Building a Boom

We started working on a boom to help pick up the bents for the shed yesterday and I finished it up today. It probably should have more lag bolts in but it seemed to hold together okay for lifting a half a log which I'm guessing weighed 800-1000 lbs. We didn't seem to lose any nails or bolts. The boom didn't seem to bend too much which I think is the result of the cables back to the grill on the fork attachment. The one problem I found was that I couldn't get the loader to "curl" which I'm sure is the result of the amount of weight I was trying to lift. I don't think the bents will be nearly as heavy. They will also not have to be lifted off the ground on either side.


I measured the height I could get with the loader at maximum height and I was at 19 feet 6 inches. Hopefully that will be high enough. I could make the boom longer but I would prefer not to have to cut another timber just for the boom.

If this works out it might be worthwhile looking at a metal boom which would be stronger and hopefully lighter than the current one. A big problem with booms is the lever arm of the boom extending out which dramatically reduces the amount of weight you can lift.

One thing I found was that we made the pockets for the forks to big as far as height. I shoved 4x4's in under them to tighten things up. Ideally there should be 5 x5's slid in under them and nailed into place. The problem with doing that is that there would be very little margin for error in getting the forks into the pallet portion of the boom.

We'll have to see how things go but I'm pleasantly surprised that it worked as well as it did today.

Updating Waterville, Near Disaster and Big Tree

First off the goats have had visiters. It may be tough to see from this picture but Georgia is following behind a flock of turkeys. The turkeys have visited a couple of times. There have also been deer hanging around which seem to interest the goats quite a bit. They stand and watch each other. Herbivores, there just isn't any understanding them. We took down a couple of trees since we were having problems with our internet connnection (radio frequency, line of sight). It didn't help the situation but the goats have really enjoyed the pine branches we throw to them on a daily basis. We did finally get the internet connection working again but then Caroline's computer's hard disk crashed taking all her data with it. We have backups but not as current as she would like them. I need to look at internet backup again.

We've done a lot over at Waterville since the last update we have made significant progress on both the sawmill shed and the cabin site.

We have spread all the crushed stone we had on site. We need to get probably the same amount to finish things off but at least we have eliminated most of the mud problems. We also dug a trench around the upper perimeter of the shed and placed drainage pipe which will hopefully help keep things drier. We also got all the posts cut off to the proper height and placed the post top hardware. The hardware was a bit more involved than we would like due to it not really fitting well. I suspect it was a result of the posts being exposed to the weather and a bit swollen from being wet. Caroline chiseled down the sides to make things fit. Unfortunately some of them still needed some persuading and we had to pound on them with sledgehammers. Building is such an exact science. As a result of the pounding a number of the posts ended up lower than we wanted them and we will be adjusting the upper posts to compensate.

We did some milling to get enough posts and rafters to start erecting the bents. Due to my inexperience we had milled the original posts to actual 6 x6 dimensions. The hardware requires that they be 5.5 x 5.5 so we went back and milled them down further. Wasn't big thing but took time. We then attached the hardware that we could to get things started. The joint connectors are pretty solid and can be tough to manipulate when you are trying to line up a couple of 6 x 6's. We also discovered that the wood members had be positioned in the hardware at a certain point and not shoved in all the way. It was a tough learning process but I think things will go faster now that we've assembled one. The picture to the left shows one of the rafters on blocks during assembly. You can see the ridge hardware and the "clips" for the roof purlins. These suckers are heavy, especially once you attach the roof hardware so we are learning to minimize the amounts we have to move them and to use the tractor whenever possible.

We got luck to have friends volunteer to come over and help last Sunday. Scott and Chrissy, our neighbors, and Don, a friend, and client, came over to help us get organized and work out how to do things. They had some good ideas and caught some mistakes we had made. It is good to have other input which is looking at things from another angle. Also more muscle power is helpful. Both Scott and Don have more experience than I with building so they could get things done without me having to figure out what to tell them. I don't think we would have figured out the bracing and the hardware connections without a lot of trial and error without them.

