Once again our buddy Verbeck got distracted from fixing his car by the Caravan. He came in and just rocked the sheathing process into action like he tends to do. We applied the sheathing in a way we decided would add the most sheer strength to the structure and we used 3/8 in plywood and 1 5/8″ screws.
We used a few different methods for cutting off the extra board and the openings to get to use the new tools and gain the know-how. At first, we were tacking up the boards in place, drawing a line where the excess or opening was, take it down and skill saw it at the site. This method is definitely the most labor intensive but provided us with the best and easiest lines to cut. For the next method, we cut the boards while they were screwed onto the structure with a skill saw, a new for me. This took some getting used too and was trickier to follow the line. We also tried using the reciprocating saw and jigsaw on the plywood in place. These were faster than the skill saw but definitely made a more rugged cut. However, they worked great for cutting off the excess board that went above the framing.
We didn’t realize that each piece of plywood was supposed to match up with a stud, but we kept going and ended up with 4 places we should have had studs to connect the sheathing to. We screwed in some 2×3 studs sideways and created a strip to attach the ends of the sheets to in order to make them flush and sturdy, it ended up working out great.
All in all, sheathing was a hell of a process, especially once we lost our 3rd man. Holding and tacking these boards up was pretty tough and took us into the night. Getting them flush and staying in place is like everything else; something you get better at with practice.
Reading this back I am reminded at how amazing and hilarious this project actually is. We’re coming with basically no building experience and really going at this dream of building our home, it’s awesome! We are hitting new learning curves all the time and probably what is simple construction is a challenge but we are finding teachers and learning lessons along the way. Cheers to the experience!
As always, much love to our awesome friends for their help and support! It really helps to have such a great support system and community to fuel us forward, we wouldn’t be here without you!
Ramble onward!
Rambling Caravan 