Barn Progress

Day Lilies

Are Enjoying the Weather

Pad All Cleaned Up

I got the floor of the barn all swept up - no more leaves, sticks or nails - on Saturday. By the time I got home from the gym and had a bite to eat it was pretty warm so I took it kind of easy and just did the clean up and a couple of little odds and ends.

Today I got after the sill plates and the top and bottom plates of the walls. For those of you unfamiliar with framing techniques of walls, there is a sill (mud) plate anchored to the blocks and the bottom of the wall has a plate that the studs are nailed to that sits on top of the sill plate. Likewise the top of the wall has a double set of plates. One has the studs nailed to it forming the top of the wall and then another plate goes on top of that one. The uppermost plate joins the corners of the building together by overlapping the adjacent wall and bridges across any splices in the plate below it when you have walls longer than available length lumber. The trusses or rafters then sit on top of the top double plate. Hard to describe but simple to construct.

When the barn went down, it pulled the studs loose from the plates so I had two plates fastened to the blocks on the bottom and two plates fastened to the bottom of the trusses on top. In order to rebuild the walls, I need to have one plate only on the bottom and the top. So today I pulled the top plate off the bottom and the bottom plate off the top. Probably makes no sense reading it but makes a lot of sense if you want to build new walls. Any way, I got the bottom all taken care of and three sides of the top done. So I'm about ready to build some walls.

The Building Trades instructor is supposed to come by tomorrow to give me a hand. However, the weatherman is talking some rain in the forecast, so we'll have to see what gets done. He's going out of town right after I go out of town so it might be difficult for us to get much done but while he's out of town and I'm doing my blacksmithing stint, I can be working on the lifting cradle. I only work half a day at the fair, so I should be able to make a little progress on the barn.

I moved the staircase to clean up the pad and it's bent up a little more than I originally thought so it's probably going back to school to get straightened out. The barn photo was taken about 7:00 pm and it was still about 85 out. I'm not sure how hot it got today but I'm glad I don't have to work out in the heat on a regular basis. I've done my fair share of of it over the years - spent many a summer in welding shops - and I don't miss it at all. With all the sweating, jumping over and crawling under, I have toned up the old muscles a little. That's a plus. And the day lilies seem to be enjoying the weather. The weeds also. The garden's almost beyond salvation, I'm afraid. It's time to cut the grass again too. Oh well, at least with the barn project, I can see the progress.

Have a good week - be cool.

Going Mobile

The top of the barn has moved! It took about 4 hours this morning of cleaning up, building ramps and rigging but it moved just like I planned it. In fact, once I had it down off the blocks I could roll it myself. Of course, this only reinforced my fear of it running away from me once it got on the ramps. If you look at the right side of the photo, you can see the old Allis back there. I used the tractor as an anchor and hooked a chain and a come-a-long between it and the barn. I did the same thing in the front with the pickup as the anchor. I pulled it tight in the front, loosened the back and repeated the process about a dozen times 'til I had it on the flat. As me ole' grandpappy used to say: "Slicker than snot on a doorknob".

The Missus came out while I was doing the deed and she asked where I got all the chain from. I did borrow a piece from my shop at school but technically, that one belongs to me as well. I was thinking about the same thing myself the other day while I was gearing up for this job. I got lucky with the axles but other than some hardware, the only thing I had to buy to pull this off was another length of air hose. Not many guys have 150 feet of air hose and extension cords, two floor jacks, impact wrench, thread chasers for the U-bolts on the axles, and all the carpenter tools to do this thing, plus have the ability to shorten the axles and engineer the whole job. And if you look in the foreground of the photo, you can see my old green hard hat from my days as a millwright. That's an essential piece of equipment when crawling around underneath the lid to a barn.

The point of all this is not to blow my own horn (even though I did give myself an "Atta Boy") but to point out that if you pay attention and you work around this kind of stuff for a number of years, first of all you'll be amazed at all the tools and equipment you accumulate, and secondly, you'll reach a point where even if you've never done something before, you've probably seen it done or know somebody who has done it. And even if none of that holds true, you'll just say screw it, I'll give it a go. Surly made himself a Garagemobile a couple of years back, and he'd never done anything like that before. A good solid mechanical background and a little help from his friends and it was done. The thing of it is, guys used to do this kind of stuff all the time. Lots of farmers still do. There is no app for your cool as hell cell phone that will get it done no matter how many damn "G's" you got on your wireless network, though. You have to get up off the couch and build things. Use your brain, use your hands, use your back. And when appropriate, seek advice and mechanical advantage.

