Tag Archives: construction

Paint! ~ We Paint Some Interior Walls And Ceilings

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We are making progress. With the interior walls framed and ready for Plycem (tilebacker), it is time to paint. I want to paint before hanging the Plycem because the Plycem will have a clear finish and will not be painted. Doing the job in the paint first, Plycem second order will save us from having to do a lot of masking and taping.

I debated on whether or not to paint over a note that someone had written on one of the walls. The paint won, but I did take a picture of the note. I find it endlessly fascinating that our house has been around the world:

F.C. The best from St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands. 5/14/2008

I wonder what F.C. and his crew were loading or unloading?

Here is a photo of the paints I chose for the interior walls:

The tube of urethane caulk is actually a windshield adhesive. The tube is aluminum and double sealed to prevent the caulk from drying out. Even so, I wore a hole in the palm of my hand trying to pump it out of the tube with a caulking gun. I ran new beads of this caulk where container walls meet the ceilings and at weld joints that I have made.

The Lanco Oil Red Oxide Polyurethane primer is thinned with mineral spirits and sprayed on nice and smooth.

The Lanco Super Dry Enamel (Esmalte) is thinned with lacquer thinner and dried in just a few minutes.

I’ve seen the question asked on the Internet, “Can I use latex paint to paint a shipping container?” The beauty part of latex is the easy cleanup. It is a lot more work to clean the spray gun when using oil based paints, but it doesn’t make sense to me to spray water on metal and expect it not to rust. When I started painting years ago, I don’t think there was such a thing as latex paint. All I remember is cleaning my first boss’s brushes with turpentine. Oil based paint really is not that bad once you get used to the regiment of cleaning up after yourself. I allow a half hour to forty-five minutes at the end of the day to get everything squeaky clean.

Here’s container 3 all primed and ready for the white top coat:

I bought a roll of yellow "caution" tape to use as masking on conduits and on the hardware on the container exterior doors. Jabo awaits further instructions.

There is hardly any over spray with the HVLP spray gun.

After we sprayed the primer, the next day it was ready for the first of two top coats of white:

This is the north wall of container 3. I really savored the moment when I cut out the two doorways. The nearest doorway goes into what will be our dry (dehumidifier) room. The further door goes into the hallway that will connect to the living room. With the doorways cut I don't have to crawl through walls and go out of my way to get where I am going. It feels more like a house now.

Partly painted. I'm standing in what will be my shop, looking toward the master bedroom. The unpainted square area is in the master bath. It will be cut out and the wall pushed out four feet for the shower. We plan to use glass blocks for at least one wall of the shower.

First coat all done. Note that 34 sheets of half-inch Plycem have been delivered. I can't wait to start hanging it on the interior walls.

We still have to cut holes for windows including above in the clerestory wall, but for now I’m happy with the progress.

Here’s a photo from outside (west side) looking in. The big hole in the wall will be wall to wall, floor to roof windows. The view of the night sky from the bed should be spectacular as there is no artificial light for miles around.

The left container (#4) is part of the master bedroom as is the large open area. This end of the right container (#3) is the hallway between the bedroom and the living room (yet to be built).

Rain has been starting by noon most days, but in the mornings Armando has been working on delineating the east side of the driveway. When we built the driveway we put large rocks in the mud then covered the rocks with tosca. At that time we had no design idea of how the driveway edges would meet the rest of the yard. Now, we have stretched a string line and Armando is digging a ditch. We’ll pour a concrete footing in the ditch then lay a course of concrete block as a curb. Here’s Armando working on the ditch:

With the new garden on the left side of the driveway and this curb on the right, the lot is getting more and more defined.

That’s all for now. Thanks for visiting, and feel free to leave a comment below.

Interior Walls, Wiring, & Plumbing ~ Projects In Progress

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This post is mostly about building walls inside shipping containers.

Having been in construction since I was six, I know that there is a natural rhythm to most construction projects. There are periods of time when important work is being done but progress is not very visible. The job seems to be crawling. Then there are the periods of time when the job seems to be flying and progress is very visible. One’s moods can swing on these phases if one is not careful.

I think that the job has just moved from a crawl phase to a flying phase.

Having worked six weeks in the yard, Armando has finally finished filling holes, leveling humps, and removing lots of trunks and roots. He has planted some grass and the yard is starting to be a yard. Additionally, yesterday we moved five coconut palm trees and two other palms (Cousin Christine — yours is being planted this weekend) that we had been holding in a nursery area at our rental house. We planted three of the coconuts by the electric service entrance wall at the southeast corner of the lot. Instant transformation, they are softening that concrete corner. This progress is exciting and a big boost to our moral. We can actually begin to see The Warmth of Home emerging from Job Site Mud and Muck.

Three new coconut palms soften the corner of the lot.

The floor between container 3 and container 4 is ready for rebar and concrete, but we are holding off on that until we do some more infrastructure in the area. It is nice to be able to walk on the floor and be able to more accurately gauge how the spaces will feel. Here is the floor ready for concrete:

We’ve been working on the interior walls in number 3. I used 2″x3″ galvanized steel carriolas to make the wall framework. I framed the walls with the 2x3s as horizontal purlins (a style seen in old barns; the purlins go sideways so that the exterior board siding can be installed vertically). We will screw 4′x8′ Plycem (tilebacker / cement board) sheets to the steel stud work.

Building the walls goes like this: First, determine where a wall will go. I have chosen to place the wall so that the framing is in alignment with an outward bend of the corrugated siding of the container. Perhaps a photo will help:

You can see that the framing for the new wall is placed where the container siding is outward.

Next, I cut a carriola bottom plate to fit between the walls of the container. I drilled some holes in the carriola, measured from two points at the end of the container to get the wall parallel with the container, and screwed it to the floor with 3.5″ drywall screws. After the Plycem is up, the concrete floor will lock this wall in place, so the screws are only a temporary placeholder.

