Prep-

Ready, Set, Wait....

April started and the dry warm weather ended.
Brendan and the guys spent most of Monday making the pegs that will be used to hold the timbers together. In the afternoon, they brought one load of timbers to the house. The second load arrived Tues. morning and the timbers were neatly sorted and stacked so they would be handy when needed. Even though each day started cold and rainy, we kept hoping that the weather would break for Fri. and our scheduled raising. Brendan and Splint spent Tue afternoon and Wed setting the oak timbers that are used for the sills in place. Oak is more rot resistant than the white pine that the rest of the frame is made up of so it is used where the frame makes contact with the cement foundation.
When the cement was poured, hurricane tie downs and bolts were set in place. The sills needed to be drilled where the bolts were placed. Splint used the drilling rig to bore these hole and then the sills were leveled and secured. The joints in the sills at the corners were lap joint mortised and tenoned and pegged in place.
Thur, Brendan, Splint and Bob assembled the four bents that make up the main sections of the frame.
A bent is made up of the posts that rise from the sills to a beam that goes across the width of the span, and these are topped with the rafters and the cross braces on post that are needed to support the roof.

Since I needed the photography area to be free of any center supports and a high ceiling, the bent that spans the shooting area is a 24ft clear span and the beam is about 15 ft off the ground.

Each of these cross beams weighs over 600 lbs, the posts weigh close to 200 lbs each and the rafters are over 300 pounds each. So each assembled bent weighs over 2000lbs. That's why we need to use a crane to raise the bents instead of trying it by hand.
With the rain showers predicted to continue through Sat. the raising will have to wait until Monday.