So now it's clean up the newly exposed barn floor, prepare the sill plates, build some walls and be thinking about lifting the lid back on. I hope to be building walls next week but of course, that's always weather dependent. I'm heading to Oklahoma at the end of the week for Jimmy's fight and I'm working the blacksmith shop at the fair again the week after, so barn time is going to be at a premium. I'm about 90% on the plans for the lifting cradle. I need to have a little think time to make some sketches and then I can start on that part of the job. I figured if the first part didn't go well, no point in worrying about the second part. Now I can start to worry.

Weekend's just about here - enjoy it. I'm going into this one feeling pretty good.

Moving Soon?

Photo From Here

What a great photograph!

I went into the darkroom the other night to print out a few photos from my Italy trip and nothing seemed to work quite right. It's been awhile since I've done any printing and because my darkroom isn't really dark, I have to wait until about 9:30 before I get started. With everything I've been trying to get accomplished around here lately, I thought it might be a good way to relax and enjoy a quiet evening doing something creative. No such luck. I got a few prints made but I'm not really happy with the way they came out. I think I'll wait until the barn's got the lid back on it before I try again.

Didn't get much done yesterday because the Missus and I were watching the grandkids but I'm planning on hitting it again today. With a little bit of luck, I'll at least have the wheels under it. If so, rig it up for rolling and see if it moves. I hope this works as planned, I'm getting a little nervous about the whole affair.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Tires and Axles

Worked on the axles for the barn move yesterday a little bit. I started with the tires since all of them were flat and had come off the bead. I took the Spanish Windlass approach to reseating the bead. Most of them popped right back on. A couple needed the rim sanded a little to get them to quit leaking, a couple needed a little soap suds to get them to pop back on and one has a hole in it. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the little darlings didn't take a drill to it while it was in the Construction Lab. So I need to take that one up town and get it plugged and then I'll have eight tires that hold air.

I made the new spring perches from a piece of 1-1/2" tubing. Layed them out, drilled a hole for the spring center pin, cut the bottom off the tubing and the rounded hole with the plasma cutter and then cut them apart on the chop saw. I touched up the rounded hole with the 4" grinder to get them to lay down nice on the axle and they were done. It's hard for me to get nice freehand cuts with the plasma. It's just a little too fast for me. I used a straight edge when cutting the bottom of the tube off and it went slick as a whistle. I just tried to stay on the inside of the line when doing the round hole, figuring I'd grind the rough stuff.

Tacking the perches on the axles was easy enough. As you can see in the photo, I only had to move the perch over a few inches but it needed to be on the same center spacing as the trusses. The axles are undercoated which has to be removed before any welding can be done. Blast that off with the torch, drop the perch on the axle and tack it on with the MIG. So the two easy ones are done. I need to shorten the other two so they'll roll through the door openings. Not too tough but needs to get done soon. Might be able to roll the top of the barn clear of everything Wednesday. Only have to go 12 feet but the last few are going to be downhill. Need to keep it from crashing into the back of the tractor. Been thinking about that. Maybe tie it off to the truck. I'd rather it didn't get away from me.

Just a Quickie

From Here (NSFW)

I really need to work on that, myself.

A couple of interesting things to pass along:

Mike Rowe on You Tube This guy is fast becoming my number one hero. The video is about eight minutes long as he makes a presentation to the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee about six weeks ago. Get yourself a cold drink, sit down and watch it. If you follow this blog, it's something you should see.

The State of Indiana has announced that it's no longer necessary to teach writing, as in cursive, to elementary school students. Apparently there just isn't enough time what with all the testing and computing to be farting around with Spencerian Script or the Palmer Method or American Cursive writing. So now the little darlings will be able to text message and slaughter the English language with all the abbreviations, acronyms and symbols but won't be able to read John Hancock's John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence or any number of hand written documents without a translator. It makes me just want to lol. :)

The Month at the Museum is back. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is once again looking for someone to do a thirty day sleepover. I applied last year but I'm taking a pass this time. The application is due July 22 and I've got my hands full trying to get somewhat caught up here. I did have a lot of fun working on the video and writing the essay last year. And I really wanted to spend the night in the submarine. But not this time. However, that doesn't mean you can't apply. You can get more info here.