Then, as you can see in the photo above, I cut a vertical stud to sit on the bottom plate. At the top of this stud, you may have to cut a notch out of the stud to fit around the beam at the top of the container like this:

The top beam sticks out more than the bottom beam so you have to cut a notch.

I did this at both sides of my new wall and welded the studs in place.

Then, I cut purlins and welded them in place every two feet on center up the wall like this:

Plycem can now be screwed to the purlins.

By placing the wall where the container corrugations go outward, I can now put the Plycem in place and it will make a nice inside corner. I’ll probably run a small bead of urethane caulk around the Plycem to seal any insect highway gaps.

Here's a scrap of Plycem showing how it will make a nice corner against the container.

Here’s an overview of the three new walls in container 3.

Three new walls framed.

At the far end of the container is a hallway; I will cut holes in the container for a doorway from the living room, into the hallway, then into the master bedroom. By the way, this is the only hallway in the entire house. I avoid hallways if possible; they are major space wasters.

The next space toward where I am taking the photo from is a half bath, accessed from the hallway.

The next, larger space will be a walk-in closet off the master bedroom and studio space for Cynthia’s torchwork (making glass beads), her seed bead stringing, and fabric storage for sewing projects. These spaces will be dehumidified.

The final space, the one that I am standing in in the photo above, will be an eight-foot square deposito (storage closet), accessed by the existing container end doors. This deposito will be for outdoor tools and equipment.

But before the Plycem goes up, I have to do some rough electrical and plumbing. Here’s some electrical roughed in in the half bath:

I cut holes for the conduit with an angle grinder with a cut off blade. I welded the rough-in box to the wall framework.

As an aside, I finally got my plasma torch repaired in the city. Two, four hour round trips, $50 to diagnose, $25 to repair, and $0.39 for the new part. When I got it home, I fired it up, cut a nice round hole in a carriola for the electrical conduit. Fantastic! Then when I went to cut a second hole, it made a wild clicking sound (relay going bad?) and shut itself down. Okay fussy, finicky machine, fine, die that death if you want to. I’m done. So instead of nice round holes, I have nice square holes cut with the angle grinder. No law against round peg in square hole.

The above wall happened to be placed above a container floor beam so I couldn’t drill straight down for the hole for the conduit. Instead, I used two elbows to relocate the hole. Later, the concrete floor will cover this conduit:

Oh, one thing I discovered is that where there it a forklift pocket on the side of the container…

there is a steel plate under the wooden floor, so it is easier just to swing the conduit and relocate the hole through the floor away from the steel plate. This is all working for me because we will have the three-inch thick concrete floor to cover these conduits throughout the entire house.

By the way, speaking of the wooden floor, the floors in our containers are mahogany, just a tad under one and a quarter inches thick. We will be pouring a concrete slab floor because it is the surface that we want. Also, it will cover the wood which is no doubt heavily drenched in pesticide. Before I work in the containers, I use a large fan to flush the fumes. Otherwise it can make your eyes water.

So far I only have roughed in the water supply for the toilet in the half bath. I brought some PEX tubing with me when we moved to Panama and decided to use it to make the pipe stub-ups. I like PEX a lot, but so far have not seen it here in Panama. Here is some PEX, the brass fittings, crimps, and the crimping tool:

Blue for cold, red for hot. Same stuff, just color coded for easier identification .

Here’s the toilet stub-up:

You can warm PEX with a torch, bend it, and it will keep its new shape. I welded two pipe clamps to the side of the container. Later, this bathroom wall will get Plycem. That and the concrete slab will hide the plumbing.

The PEX, the PVC electrical conduit, and the PVC water pipes can all be cut with this dandy pair of shears made for the job:

In the meantime, Armando has been working for two days grinding away remnants of the container siding webbing in container 4. I’m glad that he has the Power of Youth still on his side.

You can see that he is wearing safety glasses (and not-seen earplugs), and the guard amazingly is still on the machine. I insist on it even though most workers here think these safety devices are mere nuisances. I’ve seen two nasty cuts from guardless machines and I’d just as soon not make a trip to the hospital.

Next I’m on my way down the mountain to see if I can get the DeWalt angle grinder that Armando has been using repaired. I think the switch has given up the ghost; it has had some rough duty during its life on this job. I’ll probably buy a second one, too; a guy can’t have too many angle grinders.

If you are considering a container house project, I hope that I have given you some good tips from my experience. Take what you want but you are on your own. Have fun. Keep the guards on your tools and be safe. It’s a jungle out there. At least it is here in Panama!

That’s all for now.

A Big Floor And Some Small Stuff

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In this post, I frame the floor between #3 and #4, build some interior walls, and do some minor stuff.

A significant amount of rain has been falling, and I am happy to have a bunch of interior work to do. The interior of #3, #4, and the 12-foot space between is now bone dry. Not a drop of rain enters, thanks to Juan who mentioned in a comment that he uses Sika Urethane caulk to seal container seams. I searched but could not find that brand, but I did find some other urethane and it is working well. I sealed the two 40-foot seams where the walls that hold up the metal roof connect to the containers below. Here’s a photo of the urethane on the tilebacker wall:

Good and gooey and very workable, the solvent based urethane caulk is holding out rainwater. Remember, later I will build a sloping metal roof over the container roof.

Next, I had some 2″x2″ square metal tubing in my way so I built the framework for the wall that will hold the low end of the big roof between #2 and #3. I caulked the welds with the urethane and prime painted the metal:

The framework is at the top right of the photo. Most of the photos I have posted so far have been from the east side, but this one is from the west.

Next, while I waited for delivery of the metal for the big floor between #3 and #4, I started some of the interior walls in #3. The wall in this photo will divide the hallway (that goes from the living room to the master bedroom) from the half bath. The half bath will be about 4-feet by 8-feet.

This wall will get tilebacker on both sides, brand name Plycem. There will be a sliding door on the bathroom. I am standing in what will be a dry room -- a closet with a dehumidifier -- a real necessity here in the cool but humid mountains.

