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kellan_the_tabby) wrote2022-05-24 12:56 pm
SPOON: starting to build!
[Two folding tables are set up, end to end, along Tyrava’s long side; they hold a single board and a scattering of tools. There’s also a couple of rusty folding chairs, a dog crate with a cat crate inside, a covered litterbox with a cardboard box and a gallon of water on top, and an ez-up, still in its bag.]
Finally, FINALLY, things have lined up so that I can start to build.
I got the folding tables set up, with sort of a workshop, not great, but it’s working so far. It gets shade in the late afternoon, & Tyrava shields it from the wind most of the time … when the wind is behaving, which is intermittent at best.
Plus I got lumber. A lotta lumber. Have you LOOKED at the prices for lumber these days? Ye GODS.
(I will gently remind you of the gofundme; the description is RIDICULOUSLY out of date, but money still goes to the overall cause of ‘we build thing to live in’.)
ANYWAY, I bought a vanful of lumber, then set about making a thing for it. This is a familiar task! I have done this before!
… it’s a lot easier starting on a flatbed trailer than on bumpy ground. But I got it figured out. & it turns out that framing is basically framing, whether it’s 2x2s at random intervals or 2x6s at 12 inches on center.
[Two sixteen-foot lengths of 2×6 boards are joined by seventeen twelve-foot 2x6es, set just under twelve inches apart. The entire grid is laid on dusty, mostly barren ground.]
Of course you can’t fit sixteen-foot lumber into the van — not usefully, anyways — so I got a couplea 2×6 eight foot pieces, cut one up, & used it to patch the other four into the right length.
[Two 2×6 boards are butted end-to-end, patched with another piece of 2×6, laid alongside the two; all three are held securely together by a plethora of screws.]
Yes, I’m using screws, not nails. Yes, most people use nails for construction projects that aren’t meant to travel down the highway at 60mph. Look, it’s a habit, & anyway I do better with drill & driver than with a hammer, at least when it’s nails & not copper wire.
[A corner of the floor section. All three visible boards have been attached with screws.]
Having finally got the thing finished up — with a BUNCH of help from Jasper & Morgyn, who hauled lumber, wrangled cats, & helped pick the whole thing up so we could slide boards under whatever part I was working on at the moment — I messed around with getting it properly leveled. It can’t stay there — it’s going to be up on 4×4 skids, which in turn will rest on concrete blocks, which will sit on top of a whole bunch of gravel, after I’ve dug holes to dump the gravel into — but hey, it LOOKS nice.
[A view of the floor joists, from just barely above them. A long yellow level sits on top of the closest board; the bubble is almost, but not quite, centered.]
Good thing, too. Could use a lil work on the whole ‘leveling’ thing.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
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I've seen framed floors like held together with screws, nails, wooden dowels, and in one case, Craftily cut dovetails/mortise & tenons so it just all slotted together like puzzle pieces.
They all ended up doing the same job however. so, whatever works. (although screws means you can replace bits if you need to.)
Here's to a good start anyway!
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