Construction Journal Entry Week of 11/1/15

11/4-6/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Wednesday through Friday.

On the way, I stopped and played a game of checkers with Uncle Charles. This time I barely beat him in the last few moves. The drive over was sunny and beautiful. There was snow in the mountains above 4,000 feet so there was a little along the side of the road as I went over the pass. Dirtyface Peak had a cover of snow on the top and the snow was about halfway down the north side of Nason Ridge. It’s nice to see it but it’s pretty late for the first snowfall.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:22. It was a beautiful 50° outside. After moving in, hoisting the flag, and starting a fire in the stove, I had my lunch. Then I shot the first clips of a video I planned to make showing how I am building the outside staircase. Then I consulted my tread blank inventory and hunted down the next slab I wanted to use. It was buried under the front porch but not so deep that I couldn’t pull it out with a rope.

I set the tread blank up on sawhorses and started planing it with my Bosch planer. I got a little more than ¾ of the round side done before the bearings on the planer burned out. I had replaced those bearings once before on this machine and this time I decided it was time to throw it in the trash and get a new one.

I finished planing the round side of the slab with a block plane and a scraper. I left the top untouched because I can finish that after the tread is installed in the staircase and I get a new planer.

Next I mixed up a batch of Board Defense and sprayed it on the tread blank. Then I removed the old temporary plank tread and once again the two bottom screws on the gussets had broken off inside the stringers. As before, I used a hammer, chisel, and a vise-grips to remove the broken remnants of the screws. Finally, I brought the new tread blank up and rested it on the lowest plank step and screwed the plywood rectangles to the end of it. It was now ready to be mounted in the suspension structure. That meant that I was well ahead of the schedule set by last week’s tread and it meant that my efficiency in installing treads is improving. I was happy about that.

On Thursday it rained pretty much all day but it didn’t affect my work. I set up the suspension structure pretty much the same way I did before and I got the tread mounted and aligned for scribing. Then I calibrated and aligned the scriber and had the two notches scribed well before lunch time. After lunch and a nap, I cut the notches and worked on the fit. I got it pretty close by the time I quit early and split up a bunch of firewood.

On Friday morning, Robert called me while I was cooking my breakfast. He was just touching bases and letting me know that he still plans to come over and work on the logging project. He offered to help me move the log that is up on the high rock but I declined. That is not a high priority project since I don’t have any immediate use for the log.

I went back to work on the staircase and got the tread to fit correctly. Then I stained the bottom of it, put it back in place, and lag screwed it to the stringers. I deliberately buried the lag screw heads a little deeper than usual so that I can plane the top of the tread without hitting the heads. I didn’t shoot any video of most of the work but I shot the final shots for a video describing what I had done. Then I quit for the week very happy to have gotten another tread installed with time to spare. I left for home at 12:50.



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