Boing!

Nothing to see here folks, just a bond beam and a little "water vapor."



It's almost a shame to put a roof on the building. Sometimes the sky is bright and blue all day long.



Though other days, oddly symmetric clouds emerge after jet planes have left their "contrail" of water vapor.



All mind control aside, the beams are up. The space has new definition.



Some of this action tomorrow.

That´s more like it.

The larch double header is making it's way around the top of the walls.
How do we do it? Scaffolding, home made bolts and MAN POWER!

These connect each wall to the next and give us somewhere to hang doors and windows. The roof trusses and floor joists will also sit on these handsome timbers.

By a miracle, we now have a carpenter to drag us toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Words cannot express how lucky we are, but hopefully the upcoming entries will be ample evidence of his expertise.


Hammer drilling through the hole in the beam to center the anchor bolt hole in the puddled earth cap.

Onward!

If you are a Big Tree then I'm a Small Axe.....

Yep, that's a pretty big saw alright.

This is what is required to cut 6x8 larch timbers, actually
itt barely cuts through the six inches.


Additionally, we need to get a 10" circular saw to make the lap joints.
The 16 incher is a rental that has seen better days, it's not cutting exactly square anymore.
That's fine when we're cutting the beams to length, but we want those laps to look nice and tight with an even line. If you look at the lower left hand part of the joint there's a pretty big gap
(almost a 1/4"!)



Thanks to the kindly intercession of Marshall Witzel, rammed earth draftsman extraordinare, our train is back on track and moving toward the light at the end of the ring beam tunnel.
We've got all the wall heights measured, we know where our high and low spots are, and we've got half the larch cut to size.
Cutting the lapped joints will be a task, drilling the anchor bolts will be a task and moving these beams on top of the walls will be a task, but now we KNOW what those tasks are, how they are done, and we feel much better.

If we'd known sill plate gasket was basically sheets of foam packing material, we would have started saving it up months ago. This weekend we'll to try to find a cheaper and more efficient way to protect our larch from the moisture that could wick up from the concrete than the teeny rolls they sell at the lumber yard. Sheesh.

Sorry there hasn't been much action blog wise, we're trying to pick up the pace.
Thank you so much for your continued interest.