Snowy Thanks Giving

We had a beautiful ThanksGiving morning and it certainly is the epitome of bitter-sweet moving out of this place where I currently live, but I know it will be more than well worth it.

I have soooo much to be thankful for and lately it's almost pure bliss to be alive, well, prosperous, and living my vision and bringing my creativity to life.

I thought it would be a good time to name the folks who I feel have really helped get me here. From the beginning(well, not like big bang, primordial slime, but pretty far back) and semi-chronologically:

-Uhh, Mom and Dad: They say it takes two to tango(TMI?), thanks for "dancing" and for realizing maybe you weren't the best partners.  I doubt I would've gotten to do half the things I got to experiment with in my awesome childhood otherwise.

-Herb and Marnie: For opening up your home, yourselves, everything to me.  I doubt I'd be living here if it weren't for you AWESOME two!

-Janey, David, Kim: For letting me steward your land and being patient with me as I've learned and struggled with what a big task it is.  You've been so flexible and I really appreciate my growing relationship with all of you.

-Ben and Cedar: Oh, the things I've borrowed from you.  It has helped me out tremendously.  I'm glad you trust me to be responsible.  And your inspiration as teachers and sharers of knowledge.  I hope to one day pass on what I am learning about food growing and other very important matters with the attendance and dedication you exhibit.

-Gib: Again, the tools and other things you've lent me have helped me make leaps and bounds on this project and many others.  And of course your calm Fatherly presence.  If only we got to choose our parents.  Just sayin'!

-George and Whitney:  For this wonderful job and all that you've done to make it possible for so many of us to be gainfully employed AND live in this wonderful valley and community.  Thanks for your willingness to share so much, especially the shops and space here that are allowing me to comfortably and easily work on this project.

-Jon: Again another person I've borrowed invaluable tools AND knowledge from.  Thanks for taking the time to sit down with me and go over the ideas for this project and offer your suggestions and concerns.  I have felt much ease since our consultation.

-Tim:  For the truck!  Holy-jeez.  I've hauled firewood, trailers, hay, compost, trash, you name it with that old Camp truck and not been stuck ONCE!  I hope it'll take me through this project and beyond.    What incredible generosity!

-Eric: For chatting with me about ...A-NY-THING... and bringing new ideas to light.  And for your generosity to offer helpful tools without prompt.  Once again, you're a great dude and I hope you're around here for many years to come.

-Paul:  We made log dogs for the first time I felled some poplars and peeled bark.  You've lent me many of your tools and time and knowledge and I enjoy hanging out with you loads and bunches.

-Gred: For partnering with Herbie and helping to make my experience here possible.  Thanks for being willing to discuss building and engineering, etc with me and give me some awesome input and again lend me very helpful tools.

I could probably go on with twice that list, but feel that is certainly a good portion of the "upper echelon" for my experience here.  Really though, it takes all of this community to make it all happen.  We all give and receive to and from each other and it can just keep going around and around.  I was very happy to be reminded by Tim and Paul that while from my perspective everyone else is great, they're great to me, because of something about me too.

BUILD COMMUNITY PEOPLE!  THEN BUILD A HOUSE!

Smokin' Hams!  Oh yeah!

We had a wonderful Giving Thanks feast and sooo much to feel thankful for.  Have to give thanks for the challenging times too that make this all that much more wonderful.

Scaffolding

Well I got the scaffolding up on Tuesday and it feels sooo much better than a ladder and so much easier.

SUPER thanks to Ashlyn (pictured) for showing up so much and spending her time free of charge to capture motion picture footage of this process.  Hopefully we'll start getting some of it edited for viewing in the near future.

She got some video of the prep and mounting of those joist ties that were in the last post and I got them all welded and even spray painted, albeit finishing in the dark of 8pm.  I guess it's getting better.  I'm getting up earlier (like 6-7) so I can get off work early and spend a few hours in the daylight.  No more late nights, just early mornings.  It's darn hard to make any kind of decision at 6:30, like where to put my left foot and which foot to follow that with, whew!

Rust Happens QUICK & "The Iron Worker"

Well a good bit of rain over Saturday night quickly promoted the decay of this structure.

I got up to Paul's on Monday and used his 60 ton(yes, that is 120-THOUSAND pounds of available force) Punch, Press, Shear, aka "The Iron Worker".  I started off by punching 5/16 holes at marked spacings on the angle iron.  Then moved to the shearing setup and started cutting off the individual pieces.  All in all it took less than an hour (including the subsequent conversations with Paul that I enjoy so much) which is waaaayy faster than it would have taken to drill and cut all these pieces.  These will be welded on to the headers to be fastened to either side of the joists to keep them from flipping on their sides, sliding down-slope, or lifting off vertically along with the rest of the roof system.

I got out the wire brush and cleaned up the rust and got to spraying.  I think I may just spray the whole thing and hope to add 20 years to the life of the structure.

G'night for now!

