Making a caupona or other structure for events

[Musivarius]

One thing you might like to consider for any future projects instead of using plywood are the baseboards using in tiling work. These have that advantage of not being affected by water in the same way as ply but also they're a lot lighter. There are 2 types;
Cement fibre board - Hardibacker, No More Ply. heavier board usually in 6mm and 12mm.
Compressed foam board - Marmox, Shluter Kerdi board, Wedi. Lightweight and come in 6mm to 25mm. Marmox is about the cheapest (about £10 for a 1200mm x 600mm sheet). They can be cut with a stanley knife. Used for tiling onto for walls, if you wanted to make things like a lararium then this would be ideal.
it's worth looking around as there are a lot of these things being developed now.

[richsc]

Thanks! Those are the kinds of things we all need to know. I find backerboard to heavy and fragile, but that compressed foam sounds good. The problem of fixing it to the rafters may need a washer of some kind to keep it from moving or lifting. I fasten the roof beams to the flats to keep them from coming up, and can use the steel fence posts to keep everything from blowing off. Stuff falling on the people's heads is a major concern.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

We need to make a few of these for our Pompeii Castra Romana this year.

[Musivarius]

If you use any of the compressed foam there are washers that sit flush to the surface for screwing down but don't get the makers ones, just look on eBay as they're about half the price there. If you've really got money to burn (and what reenactor doesn't? ) then you can get Cellite board. it's 2 sheets of a resin fibreglass with a aluminium honeycomb section in between. They use it to back mosaics when they are removed from site and put on museum walls for display. I've used it and it's fantastic stuff, lightweight, rigid but damned expensive!

[richsc]

Hopefully I can find suppliers to take a look at these things.