Columbus day Cabin Construction

It's been a while since my last post.  I am almost half way through the semester and needed to reward myself for doing psets.  So I get to write a blog post every time I finish.  This is the photo journal of our Columbus day weekend trip.  

Friday evening Libby was not feeling well and I was tired so we decided to hold off on traveling up north till Saturday morning.  i went to pick up Libby and she rallied to head up north.  We put on some Nerdist Podcasts and headed north.  As we pulled into camp, it started to rain.  We unloaded the tools and brought everything up to the cabin.  The tarp blew off and we had some minor flooding in the corner of the cabin.  We first put the tarp back up and started to organize tools.  Joe, and Roserin  put in the two windows while I put in the door.  Libby and I now had a place to set up our tent and be protected from the elements for the night.  It was still damp in the cabin and cold. I got a load of wood so we could have a fire for the night.  Libby finally got to tell the story of getting sick from last fall to all of the campers around the camp fire.  We headed to bed not to late and tried to keep warm.  

Sunday morning we got up and headed down to the Milan Luncheonette   The best cup of coffee in Milan‽  Libby and I swung down to Berlin to pick up some screws and headed back up to camp.  I cut up some logs and loaded stacked some wood with the other campers to get us some wood for the winter.  As the sun started to set, I finally got into the mood to work on the cabin.  I headed up and got some help from the girls.  Libby and Mary hauled plywood on the roof since they are awesome.  As we were putting it up, I secured the panel with a rope so it would not fall on Libby and Mary.  I used a tree as a brake to keep the rope from flying out of my grip.  As I put tension on it, I ripped the tree out of the ground.  I flashed fear as I was worried it would drop the panel on the ladies.  We eventually got it up and Joe went up on the ladder to screw things in.  He was the star in this system.  He worked hard as we lost the sun to put up the First and last panel of the roof for the weekend.  We then finished up and pulled the tarp back over the roof.  I set our tent back up inside and got everything ready for bed.  We made dinner and enjoyed the campers until about 8:30 when Libby said she might want to go home tonight.  For those that don't know her, you need to physically drag her away from the woods and a campfire when great people are around.  So I knew "might want to go home" was code for we are leaving early, but I need you to make the decision for me.  So we packed everything up and I asked Joe and Jim to tie down the tarp in the morning.  We drove home and just in time as we got to the bottom of the hill, freezing rain started coming down.  I knew we had made the right decision to head home and we got home at around 1 AM.  

We had a great if brief trip.  We need to head up in the next few weeks to finish getting the roof buttoned up for the winter.  If anyone wants to come up for a high density trip, we could use a hand.  

Moylan's enjoy gluten free cake cooked in a home made oven.  

Fire is awesome.

Pulling up panels to the roof.  

H kid checks out the door.  She approves.  

Joe gets conned into helping put up some roof panels   

Suspenders.  I can't tell you how much I like these suspenders.  

Libby sporting her Team Masek Shirt.  

Joe and I watch as Libby and Mary do all the hard work.  

We have a door!

Joe screws down some roof.  iI looks so cool as it starts to take the shape of the rafters..  

Building Construction Inspection Department.  The proper bribes were paid.

A note on suspenders.  Masek men have tragically been plagued with what the Medical Profession call "Lackitus Buttickus"  Also known as no butt.  For years I have battled gravity and my pants.  I decided I am not going to take it anymore.  I bought Craftsman Padded Suspenders and It has not only improved my work, but also made me easier to work with.  Prior to this, I had four things that would aggravate me while working on projects.

1.  Too hot out and I am pouring perspiration (it was 50 degrees out so this was temporarily fixed for me.   

2.  I made a mistake via poor planning or lack of materials.

3.  Someone has misplaced or broken one of my tools.

4.  My pants are falling down which limits my leg mobility and frustrates me.  It also makes me uneasy when I am on a ladder because my leg mobility is limited.  Suspenders = pants at a reasonable Height   

Now, I am down two two with one additional seasonal aggravation   

More Fire   

Steps and a single roof truss.

It's been a while.  Not a whole lot of progress since the last post, I have been busy with school and work.  Without Libby I think I would have lived on Rockstar Energy drinks and Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers.  I have had to postpone the last two trips up to camp to take care of school work.  Libby and I have been working on and off building up more components for the cabin.  This post will not have many links due to my time constraints of school and work.

Where we last left off, we had walls up.  Cutting the radius onto the rafters has been a tougher task than we had thought it would be.  I had planned to laser cut out the two rafter size's into patterns but the machine was just to busy with actual work.  I ended up cutting patterns in Masonite using pattern transferring like they did in the old days before computers.

Using geometry and a sketch, I figured out what the thickness would need to be every 12 inches.  

I put a screw at every intersection of layout lines.  

Using an aluminum piece of stock, I estimated the curvature based on each measurement.

I wanted some steps for the cabin, so I came up with a set of steps that curves with the path.  

