heavier plywood would have given me a lot of benefit, it is about $10 more per sheet, and it is so heavy that I would have really struggled to get it into place on the wall. In hindsight, I've very happy with the decision.
Saturday was basically an R&D day in which I figured out lots of things. I decided that I wanted to put up the most difficult-to-mount piece first; looking at the wall, that would be the upper-left piece. So I cut it to size - easy. Then I hastily chalk-lined a 6"x6" grid on one side to aid in pre-drilling my holes for the bolt-on grips - easy (too easy, in fact - I screwed this up as I'll detail on down in this post). Then I selected a drill bit that was the proper size for the grip bolts - easy. Then I started drilling the holes... and ran into a minor problem.
Since the plywood is wet, the holes didn't drill very cleanly, which left lots of scrap hanging attached to the holes. Also, as the bit penetrated the plywood, the bottom side tended to break out instead of drilling, which left lots of messiness. Once I got it all drilled, I decided that to clean up the mess I would redrill from the opposite side. This helped a little, but not enough to make the large amount of time required worthwhile. I think that after the wood is hung and has time to dry out, I'll try again with hopefully more success. My Dad also lent me a counter-sinking bit that might help clean it once the wood dries.
So I was ready to mount the piece on the wall, but a little voice kept nagging me to be sure that my climbing holds would mount in the holes I had drilled... it turns out they wouldn't. The bolts fit just fine, but they screw into a T-nut, which has a sleeve that fits into the hole and is slightly larger than the bolt. So I had picked the wrong size drill bit, and got to redrill the holes again, for the 3rd time. This was a huge time-killer.
Finally drilled, I took the board to the wall and tried to lift it into position. I had a couple of stout L brackets (for hanging bicycles) that I had mounted on the plywood to act as temporary claws for hooking the sheet onto a stud and holding the plywood in place (you can see them in some of the pics). I also tied a long length of paracord onto both the top corners of the plywood that I intended to use to pull it upwards into position. This was a nice plan that failed miserably. I found that using the paracord I could lift the plywood, but I didn't have the strength to repeatedly lift and hold it for as long as would have been necessary to get the sheet into position. So I spent a long time figuring out what my B plan would be... Finally, I put my extension ladder on the wall, then laid the plywood on the extension ladder. I was able to use the ladder as a rail on which I shoulder-pressed the plywood upwards until it finally hooked onto one of my studs. Once it was that high, I climbed up on the wall's maintenance platforms and muscled the plywood up the rest of the way.
I made one minor mistake - on the 1st piece, I didn't put enough attention to detail into drilling my holes. The result is that some of my rows of holes are on top of studs and thus are blocked and unusable. I thought I had them measured correctly to miss the studs, but no. I learned from the mistake and corrected for the next 2 pieces that I put up. Not a huge mistake, but now it is forever a highly visible reminder about my awesome carpentry skills...
At the end of Saturday, I had 1 piece mounted, but I had a lot of questions answered so going forward things should move along faster. Sunday I had a few hours, so I got a couple of more pieces mounted and it went considerably quicker. Mrs Ned is encouraging me to take time off from the gym this week & use the extra time to finish it off, so the light may be at the end of the tunnel.
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