Purlins Finished

Tom and Austin finished putting purlins on the building today. Very exciting! We also got another load of stone which should help us level the site. It is starting to look like we might actually got a roof on the building before winter.

I also got the injured hoses off the grapple so hopefully I can get replacements.

Quick work with the purlins

Tom and Austin arrived last night and started working on the roof this morning. They did a grant job getting the purlins up and have about 2/3 of the roof finished. If the weather allows the rest of the purlins should be up by the end of tomorrow. That would be a major step forward.

Caroline and I spent the day supplying them with material and milling more purlins to keep ahead of them.

I had an accident yesterday with my grapple when it came off the front loader attachment and broke some of it's hydraulic hoses. I'll have to get new ones and install them before I can use it again. I'm hoping to find a roofer who has time to work on the building in the next month or so.

All Bents Up

We got the last bent up today. It wasn't looking good for most of the day with heavy rain for a couple of hours but finally it let up and we were able to get it raised. It makes a big difference to have them all up. First off it makes us feel like we got something accomplished. Secondly, it gives you much more of a feel for what the building will look like when it's done.

We have to mill a bunch of 2 x 6's at this point for the purlins, which are the boards on top of the rafters. We have the 16 needed for the first three bents but need another 30 or so for the rest of the purlins. We will also need more for the extensions to the roof which will make up the overhang.

I'm figuring probably 60 12-13 foot 2 x 6's will get us most of the way done. That will take a few more trees. Fortunately we have a number of pines which have volunteered to be lumber since they allowed their tops to be blown off. All we have to do is cut them and mill them. Sounds easy but will take some time.

I'm hoping to be ready for roofing by beginning of November. My brother Tom is hopefully coming up this weekend. He is always helpful with ideas and manpower. He has a lot more experience building than I ever will. I'll spend most of the day milling tomorrow so we have lumber to work with.

Slowly Getting There

We've continued to work on getting the bents up. As of today we have six of the seven up.

We've currently run out of timbers for rafters. We will have to decide what tree, or trees, come down next. There are several we've been eying Since their tops have broken off over the last couple of years. The problem with most of them is that they are rather large. Obviously that is good for the amount of lumber we can get out of them but it makes it very difficult to handle them.

We will probably concentrate on milling 2x6's this week to get more purlins up and make the building more stable. We are also hoping to spend some time up at the cabin site to get that cleared up better. The contractor who is putting in the septic system hopes to start some time this week if the weather permits. Currently it is rather wet on the approach to the site but drying out fast with the weather we've been having.

Third Bent Up

Yesterday was a gray, foggy, rainy day but we managed to get one bent up between the rain drops. It was the first time Caroline saw the tractor boom in action and since there was a little hiccup in the raising of the bent she was concerned for awhile. I managed to move the "curl" on the front loader attachment a bit too quickly and the whole bent sort of bounced up and down for a moment. It all held together and we got it up without a great deal of difficulty.

Today went much smoother though with going to real estate open houses we didn't get over to Waterville until about two o'clock. Having done the bent yesterday we knew the procedure and it went up without a hitch. I think I figured out the proper procedure for lifting at this point so hopefully the rest will go well. Of course every day I think I have things figured out. Never quite do.

We also got the first purlins and girts on to help support things. They are predicting upwards of 40 mile/hour winds tomorrow so it seemed like it would be a good idea to get things as stable as possible. It really is starting to feel like a building with the three bents up.

We're still not exactly sure how we will do a number of things but just seeing what we've gotten up in the last week makes us feel like maybe we can actually do this building thing.

We are going to have a bit of a hold on erection progress since we need to mill more rafters before we can proceed any further. We are hoping to get a couple of more bents ready to go by the weekend. Feel like we are running out of time with the leaves changing color and falling off the trees. Snow is just around the corner. It sure would be nice to get the mill under cover before the snows come.

First Bent Up!!

Yesterday I got the first bent up for the Sawmill shed. The day started out slowly with our goats deciding that they were no longer interested in staying in their designated field space. Caroline was home alone and had an appointment to show property so she was a bit concerned about the situation. Fortunately I had just left and could come back home and beat the little critters. Just kidding. After a number of attempts to convince that they should hang out where they were suppose to be I finally moved them up to the winter quarter area above the house. Fortunately they have not escaped as of yet. As I'm writing this their lower field has been taken over by the turkeys. There are about 20 of them roaming around down there.


As far as the bent is concerned, I used the pallet forks on the tractor to hold up the sections of rafter and get them hooked into the hardware. It worked pretty well with little lifting involved. I then squared it up by measuring the diagionals (thanks to that old Greek Pythagoras) and put on the braces. Last time we tried to raise the frame the nails I used for the braces were obviously too short. I had much longer ones this time.

I then hooked up our homemade boom and attached it to the strap I had around the top of the rafter. The boom worked great, lifting the bent with little trouble. The bent did a little bit of jerking due to operator malfunction as I got to the top of the arc. I then got off the tractor, checked the sides for plumb, and put on braces and screwed in the bolts at the bottom of the post. The picture to the left is after I had things braced.

The tricky part was getting the top of the boom rested against the top of the bent after I braced it so that I could climb up the ladder to unhook all the straps. Fortunately the climb went well and as you can see by the second picture the bent is now freestanding. An interesting day all in all.

It's raining off and on today so I'm not sure how much we will get accomplished today. I think now that I have some idea on how to do things we should be able to get the two additional bents we have ready to go up in a couple of hours. We'll see.

It should also be interesting getting the purlins up on the rafters. It sure looks high once the bent is stood up.