30 July 2018

Shlomo and I met Perry at his nearby job-site first thing this morning and borrowed his electric hand planer.  Using that handy device (tee, hee) slowly but surely transformed the 2x12 bevel hack job into an acceptable looking end result.  Then re-glued and added many extra lag screws to three areas of the eastern 24′ mid-span beam as the tops of the two LVL’s were spread apart up to ½″.  Since the strength of that beam depends on the two LVL’s being tightly bonded to each other, figured I’d better fix that problem ASAP.  Had lots more fun (again) shoveling and raking level the west side of the barn foundation.  Then started to backfill the electric conduit trench on the house side of the stone wall, plus dig out the bottom of one of the 4x4 posts that I want to move so that I can cut down the main electric pedestal once the sub-panel is moved into the barn.  Don’t recall this being done, but it sure looks like the bottom end of that 4x4 has been encased in concrete.  WTF, over!  Also the pedestal was put together with Phillips head screws… buried deep.  Let’s just say it’s a good thing I own a Sawzall… and I’m not thinking kind thoughts about the guys who built that structure.  Ian Birkett will be sad to hear this, but had to disassemble my trusty Craftsman radial arm saw (which has served faithfully and without complaint for over 40 years, Ian’s opinion notwithstanding) and, late this afternoon, took the motor and head to a machinist for some minor repairs.

29 July 2018

Two of my pet peeves are (1) carpenters who drive screws so deep that, as soon as the least moisture swells the wood, the screw heads just flat disappear and (2) carpenters who just grab any old screw in their pouch to put in a piece of wood instead of getting a handful of the screws being used for everything else on the project.  Do you sense a rant coming?  First thing this morning went to convert the ceiling joist trapezoid into a rectangle.  With some difficulty, removed the joist hanger (6 nails fastened into the LVL, so holding very tenaciously).  Then went to take out the two screws holding the end of the joist to the LVL.  Both driven almost to China and no matter what angle I held the impact driver bit, they just wouldn’t come out.  Grrrr…  Used my knife to pare away the fibrous overburden to discover that someone (not me) had used star-drive instead of square-drive screws on this joist.  Double grrrr!  After the joist was moved and refastened, took out my frustrations by drilling more holes to accommodate electrical wiring.  Then I decided to get artsy (big mistake!) by beveling off the ends of the two 2x12’s that will catch the top of the barn staircase.  Only problem (other than that I’m an idiot for even trying this) was that my trusty Skilsaw only cuts 2¼″ deep… and, of course, the depth of two 2x’s is 3″, so you have to cut the bevels from both sides.  Obviously, there wasn’t a snowballs chance that the four cuts (two for each bevel) would line up.  So tried to fix the resulting disaster with my jigsaw.  Made thing even worse!  Withdrawing from the field of battle with tail between my legs, after lunch used the Kubota to roughly backfill the barn foundation on the south and west sides, stealing fill back from the space aliens.  (They didn’t seem to mind…)  Then had lots of fun (sic) raking the south side smooth and level.  That done, decided the lake and sauna needed my attention more than the west side of the barn.

28 July 2018

Put up a bunch more hangers on the ceiling joists we hung yesterday, discovering in the process that we managed to create another trapezoid by putting one joist on the wrong side of the mark.  Also filled a few empty holes where joist hanger nails should have been hammered in yesterday…  Ended the day by drilling lots more holes in the joists for electrical wiring runs.

27 July 2018

Sonny and Ty Zimmerman arrived shortly before 7; so much for my beauty rest!  We continued putting up the ceiling joists, getting all but the framing around the staircase done before lunch.  Sean came by mid-morning to review progress.  While he was here, Sean used his clout to expedite the order I had placed with Goodro’s this morning, as work was going to come to a screeching halt unless we got some 2x12’s for the staircase header… 2x12’s I hadn’t ordered until Sonny and Ty explained that the stairs would fall down without them.  What’s the architect versus carpenter score now?  Sean also brought the news that Goose Creek’s further efforts on the barn will be suspended until the week after next.  Perfectly understandable.  Though it’s a story too long to relate here, those who have heard the local news know about the fire in Cornwall last week that severely damaged a 7,000 square foot house… that Goose Creek had just about finished renovating.  After lunch Sonny, Ty, and their cheap-labor assistant brain-stormed the staircase header framing (the architect’s design didn’t pass muster… again!), then built that critter.  With black clouds rolling in, we put away all nonessential tools and materials, then cut and installed the ¾″Advantech^® flooring for the 8′ x 12′ barn loft area.  With perfect timing, it didn’t start to rain until the after-work adult restoratives had been consumed.

 

26 July 2018

Late afternoon, after the rain had abated and while I was busy scavenging mud fill to put around the west side of the barn foundation, Perry stopped by to see how the construction was progressing.

25 July 2018

No geese today.  In spite of that, accomplished quite a bit: finished putting in all of the wall blocking (doing a much more professional job this time around), tidied up the already-run electrical wires, and then put hangers on the east ends of all the joists Sonny and I installed yesterday.  That latter job would have been a bit less frustrating if many of the screws holding the joists to the 24′ LVL hadn’t been right where the joist hanger toe nails had to go.  Final score: 19 nails bent and pulled for 14 hangers installed.  Sonny called at the end of the day to say there would be no geese again tomorrow due to forecast heavy rain.

24 July 2018

Sonny arrived, per usual, at 7.  We first put in all the cripples between the top plate and the overhead door header.  As we finished that task, the Goodro’s truck arrived with most of what I had ordered… and a promise (that was kept) to bring the other items later in the day.  Sonny and I then straightened the east and west walls, installing the second top plate on all the walls as we went… but forgetting until much too late that we had intended to shim those plates so that they were perfectly level.  Checked with the laser level and, sure enough, there is a ¼″ elevation difference between the northwest and southeast corners at the top plate level, a difference that will have to be corrected when we cut the bird’s mouths for the roof rafters.  (The bird’s mouth is the notch cut into a rafter so it sits down flat on the wall top plate.)  In the midst of that activity, Jeff Many from Green Mountain Door came by to scope out the framing preparatory to giving me an estimate for the 8′ x 16′ overhead barn door.  Found out that the Wayne-Dalton 8300 series doors installed in the woodshed and house garages were made in China (boo, hiss!!!), but there is a very similar overhead door made in Canada that is competitively priced.  We’re definitely buying Canadian for the barn!  Sonny and I then put in all the west wall blocking.  That is to say, Sonny put in 11 perfectly aligned blocks in the time it took me to put in 3 very amateur-installed blocks.  Guess that’s why he gets paid the big bucks!  After lunch, we put up the inverse flange joist hangers on the west wall, then hung the 2x6 ceiling joists between the west wall and the westerly mid-span 24′ LVL, straightening the LVL as we went.  By quitting time we both were in desperate need of liquid refreshment.  After Sonny left (and I had mowed the lawn) there also was desperate need for some lake time.