Thursday 8/10

Thursday August 11

Today was a better day than yesterday. It was hot, no breeze until late in the afternoon, but no rain interruption. Emmanuel and I were busy laying out and cutting timbers, even fitting a small assembly together. There are eight of those to do. One is ready to be fitted, so six more to go. This includes the little posts that will be buried in the walls but for one face. They, next to the four king posts in the center of the structure have the most number of joints in them. So getting them done is a good dent in the joint count.

I am still a little worried about how our power tools will hold up. We have tuned the used chain mortiser to the point where we are no longer concerned that it might melt. It would probably benefit from being taken apart and having new brushes installed... But we won’t get that crazy if we don’t have to. The skill saw is a great work horse, a Mafell that is probably twenty years old, and if we don’t abuse it, it will do without problem. The blade will need sharpening.

Anyway. If we can keep this pace of layout and cutting, then we can make up ground that was lost in the initial days, with tool tune up and acquisition.

We have wonderful little concrete foundation cubes. They seem so out of place in this messy organic building that I am reminded of Stanley Kubrick for some reason. A few more days of curing, and they will be loaded with plenty of weight and disappear under the frame.

Two of the holes in the walls, which are to receive the big beams are pretty much made, which is encouraging. The rest of them might be done tomorrow, but it will be Sunday or Monday before we will start raising the first floor. With the inside of the building cleaned out to the point that we can wheel our cart in, as well as some of the scaffolding set up, the ideas for how to get the big beams up in the air are less panicked and more constructive. We still have to think backwards from the end date to the roofing, to the raising in order to determine how much time we have to cut this frame. It will be tight. I’ll be looking at my estimate and joint count to see how things look for us.