The idea was to get up one bent and get it braced. We figured that would give us a boost to have something actually up in the air after all the months of work to get prepared. Ideally I would like to get three bents up as quickly as possible since the end purlins span the three bents. That would tie everything together. Unfortunately we only had enough timbers for three rafters. We are finding it tough to mill 16 foot 6 x 6's. You need a pretty big log to get even one 6x 6 out of it and to get a tree which is straight enough to get a 16 footer is unusual.

The plan was to use the tractor and the logging winch to put raise the bent. We got everthing organized. Put on the bracing and straps to raise it and placed everyone in their respective positions. I started the winch and the bent went up without much difficulty. Unfortunately it started to go too fast and I let off on the winch. This allowed slack in the pull rope and the frame snapped back and collapsed to the ground breaking both rafters in about the middle. You can't really see if from the pictures but the rafters cracked when the hit the blocking we had them supported on for the lift. Fortunately no one was under the frame when it came down but it certainly scared everyone. So it is now back to square one as far as the frame. It was a real shame to lose two rafters, neither of the timbers is salvagable as a post due to where they cracked. I'm sure we'll find a use for the larger pieces but it means milling two more rafters.

After the fun Sunday I decided to take a break and work on some other things for awhile. We need to figure out a better way to get the bents up. One idea is to attach a cable to the rear of the tractor and just pull the tractor ahead slowly. That should give us a controlled ascent. I think the winch was a bad idea. It just moves too fast and is difficult to control in small increments. Great for pulling a 1000 pound tree out of the woods, not so great for carpentry.

I started cleaning up the cabin site a bit more. We expect that Steve Manosh will be by in the next little while to put in the septic system and the more we can get done prior to his arrival the better from both a financial (less he has to do) and from a possible damage to the septic system standpoint. I took down a couple of midsized spruce trees and yesterday we took down a larger pine which had it's top blown off this winter. We saw our neighbor afterwards and she said that she heard it hit the ground. She was probably a half mile away when we took it down. I don't have any pictures of what the cabin site looks like at this point but hopefully I will get some this coming week.

We hauled the base of the pine tree down to the mill (thanks to the new tractor). I would have to say that it is the biggest log we have milled. We measured it at 27" at the butt end and 21" at the small end. We jacked up the small end so that we could make a straight cut and milled just above the center of the log. In the pictures you can really see the difference between the sapwood on the outside and the heartwood in the center. Besides the taper to the log it fortunately is rather straight. The next segment of the tree which I haven't hauled down yet is definitely more twisted. I don't expect to get nearly the wood out of it that we have with this log.

Believe me without the new tractor this log would not be milled by us. There is no way that the old tractor (now refered to as Caroline's tractor) would have lifted this onto the mill. It might have drug it down the road but it would have been a struggle. The new tractor managed to pick up the log and carry it from the cabin site. Mind you it wasn't overly happy about it but it did it. The grapple for the tractor is great. It picks up all sorts of things much easier than pallet forks or chains and bucket. I'll have to get some good pictures of the tractor and post them. So far I have used mainly the grapple but will probably have the bucket attached in the near future to get the cabin site level and at least the semblence of a road to it. I just haven't had time to try the various attachments with trying to keep the shed and cabin moving along. Hopefully at some point I can take some time to just play with the tractor and see what it can do. I would like to get the post hole digger hooked up and get some posts sunk for a firewood storage area. Ideally I would hook that up to the old tractor so I don't have to take the backhoe off the new one.




In the picture to the left you can see the first cut down the middle of the log. We figured that 1/2 of the log was the most we could handle. It also made it easier to figure out what order to cut out boards and timbers. Once it was cut we could manage to stand it on it's side and start slicing boards out of it. We took the top off with the grapple on the tractor and laid it aside while we worked on the first half. I don't have a plan to be able to access the mill with the tractor grapple which might be a mistake. I don't see anyway to do it without the shed being a lot larger. Maybe I could use the backhoe to lift tops off. I'll have to think about that.

