More Build & New Neighbors

Above picture is my new neighbors Andy & Kathy. Andy was a big help in getting the walls up and Kathy? Well rumor has it that she is very proficient at shooting, throwing tomahawks and knives. Not the type woman you want PO'ed at you. Of course I don't know many women I'd want PO'ed at me anyway though. They plan to be at the going away party for Dennis Saturday and there will be tomahawk and knife throwing so more competition there. Dennis will be heading back north until November. We'll miss him.

Its a BOX!

Left to right Lee, Dave, Dennis and Andy showed up about 8:00 this morning to help raise the walls. Took all of about 45 minutes to do it. These guys really came through for me. Thanks a BUNCH!

As seen from 118.

More to come as I get more pictures.

Blood Sweat & Tears

The blood on this build so far is from Dave and that would make it New York Blood (Actually he's a Texan now though.) The Sweat is mine and that would make it Texas Sweat. The Tears would be my pocket book crying.

This is the start of the south wall.

The north and South walls completed.

North, South and West walls. Maybe I'll get the East wall finished tomorrow. After that it will be on the good graces of some of my friends to help me upright them and get them tied together. I should be able to handle the rest then.

Here I'm using T shaped drip rails for braces. I didn't invent that and don't remember where I found it on the net. Seemed like a good idea so I used it. You notch the studs and plates about an inch deep and then the T part goes in the slots. They are then screwed to the studs and plates to secure them and should make for a strong brace. With the OSB board glued and screwed on over them it should be able to handle the wind down here with no sweat.

It was a nice day today although a little on the warm side. Maybe 94 or 95. I had to knock off the building for a while because the tools were getting too hot to handle sitting out in the sun. I was getting pretty hot myself! I had the laptop on to listen to music for a couple of hours and it got so hot in here that it shut down. Fortunately it doesn't seem to have screwed it up.

Every joint of this build is glued using heavy duty Liquid Nails and then screwed together with 3 or 3 1/2 inch deck screws. I don't remember which. It should be plenty strong when finished.

Like a Rock / Fridge / Party

 

Got the decking on and it is solid as a rock. Several of us have jumped around on it and no bowing or sagging at all. I intended to start framing up the walls this morning, but came up with a more pressing thing to get done and by the time I got finished the wind was way too high to mess with it. Maybe tomorrow?

 A few days ago I went to Dennis' to pick up a door and noticed he had this little fridge setting up on a shelf in the storage building. I asked him how much for it and actually got it for free. Its small, but works like a champ. Matter of fact I could use it for a freezer because it went down to 20 degrees  while it was set on Max. I now have it turned up to maintain 36 degrees. It only pulls 66 watts so no problem running it off the 750 watt inverter.

Unfortunately though the DSL modem was rebooting every time the fridge came on so that came out to about every 8 minutes. To fix that I brought in an old car battery, used one of the small inverters and a trickle charger to keep that battery hot and plugged the modem in to it. The trickle charger only pulls 9 watts so that isn't bad. The fridge only runs about 1/3 of the time so that is good to.

Some of the gang throwing tomahawks and knives again at last nights party.

Inside the legion. I took more pictures, but they either turned out too blurry or dark to post.

St. Patrick's Day @ the Legion

Just to let the locals that have expressed interest in attending one of the parties at the Legion. There will be a St. Patrick's Day party starting at 6:00 PM Saturday the 17th. It will be a non mandatory Pot Luck feed to start it off. If you want to bring something then do and if not then don't. Hopefully there will be enough food for all that show up. This was another one of Julianne's ideas so blame it on her. I believe her and Nick will be providing entertainment again.

Test

After switching back to the old blog format and hopefully doing away with the word verification I tried to add these pictures to the last post, but they never showed up.

The joists that were on 24 inch centers were glued in and screwed in with three inch deck screws and they weren't about to come out so I could go to 16 inch centers as Billy Bob ask about so... I added joists between them to make it on 12 inch centers. Should be even better than the 16 inch centers.

My friends Lee and Dave came over Sunday and Lee brought his water level and with the help of Dave Lee got the platform squared within 1/8 inch and leveled just about perfect. Tomorrow I'll be trying to figure out a good way to insulate it so that  rats won't make nest in the insulation under the floor. They love to do that in case you didn't know.

Cabin / Grub Shack Open

A few progress pictures of the cabin.

First step was to go to McCoy's in Alpine to get the blocks and concrete for the foundation. I got all I could carry on my little trailer, but there was a lot of lumber that I couldn't haul on it and I wouldn't have bought the lumber there anyway because they were way too high.

Second step was to head for Odessa to buy the lumber I needed because McCoy's priced the same amount of lumber $195 dollars higher than I could get it at Lowe's in Odessa and then they wanted the $75 delivery price on top of that. Ring brought his trailer down here and I followed him back and you see all the lumber I got on the back of his trailer.

Last picture is as far as Ring, Dave and myself got toward starting the build before the wind got too high and cool for us to go any further. Unfortunately Dave injured his right wrist early on and couldn't do any more work. He probably won't be able to do much for a while so I'll be doing what I can myself until Ring can make it back to help out more. The weather is lousy (cold, cloudy and windy) today so Ring headed back home because we wouldn't have been able to do anything today. Looks like it will be Sunday before I can get back to work.

Been busy adding other joists to make the platform 12 on 12. Should be a lot stronger floor. I have a little more work on that and tomorrow plan to see about insulating it.


BTW the Grub Shack is now open again and hopefully for good. Ring and I had breakfast there yesterday morning and it sure was nice to have one of Jerry's great breakfast sandwiches!

For those in the area that don't know its open again they could sure use the business.