We're off Construction Episode 1 of.....

Following about 4 readings and rereading of Travis's Book and staring at the diagrams. I kept pondering...Wanna very clearly told me to stop talking about it and walk the walk...No more 'ifs' or 'buts'. Not even a what if?.... Just do it. Well hope you can follow that. We're off.

This is a photo taken from Travis Hughey Manual Barrel Ponics.

It's what I am intending to make. That's the last of his pictures on here. (Promise). From now on this Blog will have my photos. You have to follow me....
Sunday morning and all house hold chores done. Finally run out of excuses to do nothing but read the book!!!!
First step locate my tools. I'd brought them back down from Khon Kaen but they had been sitting in a big plastic box for well over 3 years. Would they still work was the question? Only one way to find out. Plug them in and pull the trigger. Fine all going well. So far so good.
So first job. Buy the plastic drums. Nothing for it but to go down the local second hand plastic yard and buy 3 x 200 litre plastic drums. In Thailand for some reason all plastic drums and pipe work comes in blue except for some yellow conduit used for electrical works.

11.00am finds us entering a seedy dirty old yard. In fact I only took one photo on the outside. But they had the goods. 3 drums for 1260 Baht. (That's 30US$). Complete with oil and various other unrecognised residues which will require cleaning out and disposing.

11.30 hrs see us returning back home, to empty out the oil? Cleaning fluid? Whatever?... and then down to the real the job of cutting. There we were cutting up plastic drums and washing them out with detergent. All going well. Ghan was helping me on this, making life much easier. We decided to use my circular saw for the cutting. Easy, and if careful gives a good straight cut.I need to tell you. By 14.30 we had filled up the drums with washing powder and scrubbed the outside to remove the general dirt etc. Then left them to soak. Will leave them a few days. No rush. I'm back to work tomorrow.Done. Step one complete. (That's step one according to Travis I might add!).

This also gives me time to organise a frame for the drums and buy the various plastic fitting. For the frame I had asked a contractor at work to help me on this. Lets hope he come through on this as it will make things so much easier. So I had cheated a bit insofar as I had asked the contractor at work to make me a steel frame at support these drums. Much easier then wood and no problems with termites etc. (Taking the long term view....). He was very happy to help. Even thought when I explained my request for a fish tank he seemed somewhat bemused.

Well the usual story I gave a sketch and got well. Look at the photo. Its a massive piece of structural steel more at home on the construction site than in my back yard. But Hey! No complaints as it was done with much kindness and they will get put to good use supporting my new venture.

So that's the plastic sorted out. Next off to buy and install the necessary fittings. That's Episode 2...And another day...