In any case we are very happy with the amount of wood we have gotten out this log so far. We still have the other (smaller) half to do but we have gotten 3 rafters and a post out of this half as well as a couple of 2 x 6's. We expect to only get two rafters out of the other half but that will get us well on our way to putting together three of the seven bents. There are a couple of other big pines which have to come down so hopefully we can get all the timbers milled over the next couple of weeks. Famous last words, everything seems to take longer than planned.

Catching Up -- It's been a long time

It's been a while since I've posted since we were away for Labor day and then our internet connection was down for almost two weeks. Dial-up sucks and I wasn't up for trying to post with that sort of connection.

Our trip down to the Mid-Atlantic states was good though there was a lot of rain with the remnants of Ernesto passing through. We spent Thursday before Labor Day at my Aunt Jane's in New Jersey and then went down to Philadelphia to visit with Caroline's mother. She is doing well though Jim, her husband, is on the long downhill slide. We only saw Jim for a brief time.

On Saturday we headed back to New Jersey and attended a party with most of the family since Judie was in from Washington State. The only sibling which didn't make it was Donald but we at least got to talk to him from Georgia. After the party on Sunday we headed back to Vermont. It seemed like we were gone for a long time and it was great to sleep in our own bed again.



On the Waterville front things are moving slowly forward. I got my injuried tractor back before our trip. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as feared (only cost $500). Could have been a lot worse. We've been working on various areas of the properties but mostly concentrating on the Sawmill shed. At this juncture we have gotten all the posts in, have started getting the hardware on top of the posts, though that is a slow process. We have found we need to chisel down the pressure treated posts a bit to fit the hardware on. In the case of the first post we put it on we still haven't managed to get it all the way on. There has been a lot of pounding with sledgehammers. The posts are probably six inches lower than they were though that is something I really don't want to know. We added some crushed stone to the center of the shed area today and will hopefully get more in over the next couple of days. I'm also digging a trench for a perimeter drain to try and catch some of the runoff from the hill above the shed before it gets to what will be the roofed area.

I don't think we will be ready but there are a number of friends coming over Saturday to check our progress and to help if possible. I would love to be ready to raise the first bent but I just don't see how it will be possible. We have tomorrow to get things done and still have a whole bunch to do. We actually have the posts ready for the first couple of bents but we don't have the lumber for the rafters. It has been hard finding 16 foot logs which are straight enough to saw 6 x 6 out of them. Ideally I would like to get the first three bents up in rapid succession since they get tied together with 13 foot purlins. They should be relatively self supporting once the purlins get placed. Of course that means sawing out quite a few 2 x 6's for the purlins.

Our brush pile continues to grow as we are moving branches etc. out of the area which has been designated for the "cabin" and it's associated leach field. There is still quite a bit of clearing to do, hopefully before the contractor comes to put in the leach field. There is no way I wanted to try to accomplish that job. There are a couple of big pines which have to come down before the leach field goes in so they don't hurt it later, or fall on the cabin.

It is difficult to show the cabin activity in pictures. It looks mostly like mud with some trees interspersed. I think it will be nice if it ever gets finished.

On the subject of what has Jerry convinced Caroline to let him buy now; we are getting a new tractor to compliment the current one. It is going to be another Kubota, a model they call a L-39. It is setup to be a good backhoe and loader machine which is something the current tractor just hasn't been good enough at. We will probably keep the current tractor in Hyde Park most of the time with the new one being in Waterville. We have a lot of digging to do over there with me planning all sorts of projects and Caroline cringing.

In case anyone doesn't know today is Caroline's birthday. I'm afraid it wasn't a real exciting day for her but at least she got to get muddy which is always a highlight.