Then, before I made a big mistake with a bad paint and painted all of the exterior of the containers, I wanted to test out some oil based polyurethane red oxide primer and some white polyurethane wall paint, so I sanded, primed two coats, and painted two coats onto the 12-foot section between #3 and #4. I used my Fuji HVLP (High Volume, Low Pressure) spray gun. This is a nice rig and it sprayed the polyurethane on the metal siding like glass.

At least something is finish painted. Will it remain white or will we choose a color?

Finally, my delivery arrived and I could get to work on the 12-foot by 40-foot floor between #3 and #4 — that’s the space behind the white wall in the above photo. The floor will consist of 2″x4″ metal carriolas, covered by metal roofing panels, and topped with a 3-inch concrete slab that will extend throughout the containers, too. Here is the framing underway:

I have to admit to a small error; when I placed the containers on the columns, I placed these two exactly 12-feet apart measured from the outside of the containers. However, the floor joists ended up being about 12-feet two-inches long because I affixed them to the indented part of the container main floor support I-beam. I had to buy 14-footers. Should I do this again, I would move the containers a few inches closer to each other. Nevertheless, I can use the cutoffs for other projects.

To start the project, I measured off two-foot incriments, then used the angle grinder to take away some of the paint for easier welding:

A carriola floor joist is ready to slide into place and be welded.

To measure the lengths of the carriolas, I used two boards and a clamp, adjusting the length for each joist. You wouldn’t expect it, but the lengths varied due to various dents and strengthening gussets. Here’s a photo of the measuring jig being used to mark a joist for cutting with the chop saw:

After three days of cutting and welding, here is the floor framing finished and with two sheets of roofing metal screwed in place:

You can also see that I fashioned a center beam from two carriolas. Tomorrow Armando and I will pour three small footings to further support the concrete slab and to reduce any floor bounce. I also built the framework for the wall that will separate the bedroom (foreground) from the master bathroom.

Throughout all of this, Armando has helped me lift and tote the heavy stuff, but mainly he has been working to smooth out the lot. He is almost done:

You can really see his progress in this next photo taken from the northwest corner of the lot. He is taking out a lot of stumps and surface roots as he goes:

I can’t wait for windows! The big opening on the west wall of our bedroom will be divided into a window grid with 2″x2″ square tubing.

My next small task will be to finish cutting and removing a scrap strip of container siding metal and re-purpose it into a very short wall section that will go at the bottom of the bedroom window wall.

That’s all for now. Thanks for visiting my blog. I’m pleased that so many people have subscribed to receive notice of new posts, and it was fun to watch the 10,000 hits mark come and go right at the one-year mark of my blog. Here’s a screenshot of month-by-month hits:

A dip last year during "family business," but otherwise my traffic is growing! Please feel free to add your comments to my posts. Fred

Welding Frenzy ~ Welding On Shipping Containers

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With the tilebacker walls in place, it was finally time to haul the welder up onto the roof of container four. The four-foot high wall that holds up the high end of the roof over the space between three and four was only tacked in place. I am now faced with the task of welding a forty-foot long bead, welding the wall to the roof of the shipping container.

Armando and I tried first to lift the welder with pulleys and a rope, but we were getting exhausted and the welder wasn’t budging far off the ground. When I bought the pulleys I wanted double-block (two wheels per unit) pulleys but could only find less mechanically-advantaged single-block pulleys. So we rigged an electric winch (thank you for the loan of the winch, Ivan) and effortlessly lifted the heavy welder to the roof. Once up on the roof, with the new ATW wheelbarrow wheels, the welding rig no longer bumps and bangs, but rolls across the corrugated roof very easily.

The wall to be welded is made up of metal siding cut from the wall of the container below. Here’s how the siding sits on the container. You can see that I have some significant gaps to fill while welding. White is the wall, red is the container roof.

This is the largest gap, about a quarter of an inch. Most of the spaces are about a sixteenth of an inch or the metals are kiss-fitting.

I really wasn’t looking forward to this welding task. If it rains, the gig is off. If it is sunny, working in a hot welding hood on the hot metal roof, body crouched so as to reach the area to be welded but avoiding flying sparks and splatter, legs falling asleep; no, I wasn’t looking forward to this task. But it had to be done, and afterwards no more water will enter the container below.

I also wasn’t looking forward to the job because I have been using number 6011 welding rods. These are the standard welding rod here in Panama and can be found in any hardware store and even some grocery stores right next to the duct tape. They burn paint away easily and work in any position. But they stick easily and this can be frustrating.

If you don’t know, the idea of welding is to touch the welding rod to the metal you want to weld, create a short circuit if you will, get sparks flying, then pull away slightly and maintain a gap that the fire jumps across, heating and fusing the metals. It is during this initial getting-the-sparks-flying stage that the welding rod can fuse itself (or stick) to the metal to be welded. If it sticks you have to wiggle the rod back and forth until it breaks free then start the process all over again. When I tacked the wall in place, there was a whole lot of sticking going on and I wasn’t looking forward to forty feet of frustration.

I have to declare here that welding is new to me. Previously my work life involved wood, glue, screws and nails. I learned a little bit about welding from Bob H. back in the States, just enough to get me going and make me dangerous as they say. I guess you could call me a back yard welder. I don’t know squat about the coefficient of this or that, or the temperature that bronze-molybdenum-strontium 90 alloy melts at. I only know to get the spark going and keep it going. So to all the professional welders who fall across this blog by mistake, those with multiple certifications in underwater welding and welding in deep space on the Space Station while holding a wet cat, please have pity on me for what I am attempting to do at this stage of my life, and maybe remember those first not-so-pretty welds that you made so many years ago. Thank you.

So for my birthday, friend Les gave me about ten pounds of not 6011 rods, but instead 6013 rods. I thought I would give them a try on this project. How bad could it be? As it turns out, not bad at all.