Bent Raising, Pine Boughs, Aprpreciating Life

After a sweet morning helping my good friend/adopted Dad, Herb, get in some firewood I made my way to the second "work day" of the day.  The bent raising.  Ben showed up first on his bike and quite willing to work, not stand around and wait for the others to show up, so we got a lot of the first bent in place and on its way up when Tom showed up just in time to push the switch on the winch.  Also in Tom's helpful contributions to the workday were really slowing me down and double, triple checking for square(6-8-10 triangles) and making sure everything was right.  Thanks Tom!  Martin and Gred showed up, followed by a little joking by Todd about how this was just like a government job.  Five guys standing around talking(them) and one guy working(me welding).  So finally Ben, I think, did something about that and led them all in getting the next bent setup.  Before I knew it, it was vertical and getting clamped to the wooden squares I had built.  AWESOME!!!

Ben helped get the first connecting beam/header in place while Tom did a wonderful job assisting with the electronic winch again.  And BIG thanks to Martin for hanging around to help me get the second and highest beam in place!

Now, the pine bough!

Just enough daylight to catch this wonderful moment with the camera.  The tradition of hanging a bough or branch has been around for centuries.  I've read that it's meant to signify an appreciation for the safety of the job-site until now.  The workers have gone to the highest (well almost, technically the roofing will be just that much higher) structural element of the building and everyone is all in one piece, a good way to be indeed.  It is also a symbol of hope that that safety will be maintained through the rest of the project.

While honoring those things were very important to me I was also very moved on this day to think of  LIFE.  In the morning while sawing up and splitting dead, standing red oak into firewood that would keep us warm and give us life, my paternal grandmother, Mommie Mattie, was being laid to rest in the Earth.

I took some time away from the machines and walked into the woods far away to lay down, sing some sweet songs, and connect with my Albany, GA family many miles away as best I could and appreciate the life, light, and love my grandmother has helped to make possible for me.  She really taught me the AWE-SOMENESS of home cookin'.  Everytime I got to her house down south she would be dabbling the sweat off her forehead with a paper towel, hot from standing over the stove stirring the collard greens, mixing and baking the cornbread, and frying fish and chicken saying, "Come here and gimme some shugaah honey.  I love you.  Want a snack, soda?".  Nothin' better!

As I stood before a small, scrubby pine that had already had some human mutilation performed on it, I thanked it too for it's life, for being a pioneer species to protect the Earth where humans have done their damage, and give back to the Earth for all the beings of creation.  The pine bough symbolizes that hope in this project and life for me.  That I too may be a sort of pioneer, unlike the "original" pioneers of America (uggghhh, but thanks I guess, that is after all why I am here too), where the Earth and its beings have been damaged, bringing love, light, and nourishment to myself and others in need.

Thanks to this wonderful community and all the wonderful Friends and Family that are becoming more and more a very important part of my life.

Over the river and through the woods to the tag and title office we go

So I decided to take the day off and got to sleep in a bit this morning.  Today was a big day of getting this thing road legal.  Things started off fairly smoothly getting all the bolts finally tightened, though I still need to use an actual torque wrench on everything, mounting the lights, and the most obnoxious t-shirt I own to keep someone from rear ending me.

I got some wiring and a plug for all the lights and brakes, and got Gib a new tire to replace one that was almost bald.  I got my assigned number at the tag office and then headed over the the highway patrol office so they could verify that I stamped in this special number.  Well, I got there, but there was no highway patrol person, so I was S.O.L.  I went back over to the tag office and asked what to do and they said to go down the hill to the sheriff's office and see if they could find an HP person around.  After lots of much appreciated calling around and talking with an officer (first time I've been HAPPY to do so) I was told there was  HP man down the road.

I got back in the truck and headed that way with a different officer on my tail, thinking I was about to get pulled over for not having a tag or working lights and miss the HP man.  But no such bad luck ensued.  I got the parking lot where the HP man was and he was about to pull out, so I started running and waving, thinking, "well this probably looks weird."  He was great though.  I told him I needed him to look at this stamped number on my axle and sign this paper and he said, "Sure, I'll pull right over there [smile]."  SWEET!  All went smooth and he didn't even look at the lights.  Just looked and the number and said "Nice trailer."  The fifth compliment of the day was making me feel pretty darn good about my work.  Anyways, got the tag as well as my Southern Yellow Pine Rafters at the local ACE and headed home to call it quits for the day.

It was nice the feel that serve part of "to protect and serve" by the law enforcing officers of the area.  Rural folks are just so much better than Urban folks.  At least that has been my experience and I do have many great friends who live in cities.

Tomorrow that third dimension, the z-axis, more commonly known as height will be getting a big boost from some good friends!

Borrowed wheels & tires, sideways exit!

