Thread: out in the bush working and what an eye opener lol

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getting board, my phone don't work out here but my PC does so i thought i would fill in a bit of time as i am laying here board to death. its raining and i am stuck in this old hut, quoted this job over the phone kinda do and charge, the first part of the job is an old cottage with lots of glue on the floors, and the second job will be a deck that runs throughout the homestead 10K's down the track. Every time i walk from the cottage back to the hut i pass about 5 of these bloody brown snakes, hope the wet weather drives them away. on the other hand the wet weather is now being a pain because to get to the cottage it takes me about ten minutes as my shoes keep clogging up with red clay and i end up being 6" taller by the time i reach the job, I am not game to move the van for fear of getting bogged, hope it all drys up by mid next week so i can get home as the driveway is 17K's of red outback clay that has turned into sushi. the job is between Nyngan and Brewarrina out in the sticks on a 50,000 acre cattle station. my phone don't work out here but my laptop does, I bought a young bloke out to do the labouring and the first job i gave him was to clean the toilet out in the middle of the paddock, he came back shaking and said he saw a couple of snakes, lol now every time i go out there i pass at least 5 browns the place is full of them, anyway i got here wed night and hope to be back home by wed or Thurs next week, will mark this place in my diary as never to return :evil:
here are a few pics.
barnsey
brown snake vid click on image for video

our toilet before i got the boy to clean it.

our shack that we are staying in :shock: ops:

our shower.

the floor in the cottage i am sanding.and the young bloke i have working with me punching all the nails.



another brown snake.

there's a kitchen over near the shearing shed, its not too bad and after an hour cleaning everything it is at least usable, one of the stoves is not that old and one stove looks ancient, the old stove still has an old baking dish inside the oven with what looks like some old sausages and chops left behind from when the shearers were last here 6 or 8 months ago, the water in the shower has a septic smell to it so you need to use plenty of soap to hide the smell. its too late to bail out now as i have spent the last two days sanding all the glue off, and even if i decided to bail i don't think i would get too far as the road is too wet and boggy, hope it drys out by next week or i could be here for a while might have to start catching them browns for food as i only bought enough food for about ten days, might have to start rationing it out from now on lol.
anyway a jobs a job and if i don't do it someone else will and i need all the work i can get at the moment.
barnsey
will update tomorrow as the rest of the dramas unfold

Wow Quite a place!! The brown snake is one of the most venomous in the world, right? Praying for dry weather for you!

Looks like fun there, I sure am glad you got some one to clean that toilet.
I'd be looking for a fire hydrent open the door and shot it from about fifty feet away.
HE! HE! Can you tell I have had some work cleaning toilets before.
The floor is starting to look good there.
Kurt

same snakes out here as this one lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01hxq...eature=related
The toilet looks worse than it was, i think the wild pigs may have been using it as a water troff lol mostley mud, but still not something i would like to use, we still havn't worked out how to get rid of the frogs that reside under the rim though.

Well, ya can't say your job is boring!

That grain in the floor is gorgeous, make sure you put up a pic of the finished job.

The best thing I heard in that video is that the snakes actually try to run away.

Originally Posted by pastor bubba

The best thing I heard in that video is that the snakes actually try to run away.

You just have to watch out for the snakes that don't know that yet

Originally Posted by echnidna

You just have to watch out for the snakes that don't know that yet

Yeah,mate...that would be my luck,,I would find one in a bad mood.. Stuff them,,you keep them on your side of the ditch..We have enough vermin over here,,two legged types..
And ya wouldnt find me walking around in bare feet either.