The ubiquitous 6011s burn real hot. They burn paint real quick. Lots of slag flies everywhere, the rods stick easily, and if you are thinking about last night’s fight with your wife and not paying 100% attention to counting the number of seconds that are passing, you can burn a hole in the metal the size of Texas.

Even though technically in the same family (I don’t really know this for sure, I’m making this up), the 6013s are a real pleasure to work with. If the 6011s are a stay-out-all-night rebellious teenager, the 6013s are their stay-at-home studious twin. Rod sticking is much, much less with the 6013s. They burn hot enough to eat through the numerous layers of paint on the container roof, but the burn is more surgical if you will. There is less flaming slag flying over the top of my welding helmet, thereby burning fewer holes my scalp. Both rods seem to want to burn well for me with 60-amps set on the dial of the welder:

The new (to me) 6013s also don’t burn big holes in the metal nearly as easily. And if I do burn a hole, I can close the doughnut hole much more easily. A blob of the 6013 seems to stay in place as it cools making closing the hole quite easy, whereas the 6011 blob shrinks as it cools, leaving the hole almost as large as when I started. And if I switch the amps down from 60 to 40, the holes close quite rapidly.

To weld, you have to keep the welding rod moving. There are numerous techniques: the back and forth wiggle, the circle swoop, etc. The technique that I found to work best for me is this: working in the general form of a backwards letter C, maybe something like this:  ]  , I start at the bottom left of the backward C.  I get the spark going and sit in one place on the roof of the container for a second-and-a-half to two seconds, burning paint and making a small puddle of molten metal. Then in the next second I sweep to the right and up, then over to the left. Then to prevent creating a hole, I get the heck out of Dodge, wait for the new metal to cool for a second, then repeat. I’m left handed and am working from right to left. So if you are right handed maybe you will find a forward C and left to right easier. Your mileage may vary.  If you figure that I move about an eighth-of-an-inch at a time, that makes only 3,840 repetitions in the forty-foot long stretch. It goes like this: weld, weld, weld, move, stretch, drink water, repeat. Simple.

Here is a photo of the mess I am making:

A lot of the mess is paint that has burned and flaked, and the weld cleans up fairly well with a wire brush. It looks to me like it will keep water from leaking into the house. Here is the weld all wire brushed but not prime painted. The roof was too hot and the paint probably would have boiled. Hey, maybe Monday I’ll fry some eggs for lunch.

I got to the half-way point today before I sensed the blisters on my knees from the hot roof. I quit about 2:00. Monday weather permitting I will be back at the second half. With my new knowledge of the 6013 rods and my experience today, I’m not dreading the second half at all. Still, it will be good to be done with this part of the job. I will have to repeat this process when I erect the wall over container two. Stairs will lead up to this wall, and a door will take us out to the roof deck. I am anticipating the hammock swinging in the breeze.

Thanks for the swell welding rods Les! That’s all for now. Happy welding!

Wallito (The Little Wall)

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In Spanish the word ending -ito signifies affection or diminutive stature. In this post, I tell about the short wall I just built, hence the new English word I coined; wallito.

There has been a lot of rain recently, including a few complete rain-outs, so progress has been slow. But I have managed to work on the two-foot high wall above container three that holds up the low end of the roof between three and four.

Originally I was going to use some of the 20-foot scrap wall section cut from container three for this new wall, but we have amended the plan and now are cutting only doorways from the container. Because we decided to use tilebacker (cement board) for the interior walls, it seemed like a natural to use the tilebacker for this little wall overhead.

First I cut eight 2″x2″ square tubing “studs” and welded them in place to receive the tilebacker. Because I was working by myself, I made the runway scaffolding so I wouldn’t have to lift the welder.

The wall will go in that long open space above the container.

Speaking of the welder, I got tired of the anemic factory-installed wheels and put on some wheelbarrow wheels. Now I have an ATW (all terrain welder).

Some difference, huh?

Then Armando and I hauled the four sheets of 3/4″ tilebacker from container one to container four (it’s always a treat to carry heavy stuff through the mud). I cut them to shape with a tile blade on my circular saw and Armando sponged on the first coat of sealer. The sealer will resist water and dirt stains.

For the sealer, we decided to go with a wet-look acrylic polymer. Two coats sponged on quickly is all it takes to protect the surface. Ask me in three years how it worked. Here’s the sealer sitting on top of a piece of tilebacker after the first coat. The second coat brings up the shine.

Rain stopped production for the day, but this morning I swept the water off the top of the container roof and installed the tilebacker sheets on the studs. I used the same sheetmetal roofing screws that I used to screw the roofing to the steel framing. Here’s the wall all finished except for the second coat of sealer.

I sealed the tilebacker to the top of the container with urethane caulk. To control water runoff from the roof, I will make the standard Panamanian roof gutter system: take a piece of 4-inch PVC tubing and slice the length of the tubing with a saber/jig saw. A circular saw is faster, but the PVC will most likely shatter, making a mess of the tube. Out in the pueblos in the mountains, they use an old rusty handsaw. Tedious work for sure.

Anyway, after the cut is made, you spring open the tube a bit and slide it over the tail end of the roofing metal. Pieces of bailing wire wrapped around roofing screws holds the gutter in place. You can paint the gutter any color you want, but our previous gardener Miguel liked to use tar thinned with lacquer thinner as the paint. Any color you want as long as it is black.

Ultimately the container roof will be covered with a concrete slab, sloped toward the center of the container and down and off the back end of the container. The slab will cover and protect the urethane caulk. I hope.

I am concerned about the corrosion/rust between the metal container roof and the concrete slab, so I am considering painting the roof with an elastomeric roof coating. I could paint the coating up over the caulk and a few inches onto the tilebacker, then pour the concrete slab. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Here’s a picture of the wall from the inside:

Later, when I work on the interior of the house, I will apply a second sheet of tilebacker on the inside of the studs. For protection from potential smashers/robbers, I will probably weld a couple pieces of 1/2″ rebar in the stud cavity. The tilebacker is strong for the elements, but probably is no match for a big boot and would be a weak point in the building envelope. But for now I am only interested in getting the building dried in.

