Hand Made Copper Bushings

77 degrees and sunny.  No idea why Christopher Columbus never went to shore - it is nice here.

Today I spent several hours framing out the voids in between the timbers to finish the front end wall of the lower level.  I tried to get the two by fours to friction fit into the space so that I can have a very solid frame to nail to when I put up the sheathing.  It took a while but I was able to nail on the framing and cut the individual pieces of plywood for each area.  I used Liquid Nails to attach the plywood along with many nails to secure this last wall

I was able to remove the straps and wench that I installed on top of the building after all of the framing and plywood was secure to allow the building to align properly.  The wench was used to pull the structure about a half an inch to the side to get the wall to be level.  I'm not exactly sure why the wall moved out of alignment the other day but this was my last chance to get everything perfect before I started on the second floor.

I then measured the placement of the door hinges for the German doors and drilled the holes in the timbers with a 3/8 inch bit, as recommended by the hinge pin manufacturer.  There was a little bit of the top of the doors that I had to cut away to allow them to be positioned over the pins but it all worked well in the end and the doors swing nicely with the copper bushings that I made from old pipe to make up the difference between the smaller pin and the larger opening.

Hinge set on the pin with a copper bushing (inside).

I also looked at the very old lock box that will need some work.  I may take it apart and try to see why it does not spring back into position.  It is falling to the open position and needs some help.

Lock holding the door closed.

Here are a few pictures of the doors that are now hanging on the pins and the mortise that I created on the top timber to hold the left door in place.

Lock bar holding left door closed.

Both doors open to the brick terrace.

Room for a cat to run under the door.  This will be fixed when I refinish the doors.

An almost sealed playhouse.  You can see the plywood that was installed today around the timbers.

Oh, as promised I wanted to show the chalk paint frame that Lauren and I did for her school project.  Very cute.

Laurend did a great job with her painting.

It is back to work for me tomorrow and I will try to get back to this project toward the end of the week.  It was another fun weekend and I did not get a single scratch.  I'll write more next weekend.

Timber Framing

77 degrees, dry and still no mosquitoes.  Felt like California.

Yesterday I was sidetracked with a project to build a frame for Lauren's school project.  She painted a wonderful Vermeer painting and was doing an essay too.  My job was to put together a frame that was ornate with a border painted with chalk paint.  After it completely dries she will use chalk to design the details of the frame.  Hard to explain and maybe I'll include a picture of this later.

On Saturday morning I received the special order items from Home Depot, which included the three large 4x8 timbers for the front wall that will frame the German doors and also the long twenty foot timber that will be used for the ridge beam.  However, I noticed a little bend in this very long beam and have contacted Home Depot to request that they send a replacement.  It will be critical to get this strait because the roof will not align correctly if the ridge is bowed out to one side.

On Sunday morning I began to cut and fit the timbers around the doors.  I carefully measured and then measured again as I cannot afford to make a mistake.  These are the most expensive pieces of the entire project.  I created what Norm Abram calls a "story board" to transfer the end cuts and the locations where the timbers meet without using a tape.  I agree that this is more accurate.

Measured drawings - free.

Cutting the intersections between the timbers.

German doors brought out of storage.

Once the horizontal beam was installed and level I began to use the story board to layout the cuts that will be needed for the two large vertical timbers.  I did have to use a heavy rubber mallet but I was pleased to find that the two places where the wood intersects fit well. 

I did have to make a small adjustment at the end to swing the base of both vertical pieces about a quarter inch to the left to get them to be level.  The door opening is square and level but the openings to the left and right of the door are just a little bit off but I can live with that.

The doors where temporarily set into the opening so that I can make some measurements to install the hinge pins and know where to fit the bottom, which will need to be rebuilt due to damage over the years.

Come on in...

I'll be out there again on Columbus Day.

Need a Hoist for the Hoist

75 degrees - a beautiful day.  Mosquitoes have taken the day off too.

Okay - here is the picture that I don't want my wife, mother or mother-in-law to see.

Oops.

I didn't fall but I did successfully catch something very heavy that was falling at least for a few seconds; then it decided to keep falling.  More about that later.

Today I took the day off to build and install a large hoist that I attached to the big pine tree next to the Pointed Playhouse.  This will be necessary to later lift the large pieces of plywood for the roofing and possibly the main roof beam.  I did some research and didn't really find anything exactly matching what I needed and thought back to books that I've read (David Macaulay) and maybe drawings that I drew when I was a kid.  Da Vinci was great at this type of thing and I was just attempting something that I can complete in a day while not killing myself in the process.

De Vinci would have done it differently.

I created a design that I liked on the back of some paper that I was using and began putting together the beam and support base along with the hefty hinge pins and eyes.  I then rummaged through the garage for a large piece of wood, which ended up being a piece of wood that I slabbed off of a large tree that fell during a hurricane about nine years ago.  I hope to use this wood later to turn some bowls so I will limit the number of holes that I drill.

The target tree.

Hinge pins and eyes aligned.

I then got up on the second floor and put the ladder up against the big tree and installed the mounting bracket to the tree with four cargo straps.  This was the easy part.

