Debackle of the plywood

Poor Planning and Improvisation

 

    I already mentioned that my first big goof was soon to be revealed. That goof is specifically related to the plywood. Let's revisit the photo of the first cut of plywood being laid.

What a great fit. Right?

    Perfect fit right? Edge to edge on all four sides. It was a breeze to attach. Time to put the second piece of paneling on. I present 'illustration' number two.

Oh crap moment

    There goes properly planning ahead. What was I thinking? Choosing to cut the whole 4x8 sheet of plywood didn't help. I'm sure I could've found a way to get it home in one piece by borrowing a vehicle, but I know myself well enough that if I have motivation to get something done, I better find a way to do it right there and then. Stalling the momentum will lead me to the downward spiral of procrastination- something I cannot afford with a due-date of Halloween approaching and a work schedule becoming more demanding. But the sag from no support and no place to attach the plywood properly beyond the sides would have been an issue regardless.
     If memory serves me right, I believe I just added the two horizontal braces based on eyeballing equal distances. I never even factored in the mounting of each panel. Believe it or not it is mere coincidence that the first panel was edge-to-edge flush with the framing. Not so much for the second panel. Now I considered unscrewing the horizontal braces and moving them, but decided to take another route for two reasons (at least). One, I had already fastened the first panel with finishing nails. Don't worry, I'm not going to get into a nail vs. screw rant again; But face it- there is no pulling those nails without tearing up that board. Reason two- the adjustment I was considering would involve each panel sharing half of the less than the 2" (Remember my amateur amigos, a final sawed 2x4 is not quite, well, two by four?) side of the board. That is not nearly enough room, in my novice opinion, to drive a finishing nail without splitting wood, nonetheless the much needed support the board could gain with a modest increase in contact surface.


    So we've already covered the poor planning. Onto improvising. Two solutions need to be concocted here. The bowing needs to be solved and there needs to be more contact space for support and proper fastening. See photos below.

 Two different arrangements for the central supports to prevent bowing

     I started with the even cross arrangement (by using the extra 2x4 I bought just in case. One point back for planning ahead and avoiding another trip to Lowe's). I lined it up to make sure I made some decent cuts that were good and flush. Success! Is it sad that I am excited that I've made so many good cuts? (on the 2x4's. Let's not talk about the plywood) Then something dawned on me. It's embarrassing that I cannot even remember what the heck it was, but I came up with a reason to slightly stagger the middle supports. I want to say it had something to do with the way I was going to wire the electrical. Perhaps as I keep writing these blog posts it will come to me. Regardless, I went with the staggered supports. Recall that this blog is also a retrospective of work that has already been done weeks ago. My plan is to align the finishing touches and the end of the blog at a temporal concurrence.  

   Additional supports had to be made for properly fastening the remaining plywood panels. See photos below.

Panels attached with finishing nails on the edge framing only

Some added support and contact pieces

     Notice something in the first photo with all the plywood pieces arranged? The 'top' piece is actually cut in half as well, leaving a seam. Not a big seam, but one that needed to be corrected and braced. I found some strips of thin wood lying around the garage and gorilla-glued them on and made the seam flush and stable. The other support pieces were put-in as you can see in two different orientations. This was done specifically to mount the dual power switch directly in the center as well as allow and easier drill hole for electrical wiring to be run down on the left side. 

 

Temporary Feet

     As a last note for this post, I added temporary feet to keep the wall upright. I used the rest of my 2x6 board cut into two, two-foot sections. Double screwed and with a near 6x6 contact area on each side, the approximate 7-foot tall wall is rather stable. It can be bumped and may wobble slightly but you'd have to push it with vigorous force to knock it over. Again, these feet are temporary.