Frame setup and steps mocked up for height   

Libby testing for comfort.  

Making steps one at a time in the morning.

Finishing up the frame for the last step.   

This is me under attack by bugs.  

My little sister thinking about her next Scrabble victory.

I have been working on transportation of tools and planning to improve or time working, and less time organizing.  

Building the Composite Beam

One side

Full view.  

We may need another step or two.  

For putting the beam up I tied the two sides together so it would be stiff for lifting.  

Joe and marry helping lift the beam up.  Lifting it with the point facing up had already failed at this point.  Joe came up with the plan, to lift it up and use a dead man to put it upright.

One end up!

A system that sort of worked, we had no way to keep it stable for fastening.  

Adding bracing so we had a lever to keep everything stable while fastening.

Libby looking through the board with handles.  

All non essential personnel had to leave for safety while we did the beam raise.   No photos of the beam going up, but it magically worked thanks to Joe and Libby's input.  

Screwing everything together.  

The corner joint.  Everything fit like it should.  Kind of amazing. 

Joe making things happen.  

Stabilizing frame in temporarily until we get everything tied down.  

Mary looking at how awesome it is.  

Our guest Photographer for this build.  It was her first time and I think she did a great job.  She also put in many of the screws for the stair treads.

The view from inside the cabin.

View of the beam detail.  

JB and Betty hanging out on the new steps.  

A view of all the work over the weekend.  Steps, and headers.  We did not get to the front header because we ran out of construction adhesive.  

Well, plugging along and I am almost done with my class.  We can then kick it up a notch with fabrication and sourcing to get her finished off.

Curved rafters: Plans E through G

Someone thought throwing buns at the safety fan would be a good time.  It was.  The photo turned out pretty cool where you can see through the blade from the exposure.  

It was a rainy weekend on the forecast which meant a full house at MakeIt Labs Adam was working on the TR6 getting the suspension back together.  Riley powder coated a friends trucks on his long board.  Paul was getting ready for his glass class.  Rob R was working on the wall for the CNC Plasma cutter.  Libby and I got to work on making curved beams.  

The first setup was to put the second bevel onto the rafters this would allow them to sit flush to the main roof beam.  In keeping with the ReUse theme, Libby and I have been making our own Iced tea at home and bringing it with us.  I like my stainless bottles, and Bamboo Bottle for a durable (Libby and I drop them, leave them on bumpers as we drive off, etc, all the time.)  We have been doing pretty good with making food at home and not going out to eat lately.

Stacks of rafters ready to be cut.  

 First try Plan E: Portable bad saw.  We tried remounting the Portable band saw to the arm and taking small cuts.  Well, the iced tea was good at least.  The saw bounced and would not track.  The blade pulled to the inside and left an angle on the cut.  On to the drawing board

Plan F: for fail.  I just had no plan F, we took a brake and grilled some food.  Plan F has been the best so far.

Using a High precision Layout tool (sharpie) we used the jig as a big compass.

Plan G use the Circle cutting truss to as a giant compass.  It worked.  We had to remove any screws that might have been in the way of the cut and then used a jig saw and time to cut it out.  the blade walked some and gave us a not so straight cut.

Libby cuts segments so we don't have a giant chunk of scrap.  

Before we do any cutting we need to remove all screws one screw will (and did ) destroy a jigsaw blade.

Libby follows the line as best she can.  The laminated beams were tough to keep cutting correct.

Paul gets his glass class ready for students.  It is exciting when folks learn things.

Libby traces an arc to make sure no screws will get cut and damage a blade on the Jig Saw.

This is what a screw in the exact wrong position goes.  

It got to a point where Libby and I gave up for the evening beyond cleaning up. We left with 14 of 24 rafters cut and no energy.  Back at it in the AM.

In the morning, we started cutting but Libby had the glass class.  She was making a birthday gift and learning about glass grinding.

Grinding curves into the glass chunk.

After a few hours of instruction, Libby, Mike and Nate made some very cool projects.

Celestina tests her RGB LED lights for the hamburger trailer.  I am ready for her to start serving hamburgers.

 Libby cut most of the rafters out after class while I worked on the peak beams and large rafters.  They were all made up of 4x4's and 4x6's.

We had to pull some shallow angles that our setup tool would not do anything above 50 degree's.  I use a machinist Layout Square to get the complementary angles and make a 22.5 degree angle.  

Look at that giant beam waiting for some glue and a big curved cut.  

This is what that big beam looks like in profile.

A detail of the main joint.  It should work.  In theory.  it will be made in two parts and assembled with the gusset up at camp with Lag Bolts we recovered from the Pallets.    

This is what we made today.  Plenty strong.

All of the parts constructed up to this point.  

All we have left to cut aside from Roof and wall sheathing.  Progress is happening.  

Adams truck full of scrap and cut off;s from this weekend. time for a bonfire.  

With any luck, the last two pallets will come in this weekend and we can finish these rafters up this weekend.  Time for a nap.