Tomorrow I will work on putting tilebacker on the triangular section you see up in the first photo. Before that, I need to paint the exterior of the wall below the triangle with white paint.

When I don’t need Armando to lift and tote, he is busy working on leveling the lot and preparing it for grass. Sod grass can be had here, but it is expensive. Armando said that he wanted to clear out some of the grass close to his house because he has had some close encounters with the slithering kind in his house lately. Replacing the grass with gravel will slow the critters down. So early one foggy morning, I went to his house to get a pickup full of grass. He lives on a dead end off a dead end off a dead end, and by the time I get within a few hundred yards from his house, the road is very narrow. I can’t make the turn into his “driveway,” actually only a wide path. So we worked for an hour with two wheelbarrows and got the truck loaded.

Sod from Armando’s yard is somewhat of an exaggeration, as he dug up the grass shovel by shovelful, pieces breaking, some only a few inches square at best. We kidded that planting the grass in my yard was like getting a hair transplant, hair by hair. But he got the job done in two days, and now the yard is starting to look like a yard.

(Normally when I write these blogs, I re-size the photos to be a bit larger on the page. This time, the re-sizing option doesn’t exist. Sorry. You can always click the photo to make it larger.)

I’m glad to have this little wall out of the way. Soon I can haul the welder up to the roof of container four and finish welding the upper wall to the container roof. That’s all for now.

Here’s The Plan

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Regular readers will remember a previous post or two when the price of containers went through the roof and we were having difficulty finding a crane that we could afford to raise two containers to form the second floor. We decided to amend our plans to make a one-story house. Now, we rarely think about that old two-story plan and we are happy with what we are currently building.

For some time I have been promising to take some pictures of the (rudimentary) scale model of the house and post them here.

Here they are:

This is the view from the east. The four containers are marked 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Referring to the photo above, the kitchen is at this end (east) of containers 1 & 2. The TV, computer space, and our hang-out area is at the far end (west) of 1 & 2.

Between 2 & 3 is a 24-foot space that will form the front entry, the dining room, living room, and stairs to the roof deck above 1 & 2. The roof over this space is very simple, but creates a big surprise, exposed in the next two photos.

This end (east) of containers 3 & 4, as well as the 12-foot space between them, will be my shop. The far end (west) of this space will be our bedroom, master bathroom, a half bathroom, and a big closet that will have a dehumidifier.

The location of the laundry area is unconfirmed as of this moment, but I have promised Cynthia that we won’t have to go into town to do our laundry!

When we were buying containers, we wanted to get a 20-footer to make a guest casita and storage room (deposito in Spanish), but the price was the same as for a 40-footer. So the plan now is to take some of the metal that I cut out of the containers and build the casita myself.

The roof surprise is next:

View from the south-east.

Above, rotating just slightly to the south-east, you can see that the roof has a low-slope, late-1950s style. But it is on an angle creating some interesting geometry. Roofs in Panama are all about shedding a large amount of rainfall, and this low-slope is very common. Steep snow-shedding roofs just aren’t necessary here and look out of place in my opinion. Swiss chalet in Panama? Huh? Maybe if you are homesick for Switzerland, but don’t push it.

Hot air balloon view from the east.

Above, you can clearly see how simple the big roof is; it is just a big rectangle with one corner cut off at the bottom. But on its 45-degree skew it packs an understated design punch.

To give you a better idea as to the size of this roof, the long beam on the leading east edge will be 65-feet long. I’ll weld it up on the ground and have some fun with ropes and mirrors getting it up in the air.

The triangular open area between 2 & 3 creates a covered entry, and the prow of the roof forms cover over much of the roof deck.

Monster gutters and a sloped concrete roof on container 3 will move rainwater off to the west. It should provide a dramatic cascade during our tropical downpours.

So that’s our new plan.

My window painting gig is coming to an end. I had to weld up another scaffolding to safely get one last window done. Now I have to second and third coat a few windows and touch up some tired areas of the house and I will be done. The owners of the house and I are really happy with the way the job is turning out; the new transparent paint really showcases how badly the polyurethane failed after only three years. But ask me in another three years how our grand experiment in paint vs. varnish turns out; I’ll be hanging by my thumbs in the meantime.

The top window is done and we have moved the scaffolding down one level. Armando sands and preps this window. Compare the top left window with the one on the right. What a difference!

IN OTHER NEWS: In It Takes A Pueblo, I made two errors because of my incomplete grasp on the Spanish language. I now have the full stories:

1. The 500 sacks of cement were a gift to the families in the pueblo from their elected representative, the diputado (deputy). Aparently the diputados have discretionary funds. Some fix the remote dirt roads, some give sacks of cement. Remember this come election time, dear voters.

2. The young boy with the goose egg lump on his forehead that I took to the Central Salud wasn’t in a car accident as I thought. Turns out that he and his older brother were playing with rocks. Big rocks according to their sister, and the younger boy got in the way of an airborne boulder. No TV for a month… wait a minute, they don’t have a TV because they don’t have electricity in their home. At least the kids aren’t couch potatoes!

That’s all for now.

Cutting Metal, Making A Wall

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I’ve been working on cutting the rest of the long wall out of container number 4. I had already cut out half of it and used that metal to form the high wall for the new roof to sit on. To cut the metal, I’ve chosen to use a nine-inch angle grinder with a thin cut off blade. I have a plasma torch which I think might be a better tool for the job, but it is broken and I am having difficulty getting it serviced here in Panama. The only other option is an oxy-acetylene torch, which I don’t own. The angle grinder/cut off disk makes a very clean cut, perfect for welding other metal to it.