Happy Independence Day!

Stack O' Shackles

Stack O' Shackles

Covey of Axles

I made it over to school yesterday after the gym to start on the axle project. I did a little measuring and scouting for material and then dived in. I got the shackles made up and was planning on making a couple of spring perches when I started hearing thunder and some type of severe weather alert on the radio so I packed it in and came home. Making the spring perches will be a piece of cake. I'll just tack them on so the springs will line up with the trusses and there I'll be. Two of the axles I'll cut down for a trailer project that was in the works last year but we didn't get around to. That's a pretty straight forward job as well. Just have to get them straight and put a little camber in them. It'll take a little time but I'm thinking it should work like a champ. I should know by the middle of next week.

If you look at the pile of shackles, you'll notice the layout lines. I punched all the holes rather than drilling them. If I was to drill them, I would have layed out only one piece and then clamped the others to it one at a time and drilled them that way. When you punch them, at least for small batches, you have to lay all of them out but the time saved by punching more than makes up for it. I'll have to see what I come up with when I make the beams for my lifting cradle. I might have to get another set of hands to help me out plus I'm not sure the throat on the punch is deep enough to do what I want to do. We'll cross that bridge next week.

I didn't go to Oklahoma with Jimmy due to the promoter's travel budget being a little weak but I'm set to go in a couple of weeks. Jimmy is fighting for some type of WBC title. Not a world title, mind you, but a US/North American title of some sort. He's going to be fighting outside, where it's been 100 degrees of late. The fight will be about 10:00 PM but it will still be hot. When I showed up at the gym this morning he was wearing the plastic suit and a sweat shirt to get himself ready for fighting in the heat. It should be a good fight. His wind is good, he's got the battle plan worked out, and he's ready mentally. He'll have to take it to the Comanche Boy right good and proper if he wants to get a decision. If he can land a couple of good clean shots, he won't have to worry about a decision. He's hitting harder than ever. You never know about the "Old Fight Game", however.

Working Hard

The weather man missed the mark yesterday. We didn't get the heat but got rain instead. It started about 8:00 PM Thursday and continued on and off until about 5:00 PM Friday. We had some pretty spectacular lightning and thunder to accompany the rain. I did manage to put the mower back together. New steering parts, repaired deck, new drive belt, new air cleaner. Still need to change the oil and filter but I'll do that after I finish mowing today while the oil is warm.

I got the mobile home axles dug out yesterday as well. The rim clamps for the wheels came in and I picked up the bolts on Thursday. I did a little staring and head scratching and I've got my plan of attack ready for those. I still need to move the pile of sheet metal out from under the building but I think I can roll the top of the barn out of the way by the middle of next week and then start on both the new walls and the lifting cradle. I'm still working out the details on the cradle but I've got a rough idea of what I want to do. I built a trailer for the Tech Department a few years ago and I measured that up yesterday. It's 18' long - long enough to transport my lifting beams after I get them fabbed up.

I got the lower chord replaced on the outside truss on the south end Thursday. I've got just a little more to finish up on that but no biggie. I used two come-a-longs to lift it into place and put a floor jack under the middle section to snug it up tight. Went pretty easy, actually. The side walls had a double top plate as is normal but I don't need both layers stuck to the trusses. The plates were fastened to the trusses with little hurricane clips which did their jobs rather well. I need to cut or pull the nails holding the clips to the bottom plate and then remove them. The bottom of the roof section should be ready to mate with the new walls at that point.

Still lots to do but I'm making pretty good progress. The Missus said the insurance check is on the way that's one less thing to worry about. As long as the money's coming, I think I'm going to buy a new saw. My old Craftsman circular saw is about 35 years old. and has done a lot of cutting over the years. I think I'm going to spring for a worm drive as long as I'm spending my summer as a carpenter. I probably won't have much use for it after this job is done but it'll be here if I need it.

Enjoy the weekend and the holiday.