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Small Scale Engineering offers you the following services:

Engineering, fitting & turning on once-off and short run pieces
All types of welding including bespoke, metal furniture manufacture
Prototype manufacture
Home maintenance, restoration, repairs and renovations
General handyman

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Small Scale Engineering is also building a house out of shipping containers. Follow the project on our blog:

The Latest From the Container House Project

- We Have Reclaimed Crate Wood
  9th Oct 2019Prep WorkOne of the things we wanted to accomplish with the Container House Project, was to make it an as eco-friendly a project as possible. We used the scruffiest shipping containers we could find, we are using reclaimed wood for the frames in which the windows will fit, and many of our bathroom fixtures will be reclaimed from previous installations too. Last week, we had the opportunity to lay our hands on some reclaimed crate wood. A friend donated three large crates for our project, from a shipment that recently arrived from the USA. The only catch was that we had to move them ourselves. We were obviously quite happy with the terms and conditions and set aside a day to dismantle the crates so that we could move them. Kevin is ready for action! Just look how huge these crates are. What the Crates are Made From One of the best things about crates manufactured in the USA is that their rubbish Oregon pine that they use is better quality than our average South African pine. So, we got some Oregon pine to use on the container house as well as other laminate (think plywood) lengths. Bonus! The flat boards that made up the crates, though, is what we were most excited about. They are OSB (Oriented Strand Board) sheets that are strong and have an awesome texture to them. OSB is kind of a mixture between chipboard and plywood and it is something we really did want to incorporate somewhere in the project. We are so happy! Eco-Friendly is Often Hard Work Reclaiming material is not the “easy” path. It’s better for the environment and sometimes your budget, but you often pay in labour. Removing bathroom fixtures, for instance, can be painstaking work as you have to be very careful not to damage or break anything. Disassembling crates is just as hard work. Many crates are nailed together, but these crates had the advantage of being screwed together. The only real way to remove nails from crates is by using a crowbar or claw hammer. Invariably, the planks are damaged by the use of these tools. Screws make it much easier to disassemble, while armed with a drill, and the damage to the planks and boards is a lot less. And the work begins… One more thing to note is that when working with reclaimed wood, there may be broken screws and/or unseen nails in the wood which could damage your wood-working machinery later on. Be very careful! Dismantling The Crates It was hard work. Very hard work. It took Kevin and a buddy four hours in the sun to remove over two thousand screws and to reduce the boxes to flat boards and various lengths of wood. But the end result was more wood than we anticipated. Absolutely fantastic for our house! The reclaimed wood starts to pile up We also now have a box of removed screws, many, if not most, of which we should be able to reuse. We will have to go through the box and discard any screws that are bent or have been too severely damaged. However, the savings we have made by doing this work has definitely been worth the effort and the splinters. Our Plans for the Reclaimed Crate Wood Our first plan is to make some rudimentary shelves. We need somewhere more convenient to store materials and tools so that they can be easily accessed. This will save us time when we’re working on the project as we’ll be able to find the things we need quickly. 1) Loaded ready for transport and 2) arrived safely on site Once we no longer need the shelves, we’ll be able to reuse that wood again for something else. We have some awesome plans for the wood. However, we don’t want to let slip too many spoilers, so please continue watching this blog. We will be sharing all soon! Have you ever reclaimed wood or another material for a new project? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below....
- The Exterior Ceiling Over the Deck
  2nd Oct 2019Main Structure and RoofIf you want your house to look really good, it’s all about the finishes. So, we probably didn’t need to put an exterior ceiling up over the deck area, but it makes it all look so much smarter. Putting a ceiling up here also gave us the opportunity to board up all the supporting structure; exactly where we don’t want birds making nests. It also allowed us to board up the space between the arched roof and the top of the shipping container which is another place birds might like to nest. We were too slow in catching this little nest builder. Now we’ll have to wait until the babies have left home before we board up this section. A Small Debate As always, we had a few family meetings as to how best to go about doing the work. We considered using standard ceiling boards (aka rhinoboard) as this would be the cheapest option. However, we were a little worried that we might have a particularly gusty Cape rainstorm where the wind blows the rain under the roof and then up in defiance of gravity (yes, it can happen). This might result in the boards getting wet. As rhinoboard is plaster compressed between sheets of paper, it would easily be damaged by water. Not a good prospect. We therefore decided to save ourselves the trouble of possibly having to redo the work and rather went with fibre cement boards. It is the same type of board that we are using for the cladding, but we bought it in large flat sheets with no embossed texture. This time around we bought the Nutec brand as we found it for sale at a good price. One board is up Attaching the Fibre Cement Boards We needed to somehow attach the boards to the roof without damaging the roof arches. The structure that is in place to support the roof isn’t in the right place for the boards so we could not use that. It turns out that dry-wall studs were the perfect thing to use. We had a few lengths from a previous project and they have worked so well. They are nice and light-weight but also strong enough to hold up the boards. They spanned the width easily and they are resistant to rust. Two boards are up. Louis adding some finishing touches. These particular lengths were actually stored outside for over a year and I am amazed to report that they still look new. It is amazing how galvanizing can protect even such thin pieces of metal from the elements. The combination of dry wall studs, foil insulation for extra protection, and then the fibre cement sheets have made an excellent ceiling above the deck area. We also used some of the fibre cement boards for fascias on the edge of the roof. A lick of plaint and voila; the exterior ceiling is looking great! So much better!...

Small Scale Engineering offers you the following services:

We Have Reclaimed Crate Wood

The Exterior Ceiling Over the Deck

Blue Paint On The Container House!