SUPER thanks to Gib today.  He was quite kind, as always, to let me borrow 4 wheels and tires from one of his trailers for a week or so.  That's got to be one of the weirdest things I've asked to borrow from someone???Maybe you remember something weirder.  It sure was rational though.  This will save me a whopping $650 and the environment at least that much in destruction from that whole process.  I'll borrow them again in a few months when I move the building up to the site where it will hopefully reside for 10 years or so.  I may build another trailer eventually for lumber hauling, etc, using the same running gear form this project and end up getting my own wheels and tires.

YAWN ALERT

(you may start feeling tired at the end of the first segment of this post, but it does get better)

First, lower the tongue jack as much as possible.

 Get some jacks under the rear as close to the framing as possible.

Then start jacking up the tongue and make sure things are landing where you want them.

Go, All, The, Wayyyy!!! (If necessary)

One side.

Other side.

VOILA!

Anyone yawning yet?  I just want folks to really know anything is possible.  Think about what you want to do and find a way to make it happen!  Look around.

So after a short day at work I got back in the shop to mount up the running gear (axles, springs, wheels, tires, etc)

Wheels mounted and both axle in their rough position.

The jack helped get the bottom of the drop axle on top so it was easy to mount the springs.

 

Going down!

 

 All springs mounted.  Started lowering the trailer to its final height.  This was quite exciting!

Though things didn't really want to fall in place right.  Next time I'd mount the springs to only the hangers instead of only the equalizer.

Got it all hooked up and tight enough for it's hand pulled exit.

Ope!  Not enough lean.  Find more chunks of wood.

Alright!

IT

COULD

GO

ALL

THE

WAYYYYYYY!!! TOUCHDOWN!!! (rare sports metaphor)

And some minor cleanup cause there was soooooo much slag, grinder abrasive, and metal dust all over the place.  I saved it all in a box to weigh out of curiosity.  It must have been at least 5 pounds!

Well these gussets could have been packaged a little more thoughtfully, but I guess it was 1/4' plate steel.  Not much damage could be expected.

But they could have staggered the seam....oh well.

Backed in the truck and setup the hitch mount vise I welded up earlier this year.  I really like this vise setup.

Then got all the gussets in place around midnight-ish.

Okay, time to call it quits.

Bent #2, Gettin' Sideways!

So this next bent went MUCH faster since all I really had to do was put it on top of the other one, clamp them together, and buzz, buzz, buzz.

 You can see here the penetration is quite good from the top side, more than halfway, so after running a bead on this side these to pieces will be one!

WARNING!!! MORE WELDER PORN...

 OH YEAH!!

MMMMMM....

Okay, enough of that. Got things well tacked and slid the whole bent off the other one enough to run all the bead without fusing them together.

My axle hardware finally showed up!  Yayyy!

And I borrowed another of Paul's toys.  I'm so thankful he's always willing to help me out with stuff like this.  Thanks Paul!

And thanks to Eric too!!  Anytime I start talking with him about some project I'm working it goes like this.

KP: So I'm working on ________ and dah, dah, dah, etc, blah, blah, blah.

ED: Oh, do you have a (insert awesome, helpful tool/item that I do not posses)???

KP: No, what's that?

ED: Oh, it will help you blee-blah-bloo-goo.

KP: Hmm, that sounds nice.

ED: Well, I'll bring it to work for you tomorrow and you can borrow it for as long as you need.

KP: Uhhh, okay.  Sounds great dude. Thanks!

So thanks again Eric.  You're a great dude and friend.  This time Eric was letting me borrow some Vise Grip style welding clamps which did find themselves in useful service.

Oh yeah!  I gotta put lights on this thing too before I take it to town to get my tag and registration..in TWO DAYS!!

But for now I want to focus on getting all the final welding done.  Jacked up the front...

...pulled out the sawhorse...

...put it back in sideways and lashed on a tie down strap...

...what the heck, I might as well put a clamp there too.

Jack up the back and do the same...

...this was trickier as I had to try the jack in a couple spots to get the right balance point so it didn't flip before I wanted it to...

...but I found it and moved the sawhorse to it's new position and lashed on another tow strap...

...and started tipping after a few minutes of contemplation, okay, seems good to go...

...started off with the bulldog jack under the other side and slowly lowered it, it seemed easy enough..

..well a bungee cord can't hurt, but I don't think it really helped...

..oh what the heck, put on another clamp in the back...

...finally put some jack stands in appropriate positions, lost the jack, and used some elbow grease...

...it was soooo easy with it properly balanced, of course....

...and "Houston, we have landing"...

Okay, so it wasn't quite enough weld porn, but I promise this really should be the last of it for the welding.  There will be other tradesman "porn" to come though.

Don had told me that with these 7018 rods if you laid a flat bead really well, the slag would go glassy as it cooled, then crack right off the bead leaving you with little to no work.

A little dragging with the slag hammer, but no beating like some(many) of the other welds.

Looks pretty nice under there.

And the wire brush just makes it look better.

Flipped it the other way at 1 am!  and kept layin' beads.  They were coming out so well I figured what the heck.

Okay, at 3 am, that's a wrap...FOR SURE!  Not staying up this late again ( I hope).