It is often low-tech that saves the day here. Anything electronic is at the mercy of a fluctuating, erratic Panamanian power supply. If that doesn’t do you in, something else will. A year ago my computer died. Actually, a gecko died on the motherboard and shorted the works. Anyway, angle grinder it is, and this job is not for sissies. It takes a great deal of gymnastics and concentration to control the machine as kickbacks happen easily.

Cutting along the floor line is very easy as I could just slide the blade guard along the floor for a perfect cut. The cut at the roof line wasn’t too bad either, as there is a 2″x2″ beam to ride the blade along. I found it easiest to make this cut from the outside of the container so my head wasn’t hitting the inside of the container roof, and I wasn’t eating a flood of sparks. But it was cut six inches, move the ladder, re-tie the ladder with a rope, cut six inches, move the ladder, each time carrying the grinder up and down the ladder. The most difficult cuts seemed to be the vertical cuts. Sparks made the line difficult to see, there is nothing to ride along, and there was the constant threat of a kickback. I write all this for those of you who are thinking of tackling a container project. This was a difficult task and it ate lots of cutoff disks. I dragged myself home for a much needed shower and a siesta.

Now I’ll back track just a bit. I have read on other sites about how containers lose their stability when you cut a wall out. This is very true. I had already welded in the new wall above the wall I was going to cut out, so the roof remained stable. But when I cut the floor line, the floor became bouncy like a trampoline. To counteract this, I welded a piece of 5/8″ rebar vertically at the center of the cut out wall, thereby hanging the floor from the reinforced roof if you follow. This rebar will ultimately be buried in the wall that divides my shop from the bedroom. I will most likely put a footing and a column at this point below the floor.

As I got toward the end of cutting the panel from the container, I started thinking about how the panel was going to act when it was finally cut free. The section I had nearly cut free was 12-feet wide. The stuff is very heavy and flops like a fish being landed in a boat or like Jello being nailed to a tree. And the edges are sharp enough to sever body parts. Again, I was working alone. Analyzing the situation, I decided to use a rope and force the free part of the panel to curve. (Like if you take a flat piece of paper and bend it into a circle and tape it, it will stand on its own.) This seemed to work well, but I planned my escape routes just in case. When I made the final cut, the panel moved about a quarter inch then just stood still. I could then wrangle the rope, opening the curve slowly and guide the panel to fall in a controlled manner. It made quite a crash-bang when it finally hit the floor of the container.

The piece that I have just cut out will become a wall section in my workshop — the 12-foot open space between containers 3 and 4. While the panel was laying flat, I welded a piece of 2×2 square tubing to what will be the top of the new wall. It was much easier to weld it there on the container floor than up in the air. Also, this tubing stiffened the wall, which is sure to make installation easier.

After welding the 12-foot stretch, I ground the welds clean and applied a coat of anti-rust paint. I’ll give the paint a day or two to dry, then Armando and I will figure out how to move this heavy piece and weld it into place.

Two days later: Armando and I set some metal 2x4s on the ground as a track to slide the wall section on. We slid the wall out of the container and onto the tracks. It moved quite easily. When we got it to the other end of the container, we lifted one end up onto the floor of the open container (#4). Next we lifted the other end and set it on the top of the concrete column (at #3). We needed to get the slab of steel vertical. We used a clamp, rope, and pulleys to lift the top of the section up, but the pulleys just didn’t have the mechanical advantage to get the job done. Also, we decided that more manpower was in order. So we asked two local guys, Samuel and Ramiro, and I also got the tow straps and the come-along from the trunk of the car.

I slung the tow straps under the panel and over an overhead beam, hooked up the come-along, and clicked it up into place. Armando and I probably could have done it alone once we had the mechanical advantage, but the other guys had fun too. Once vertical, we tickled and prodded it a tiny bit and it fit right into position. I locked it into place with a couple clamps then welded it so it wouldn’t run away. This advancement in the project was a big psychological boost and we all shared a high-five. I place a very high priority on not having accidents, and I made sure to compliment the guys on emerging from the experiment safe and sound; no toes were guillotined in the wall lifting process.

Next, I’m going to complete the welds on the high wall above container 4, then move to number 3 and do the same high wall act. Then it is cut the appropriate holes in number 3 and get ready for the concrete floor. Whew.

Here are some photos:

Here's the 12-foot section tied in a curve and cut free.

Mr. Wobblie safely flat on the floor. The entire wall is removed from the container, but it is being supported by the wall above the container roof.

Here's the wall section with the 2"x2" welded in place and prime coated. I can't wait to set this wall in place at the far end of the container.

Here's the space between the containers at the start of the day.

Now with the wall section in place. This 12-foot section of wall basically cost me a little labor, some cutting disks, and some welding rod. The brown stain is just dirt from welding; it will wash right off. At this point, the roofline looks a bit anemic. This will all change when the carport is built out toward where I am standing.

Looking at the new wall from the inside. I'll weld a steel 2"x6" carriola at the bottom of the new wall so that all the lines outside line up. This new wall helps close in my workshop.

Here is a detail for future container house builders: Looking from the inside, this is a detail of where the new wall meets the container corner. The blackened area is the new weld. The red arrow area is the heavy metal structural corner. It is at least 1/4" thick. The green arrow area is the wall panel. It is about 1/16" thick. I chose to make the corner at the same location where these two thicknesses used to meet before I cut the container apart.

Here is the other corner from the outside. This end of the panel hasn't been welded yet. As you can see, the new wall indents from the corner of the container.

That’s all I know for sure right now. Thanks for visiting.

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Sliding Home: The Front Gate Ready To Roll

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The front gate is rolling on its track. I am extremely happy with it as it looks just as I had envisioned it. Although there are more than 300 weld points, the whole gate has the minimalist feel that I wanted. A few people have seen it so far and easily identified the design as cat tails.

This was a fun project even if the welding, grinding, sanding, and painting was quite tedious. I spent a lot of time stepping back, looking at the progress and planning my next move. Actually, I had to plan three or four moves in advance, as in a game of chess, so that I didn’t end up with overlaps, gaps, or clutter that didn’t make sense in the design.

