Hammer beam continued - Kitchen is framed.

After raising the first hammerbeam day-before-yesterday, yesterday we prepared everything in order to raise the gable bent (Bent H if you will) that forms the exterior wall of the kitchen. At about 3:00 we were ready to raise bent H, and with about 4 hours of daylight remaining, we decided to go for it. (There is much to do in order to be ready to raise a bent - for instance, all of the connecting girts and braces must be in place, as shown in the first picture).

Yes, the bent went up. We rigged it as I had seen in photographs, but it didn't fly like we wanted. The knots on the chokers slipped, and once we lifted it, the bent was tilted the wrong way (feet out, not feet in) and this caused us much grief, but we did not want to set the bent down and re-rig it, because it is a very scarey thing to raise a 32 foot tall bent from 0 degrees (horizontal) to 90 degrees (vertical). It was a long day - but once you have a bent 90% raised, you don't quit. By dark, we had the feet of the bent in place, and all of the girts and braces started. We "ratchet-strapped" and "come-alonged" the bent toward the standing hammerbeam bent and resolved to pull everything tight the next morning.


This was the view this morning - what a great surprise to see what we had finished in the dark the day before. This morning, we flew in about 9 purlins inside of 3 hours, so by 11:00 am, everything looked different. (This included taking time to cut a missing dovetail joint to frame around the chimeny opening.) There were several more timbers to fly in to the frame after the purlins to bent H were finished. These extra timbers were the ones that form the "shed roof" portion of the house - seen from the back of the house. My friend in this picture is an ex-union-iron-worker, who scampers on these timbers like a squirrel. Although you can't see it in the picture (and he thinks he doesn't need it), he is wearing a safety harness.

Here's a view of the back of the house as it stands this evening. You can see that not only have we framed the (kitchen) bay between bent G and Bent H, but we have also framed the shed area between the "gable overhang" and the bentG-bentH bay. Beer-thirty arrived early today (3:30) since it happend to be at 7:30 yesterday! You can't work like borrowed mules everyday.