Construction Journal Entry Week of 10/18/09

10/20-22/09 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The drive over was beautiful. I arrived at 12:50 and was promptly met by Bert and Ernie. There were no signs of mice in the cabin. After moving in and having lunch, I unloaded a bunch of yard waste and piled it on the compost pile. Then, since the weather was so nice I went to work digging on the water line trench. I ran into three big rocks and had to resort to using the big steel bar to coax them out. There wasn't a breath of wind so it was very pleasant in the woods. Two gray jays kept me busy feeding them peanuts. That helped me take enough breaks so that I didn't work up too much of a sweat. I heard two gunshots from a high powered rifle up on the bench.

In the evening, a pack of coyotes and some big dog, probably Bert, had a loud conversation. The dog would bark and all the coyotes would yip like a bunch of hyenas. Then the dog would bark again and the exchange would continue. It lasted for quite a while.

On Wednesday it rained so I worked up in the cabin. I started a fire in the stove and then gassed up and sharpened the chainsaw. Then I cut the bevel on the bottom end of the stringer that I had scribed last week. I used Rasputin to flatten and shape the surface. I made it a little concave so that it would bear better on the floor and give me the maximum torsional strength. Then I swept all the sawdust off the deck.

Next I used the deck crane and raised the top end of the stringer and set it down on a tall sawhorse. That is high enough so that I can build the scribing jig for that end without turning the stringer over.

I went inside and started figuring out the exact length of the stringer so that I could scribe for the cut in exactly the right place. After all this trouble, I didn't want to cut this stringer too short and have to get a third one.

I hung a plumb bob from the loft beam tread so that I could get an accurate measurement of the run of the stairs. I had measured this before, but not since the tread was in its final shape. Plus, I wanted to triple, or quadruple, check the measurements and calculations to make sure they were right.

After going back over the drawings and calculations, I was stunned to discover that I had made a geometry error. I was glad I found it before I made that last cut, but I was humbled pretty severely.

I took out a blank sheet of paper and started doing the calculations over from scratch. I didn't trust all of the old numbers, so I redid the ones that could possibly be wrong. I spent most of the afternoon redoing the figures. When I was finally sure I had it right, I recalculated the angle of the base cut, which I already had made. I thought that maybe I would have to redo it. As it turned out, the new angle was so close to the old one that it really didn't make any difference. I decided to leave it the way it was.

But now I had the new diagonal length calculated, and since the loft beam tread was notched on the bottom, I could make the actual physical measurement to make sure it agreed with the calculated length. To make the measurement, I first made a cardboard template that simulated the 2x12 header that I planned to use up against the floor joist header. The measurement was within an eighth of an inch of the calculated length which was close enough for me.

With the length measurement nailed down, I went out on the porch and measured and marked the stringer for the positioning of the scribing jig I would make. Then I went back in and, sitting by the cozy fire, I pondered options on exactly how I would fasten the stringer to the header and how to fasten the header to the floor system. I figured this would add enough strength so that I wouldn't have to use a beam to support the stringer and probably not even the angle iron I had considered.

On Thursday morning it rained again. Bert and Ernie showed up for a treat while I was getting firewood ready to start a fire in the stove. With the fire blazing, I went to work and built the scribing jig on the top end of the stringer. When it was ready, I got the magic marker and scribed the line. It was much easier than the other end, partly because it was up in the air at a comfortable working height, and partly because I now knew the right way to build the jig.

With the line scribed, I dismantled the jig. No sooner was it all apart but Larry showed up on the porch for a visit. I told him that it was too bad that he missed a scribing demonstration by just a couple minutes. I invited him to stay and watch me cut the stringer but he said he had to go. He said that Roberta is not doing too well. While we were chatting, the gray jays came into the porch for peanuts. That is the first time these particular birds have been in the porch so they were a little hesitant at first. While Larry was still there, I rigged the crane, which was already rigged up to lift the end of the stringer, to hold the end of the stringer up after I cut it off. I was going to cut about four feet off which would be a pretty heavy chunk of wood to fall on the deck from about 3 feet. I used the same rope to choker this end at what I thought was the center of gravity of the piece, and then just snugged up the rope with the crane. The rest of the stringer was supported by a tall sawhorse on the high end and a couple of short pressure treated 6x8s on the other end.

As soon as Larry left, I fired up the chainsaw and cut the stringer on the scribed mark. As soon as I cut through, the four foot piece gently swung away just as planned, and I used the crane to lower it to the deck.

I then swept the sawdust off the deck and spent some time strategizing how I was going to move that big piece of wood inside the building and lift it up into place. I plan to use a big 3/4 inch rope that has been draped over the ridgepole and the Grid D purlin pretty much ever since those beams were put into place. I left the rope up there just for this purpose. I figured I could always take the rope down, but it would be a hard job now to get them where they are. Nothing like planning ahead. I went home at 2:00 feeling pretty good about my progress and especially about finding and fixing the error before I cut that log.



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