Although I was replicating a wild grass, I wanted order to the design, so I worked from the center out to both sides, fabricating two of every stalk. The left and right sides from center are mirror images.

Assembly: The frame of the gate is made of 2″ x 2″ x 1/16″ square tubing. The two square tubes at the bottom formed a beam once the stalks were all welded in place; the gate doesn’t sag at all. I drilled 1/2″ holes in the beam for the stalks to pass through.  The stalks of the plants are 1/2″ round stock. The seed pods at the ends of the stalks are made from black pipe; half-inch pipe fit well over the round stock but wasn’t fat enough for a seed pod, so I cut lengths of 3/4″ pipe, too. I pounded the smaller pipe into the larger pipe then welded the pipe assembly to the stalks. After I cleaned up all the weld points with the grinder, I applied body filler (Bondo) to most of the joints and the tops and bottoms of the seed pods. Then I sanded the body filler smooth. I topped everything off with two coats of red oxide primer followed by one coat of dark gray. This color may or may not change in the future; we’ll have to see what color the containers end up being painted.

Armando and I were working on the job, and I rounded up two other local workers to help us move the gate from container 3 to its place on the angle iron track. Although the design is very “airy,” this is one heavy gate. I think a gate opener is in order; I can slide the gate but Cynthia pushed on it as hard as she could but it was as if it was welded to the ground.

Here are some photos. Remember, click a photo to make it larger, click the back button to return.

Fabrication underway.

Here is the gate all welded and welds ground out, ready for body filler. I think the design is graceful and has a hint of art nouveau.

Looking out, you don't feel like you are in a garrison. There is a hint of a family crest in the center of the gate.

Dog tired but happy. The curved stalks are strategically placed so as to strengthen the vertical stalks.

I welded this bracket from metal 2x4s. The wheels guide the gate as it opens and closes. Remember, there will be a concrete hat on top of the columns.

Next, I think I will take some pictures of a small model that I built showing the new and improved one-story design of the house. I’ll post them so you can see the new plan.

That’s all for now.

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More Front Fence

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We are very anxious to get back to the actual task of housebuilding, but the need to secure the property to keep dog Jabo in and other things out has had us focusing on the front fence. And, despite the week-long signs some weeks ago of the start of the rainy season, the weather has been splendid indeed.

So far, the fence is erected and the two corner columns for the driveway gate are pretty much done. We still need to make hats for the columns, but that can come later. Also much later will be the application of ceramic tile on the two columns as well as on the electric service wall at the corner of the lot.

Now we need to work on the gate itself. In my last post I talked about the cat o’ nine tail design based on a wooden bowl that I made. But will the gate split and be hinged on the columns or will it slide on a track? We decided on a sliding front gate because it would allow the columns to be less structurally robust, and secondly because, well, we wanted a sliding gate. A vital part of a sliding gate is the track for the gate to slide on. There are two types of track; one is at ground level, and the other is overhead, like typical bedroom closet door tracks. Each has strengths and weaknesses.

The ground level track is a clean looking application in that there is no overhead apparatus. However, it has to be mighty strong so that cars and trucks driving over it don’t bend the metal angle iron. I have noticed any number of ground level tracks bent and downtrodden from weighty vehicles. The overhead track eliminates the bending issue, but it has to have a structure strong enough to support the gate 24/7. It can be incorporated into a design element or not, and there is a fair share of ugly overhead tracks around Panama.

I set up a welding shop in container #3 and spent two days building the ground level track. The driveway is just under 20-feet wide. Nineteen-feet three-inches to be exact. But to be able to slide the gate, the track must be twice that, or just under forty feet. The container is just a tad longer than the track, so I could make it entirely inside the container and lock the doors at night.

I didn’t want a lot of the track showing, so the only visible part of the track is a piece of 1.5″ x 1.5″ angle iron. (The wheels for this type of track have a V groove in them and they ride on the V of the angle iron.) Not very robust angle iron you say, Bob? I agree. But under that piece of angle iron I welded a  piece of five-eights-inch rebar. Then I cut forty, twelve-inch pieces of the same rebar and welded one every six inches at a right angle from the already attached rebar. At the bottom of that, I welded another twenty-foot piece of rebar. This in effect made up a ladder that would be embedded in concrete. Don’t panic, photos follow. For the other twenty-feet of track, I welded several rebar legs that would be set in concrete piers.

By the way, when you weld on one side of a piece of metal, that metal tends to warp, or more accurately, bow. So before I began welding, I turned the angle iron upside down and using short boards and screws, I fixed it in place on the container floor. Now when I welded, the metal couldn’t bow. The entire assembly ended up dead straight. The first time I witnessed this bowing phenomenon was when I was watching a local “welder” make a steel door with a sheet of steel on one side of the door. When he was done, he couldn’t hang the door on the hinges because the door had bowed maybe an inch out of straight. We resolved this by supporting the door at each end, putting 2x4s on top of the door, then I drove over it with the Honda pickup. It bent it back into a perfectly straight door. Lucky I guess. I have also seen a video online where the fabricator heated the other side of the welded steel with a torch and the piece came back into alignment.

As I was fabricating the track assembly, I had Armando preparing a ditch across the driveway. This was nasty work and took more than a day because of all the big rocks that we placed as a bed for the driveway. I made sure to give Armando lots of “buen trabajo”s as he worked along. Because of the rocks, the ditch automaticly ended up about eighteen-inches wide and two-feet deep.

In the mean time, the trees on our property that Armando identified as “luna” trees have turned a beautiful mustard yellow color and the bees at the flower crown of the trees are very audibly buzzing all day long. Also, with mangos beginning to ripen, the flock of wild parrots are back in our area. This year looks like a good one for mangos. Last year’s dry season was actually quite wet and nearly every mango had a bonus worm inside. I don’t think that I put a single mango in the freezer all last season. The mangos down the mountain are already ready, and card table-sized stands are popping up all along the roadside. I got one basketful and they were delicious. Jabo loves to gnaw on the mango pits. Can’t wait for ours.