Then I swung the large beam assembly over my shoulder and began heading up the ladder to drop it over the hinge pins (insert horror story here).  This was entirely impossible because of the overall weight, height of the work to be done and the fact that the base is swinging far out to the side because the beam was long.  I brought the heavy beam back down and then went back up the ladder to attach a rope even higher with a single pulley to help lift the hoist from above.  This almost worked but I still could not get the hinge pins to align properly.  I, again, brought the whole thing back down and laid down on the second floor to rest my shaking muscles.  Looking up I saw a branch that was within reach.  I attached a Crescent wrench to the end of my last, long rope and threw it over the branch and secured it to the beam center.  With the two ropes and a little manual work to hold the beam in an upright position I was finally able to get the eyes to slip over the hinge pins.

Cool beans!  It works.

Easily swings from left to right, 180 degrees.

Tied to prevent it swinging in the wind.

I cleaned up the area, got on my bike for about an hour, took a shower and then the girls to track practice before having dinner and relaxing a little.  It was a good day in the end even though it was more difficult than what I had originally anticipated.  I attached a cheap light to the first floor ceiling joists and brought a power cord in through the window to be able to listen to music from my iPhone while I work.  I'm all set.

Tunes and light.

I'm looking forward to the Columbus Day weekend to start putting together the second story end walls.  The Pointed Playhouse will then finally be able to take shape.

Cold, Busy Weekend

48 degrees and the first fire in the fireplace of the season this evening.  Mosquitoes may have flown to Florida.

To be absolutely honest I feel as though I wiped out on my bike.  I'm am bruised, cut and tired from the long cold days but it was still fun.  The project is small and nothing ends up taking too long.  It was a productive weekend and at the end of each day I just could not sit down and write in this Blog.  The weather changed and it is now cold, dry and the feel of Autumn has arrived.

On Saturday I began to put the plywood sheathing up on the north side of the house and finished putting in the two windows.  I was impressed by the quality of the windows as they are supposed to be "contractor grade" and made by Anderson but under a different name.  They slide nicely and have a screen.

Vanna White showing her window (fenster).

On Sunday I started in on the second floor by nailing in the second plate that goes around the entire ridge and laps over the first plate to lock it together.  The rim joists, which were left sixteen feet long were ganged together and I drew out the locations for all of the cross joists.  Just like the walls I had to plan for the start of the first sheet of plywood and then allow the far edge to overlap the joists to make room for the next sheet.  The plywood edges need to be sitting on a joist.

Second plate over the first.

End of rim joists left long and dog eared.  I will add "false" dog ears along the ends to make it look as though long beams were used to support the second floor.

Window with window wrap.

While running the large plywood from the driveway I dropped a sheet off of my back and onto the skin on the back of my leg above the heal.  It did not shave the hair away but instead rolled the skin down to my sock.  It did not stain my sock much.

I still have yet to erect the last end wall, which will occur when I get the large timbers for the German doors that I have been storing for almost 20 years.  I have the hinge pins that are really for gates but should work fine.  The entire top of the house now has a plywood floor to keep the weather out and to give me a safe place to work while building and raising the second floor end walls.  Later I will cut through the first floor ceiling to expose the loft.

Taken from the second floor looking down.

Well, I'm happy to be back at work so that I can physically recover from the weekend.  More to come.

Two and a Half Walls Up

My friend, Skeeter.

82 degrees and a little humid.  Mosquito count = 3 per cubic yard.

Today was fairly productive.  I got up early and ate a half bowl of cereal, got some coffee in me and began work on the house.  The first order of business was to raise the far wall that has been sitting flat after assembly the day before.  I first tacked the bottom plate of the wall to act as a hinge so that it did not fall off the end and into the dirt.  A pulley was tied to rope around some small tree branches on the far side and I enlisted the help of my mother-in-law and wife to help lift.  Safety was stressed and I told them that my estimation was that the entire wall weighed 250 pounds, which was probably well under the actual weight.  I counted 3.5 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, which weigh about 57 pounds each and then about 15 2x4 sticks.  That house wrap sure put it over 300 pounds as it felt very heavy.  Two sticks of 2x4 were nailed to the ends to act as braces and this helped take the weight off of us as we rested mid lift.  Once the wall was up I used a small sledge hammer to convince the wall to move down a little to be aligned with the edge of the floor and began nailing the wall into place.  Pictures were taken to celebrate the moment.

Checking my work...

Say ello to my lil fren...

Next, I worked on the assembly of the small end wall.  I say small now but later had to lift the wall by myself after I nailed the sheathing on.  I was very happy and surprised when I put a level to all of my walls and saw that everything was perfectly level and square.  That was the payoff for the time put in to get the floor level and square.

One sheet of sheathing is down and I'm ready to nail down the other.

Laying out the window king studs and cripple locations.

Once the end wall was up I used a reciprocating saw to cut out the sheathing inside the small window and later used a router to get the edges of the plywood to be flush with the studs, which may not be necessary in framing but this is what I would do for other woodworking projects.  The girls got home from school and took a few pictures of this step.

I painted the outside of this wall with primer / sealer and then laid out the top and bottom plates and studs for the third wall.  Raising this wall was a little easier this time because I decided to sheath it once the studs were in a vertical position.  I got the wall up and nailed to the floor and the end wall.

Third wall up and here comes the rain.

It was almost dinner time by now and I heard high winds blow through the tree tops and saw a dark cloud front coming in from the west.  The temperature was in the 80's all week and a cold front was expected to hit the east coast and we would see highs in the lower 60's for a while.  I loaded up all the tools in the wheel barrow, ran everything into the garage and covered what I could with tarps.