hanging in there, kinda getting used to everything now, I finally finished getting all the black vynal glue off the floor with lots of effort.
had to diagonal cut the floor both ways with 24 grit, then run it all out with 24 grit followed by a diagonal cut both ways then run out with a 40 grit just to get back to bare boards and to flatten out the cupping, but have now progressed a little further with the job, the edges of the room proved to be a battle in them selves as i had to start with a 24 grit disc which was only getting about 2 liniel metres before clogging up with glue, if you have ever tried to sand that black bitumun under the body of a car you will know what i am talking about, times that by 95 square metres lo, any way i have used three boxes of 24 grit edging disks just to get back to the timber, then i had to repeat the prosess with 40 60 and 100 grit. The floor now has the first coat applied and tomorrow i can start all over again at the homestead that is about 10 k's down the track, at least the homestead is glue free.
I will upload some more pics when i put the final coats on. my batteries went flat this arv and i only got the before coating pics.
here is the floor ready for the vacume and first coat, It came up not too bad concidering all the glue it had on it.
cheers barnsey
before.and during, first cut accross the grain :shock:

house still has the old phone on the wall, the type you wind the handle to contact the operator, the box on the floor contains two eveready batteries that are as big as a coke can. this cottage was first built in the 1800's and has been through a few reno's over the years. i asked the property owner if there were any old cars on the property and he told me that he cleaned the place up about 10 years ago, the scrapies came out and removed about 15 old fords chevs and dodges, they were all complete and had been left where ever they had broken down on the property over the years, he said that most of them even still had the keys in them, he got $250 for them and the guy who got them just loaded them on top of each other and crushed them with the hiab, he said that a couple of them could of probably been driven if they had a fresh battery. :shock:

its been another bloody hot day out here in the bush, finally finished the cottage this morning then went down the track and started the homestead, am hoping to be finished Thursday morning and heading back home about lunch time, fingers crossed everything goes OK.
can't wait to get back home to my air conditioned house and back into my own bed and using a toilet that is not occupied by big green frogs lol
the two rooms and the main room in the cottage came up OK and the cocky likes them so i guess thats one good thing, now i just have to hope the homestead comes up just as good and he is happy with that as well.
never got any decent pics of the floors in the cottage as the sun was too glare but here are a couple of the ones that turned out half ok.
cheers barnsey.

[IMG]http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y287/pomrod1946/breehomesteadandcottage002.jpg[/IMG





and this is the start of the homestead floors.





will put some more up tomorrow.
its start to cool down a bit just had a big storm move through but we only got the wind so far as all the rain has gone around us for now which is good as the track will be dry enough to get back to the homestead in the morning.made the trip back into Nyngan yesterday arvo and got some supplies and a carton of blonds, bloody Andrew has me addicted to them lol. i bought another phone so now i have service out here, it came with $10 credit but i used all the credit up activating it :roll:
anyway all is good out here but i am looking forward to taking a week off when i get back to work on my car.
cheers barnsey

you do beautiful work.

I remember my Dad, who was a school superintendent in small town districts in Missouri, working one summer with the school janitor to refinish the maple floors in the school gymnasium, and then bringing the machinery home one weekend and doing the floors in the living room area of the house we were renting at the time. That is physical, intense work horsing those sanders around all day! You indeed do beautiful work. Just curious, what type of finish (varnish, polyurethane, something else?) do you apply, and what is your application method?

Hi Roger, i use 2k polyurethane, the brand is tobys lustapol I apply it with a 9mm mohair roller http://www.toby.com.au/PdfFiles/lustapol.pdf
i have been playing around with a free website putting up a few before and after pics, i haven't added any in a while but will get back to it soon, i am still learning how to use all the widgets and stuff.
when i learn how it all works i will try and make a better one.
cheers barnsey
I use a 12" Australian made Vinco drum sander pictured in one of the above photo's, and my other machine which i like best and use 95% of the time pictured in below pics is an American Clark classic 12" belt sander.
http://brettsfloorsanding.synthasite.com/

this floor was covered in mosaic parquetry, i removed the parquet and sanded all the glue back to bare timber then applied 2x coats of 2k gloss finish.

If I would have seen those snakes I would be on the next train out of town! I HATE snakes.

Beautiful work on the cottage.

Don

Those reflections tell the tale.............you, sir, know how to ride those sanders!

I'm not too keen on that high of a gloss on the floor, but it is striking. Still really like that particular woodgrain!