Speaking of the roadside, there is a roadside blight of billboards nearly the entire length of the hour-and-a-half drive on the Pan American Highway to and from Panama City. They seemed to have popped up during the last presidential election, and they never went away. Now they are papered with signs for all the resorts and upscale communities that are being built all over Panama, as well as clothing, cars, cell phone carriers, you name it. Hundreds of them. Some have twisted and blown over in the wind, and others sit staring blankly back at the passersby, one corner unabashedly adorned with the word, “Disponible” (dis-pon-e-blay) meaning available, and a phone number. Well, returning home from our most recent trip to the city, nearly every single one of these billboard monsters was papered with an official government sign that said, “Valla Ilegal,” meaning “Illegal Fence.” It looks like these signs will be coming down in the not too distant future. “Ugliness is so grim,” Lady Bird Johnson once said before she started her Beautification of America campaign. I wonder what economic influence was behind this effort in Panama?

And the front gate? I have started construction of that in container #3. No photos yet as it is still my secret project. Soon though, as I have maybe two days more fabrication before Cynthia takes up brush and paint. She has been chomping at the bit to do her share on this house project, and she is ready to start painting. I figure two coats of red-oxide and two coats of the final paint color. What color? Stay tuned. By the way, to say “one more coat (of paint) in Spanish, you would say, “Un mano mas,” mano being the word for “hand,” so it would be said as, “One more hand.”

Here are some photos, without the gate:

Armando applies repello to the driveway gateposts.

Armando digs the ditch for the gate track.

The track assembly is set in place and leveled, ready for concrete.

We poured concrete -- twelve wheelbarrows -- into the ditch along with most of the rocks that Armando had removed. We stopped about three inches below the angle iron.

Then we used some scrap 1"x3" boards to make a form and poured the rest of the concrete up to the bottom of the angle iron. I smoothed the concrete edges with the edger. Later we removed the forms and spread some crushed rock at the driveway entrance.

Here's an overview of the front fence. The Luna tree is in full bloom.

Bonus photo: Walking back from taking the previous photo, I noticed that the small Maracuja (Passion Fruit) tree at the corner was bearing ripe fruit. What a tasty treat, sweet with a slight tartness. And all those little seeds to pick out from your teeth! I took this photo against the vintage '50s or '60s floor tiles in our rental. I'm told that they were made locally. They seem to be in every house in the area that hasn't been remodeled. Yellows, pinks, greens, blues. A different color in each room. Very retro!

The gate is next. Soon.

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The Front Fence

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Fences in Panama are very important. They indicate that, “This is my property. I am marking it and I am protecting it. I respect my stuff, and so should you.” Like the locks on trashcans in campgrounds and parks, fences keep a good bear from going bad.

We already erected fencing at the two sides and the back of the lot, but the front was postponed until the containers were placed and the well was completed. Now that the big vehicles are gone and those tasks are done and the rainy season is on its way, it seems like a good time to finish the fence. Also, our dog likes to go to work with Dad some days, and without the fence or constant attention, he is “gone fishing” in the blink of an eye. He didn’t grow up on a rope, so when he is tied up it is only a matter of a few seconds before he is in a mess of rope spaghetti.

So I have Armando working on the front fence. We have dug the foundation, placed the posts in concrete, and are working on the bottom row of concrete blocks. Hernan joined us for a day or two, and I got him going on the columns at either side of the driveway. They will mimic the electric service entrance wall at the corner of the lot.

When I’m not keeping a quality control eye on the fence progress (which needs to be done frequently), I am working on getting power to the well pump. This involves bringing power to the house, first by stringing the main utility wire from the service entrance wall, across the three tall fence posts on the east boundary, then turning toward the house. I installed a conduit through the roof on container #3 and mounted a breaker panel on the wall below the conduit. Next I need to put a sub-panel in container #2 and run the utility wire to that panel. From there, it is a short run with some #12 wire to the pump controls that I have mounted in container #1. Soon, we will have water flowing from the well. All this new wiring means not having to coil up several hundred feet of extension cord every day as we will now have power in the containers.

Today, Sunday, I have been working with graph paper most of the day, designing the front gate. Previously, I mentioned the design principles of C.R.A.P. and Repeating a grid from the windows to the front gate. But the more I drew front gate to scale, the more it looked, well, Boring. Or maybe like a Scottish tartan plaid. There’s nothing wrong about plaid, it just didn’t go with the program. It made the whole project look too hard, as in sharp edged, and there was just too dang much of it. And since there is no B in C.R.A.P., I had to do something.

How about C, the Contrast part of C.R.A.P.? So I worked trying to bring in a softer element, curves. Some years ago, as Neighbor Bob will remember, I was working on a gate for a swimming pool area. It was going to have stalks of flowers on it. Today as I drew, it dawned on me that I had seen this before. Years ago, my mother had a small lead crystal glass bowl that had pussy willows or cat-o’-nine-tails on it. The bowl is long gone from the family; maybe it was dropped and broken, who knows. But the memory stayed with me, and in 1999 I made from that memory a small maple wood bowl on my lathe and carved cat-o’-nine-tails on it with small chisels.

I showed my grid drawings to Cynthia, told her of my grid problem, and I made that face showing blaauuggk, I hate it. The Design Acceptance Committee agreed with my assessment. But wait. I got my wooden bowl from the display case and said, “What if I made this same design but big?” And we could no doubt carry this theme elsewhere, perhaps to a security bar somewhere.

So it appears that we have a design for the front gate. The design softens the hard corners of everything else (Contrast), but the top ends of the shoots can have a sharpened point, good for security.

Here are a couple photos:

The front fence underway.

My bowl is less than an eighth of an inch thick.

Looking at the bowl, I can see that the bottom of the gate can be more dense, and the top more open and airy.

See you later.

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