The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[Ned B]

Bueler, bueler? Anyone, anyone?


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[KCStudly]

Sorry, I have been side tracked by Jeep axle upgrades and the holiday.

Also, today we put the ballista up on its legs to get the tires up off the ground, put up the winter cover to keep weather off of the rope bundles and winch, covered up the hydraulic power pack, moved the arms in under the rope bundle tent, and brought the break-away brake battery inside.

We finished up the ballista stuff for the day by dragging out the parts that we had started previously for the scale Ethos style bundles; modified where we had been heading with the modi support frames by hole sawing clearance holes; made and welded locator lugs for the modi; and cut and welded up stanchions to build the ballista style rope bundle frames. I expect Eric will be posting something up soon on either the Google+ Team Tormentum page, or perhaps the revamped Siege-Engine.com page.

On the front axle, I scraped the gasket surface on the diff cover, cleaned excess sealant off of the cover bolts, wiped it out and sealed it back onto the diff (to keep sand blast media out). Then I loaded the empty housing back on the cargo carrier and will haul it to the blast cabinet at work with me tomorrow. Nothing really pic worthy, but a small amount of forward progress.

[bonnie]

Still quite a bit done.


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[KCStudly]

One little bite at a time, Bonnie. Just have to keep going at it.

[KCStudly]

Despite being busy with the Jeep axle upgrades (big progress update just loaded up) and the holidays, life still has a way of throwing a curveball in sometimes.

A tree fell on my garden/wood shed.


Flattened the salt box style roof and cracked it like an egg.


If you look at the rake board trim near the peak you can see how much it split open and flattened. Also note the side wall peeled open at the top front edge of the wall.


The original roof when we moved in was just a flat pitched roof. The 2x6 joists (dark brown in pics) had been notched on their tops with 2x’s laid down across wise to support the seams in the decking. The flat roof would collect leafs and sticks and eventually was rotted out by ice damming. So I ripped that off, leaving the joists, and built up the new ridge and salt box rafters, but I left the old joists.

So when the load came down pushing down on the tails of the joists, they heaved up and split at the notches. The backs of the joists also lifted up off of the wall cap and out of the notches in the wall sheathing. Each rafter, at least along the front, pried away from the ridge beam yanking most of the nails out. The joist along the blown out side wall cap turned to splinters.


The joist over the door is now resting on top of the door, and, as you can see, the rest of the joists are now pointing down like rafter tails.


Not sure yet if I can even get the door open to get my chainsaw out.

The source of the problem was a notch in the tree where a rear facing branch had fallen, leaving a place for rot and bugs to set in. That left the front facing limb of the notch compromised. I’m a bit PO’d because we had tree work done last year, and I noticed that they left this one when I thought they should have taken it.


Oh well, I guess I should have done something about it at the time. Doh.

Now the snow is about to fly so I’m going to have to do something pretty quickly here to make sure the whole thing doesn’t cave in from a big snow load. I’ll see if I can cut the exposed nails flush at the rafter tips, ratchet strap it back in place if I can, and add some ties to where I can replace the joists. If not, I’ll have to strip the whole roof off and start over.

Oh bother.

[GPW]

KC, That’s unfortunate ... Hope the fix goes quickly !!!

[MadMango]

A tree fell on my garden/wood shed.

What a difference a few feet could have made. Glad no one was injured. Will that tree make good firewood?

[KCStudly]

Will that tree make good firewood?

I'm not sure what variety it is, but it will do penance as it burns in the fiery depths, one way or the other! ... be it in my fireplace or a bonfire.

[S. Heisley]

Drats! So sorry, KC. Winter is the worst time for that sort of thing to happen. Here's hoping that you can find an easy and safe fix.

[OP827]

Sorry for that KC. Hope you can fix the shed easily enough. I wish I was nearby to give you a hand.

[dales133]

Thats one hell of a hunk of tree bud!

[Philip]

I thought I was the only one with that type of luck.

At least you didn't have a big V notch in the roof. Looks like a couple of rafters and some end wall repair. Then jack the roof back up.

[KCStudly]

Yup. Thanks all for the sentiments. As all of you who have followed this know, Karl is my tried and true best friend. I can always count on him (and him me).

Today the plan was to get into the shed, get my chainsaw out, get it running, and start chiseling/chipping away at the tree to see how it wanted to be removed. I am not agile or confident enough... too clumsy... to run a chainsaw while standing on a ladder... there really isn't any level ground around the shed either, as our lot is sloped to the rear... anyway... as I suspected, the door was pinched by the joist.

I got out my recip saw with a demo blade, ran an extension cord from the basement and cut the joist off flush with the wall cap. Then used a hammer to bust the tail away from the rafter tail. When I added the pent up roof I installed a creeper over the joists to set the new rafters on, so that was helping to bridge the door header, and allowed me to get the door open about 80 deg, plenty enough to get inside.

The chainsaw probably hadn't been run for several years, but started up after just a few pulls... then died when I tried to throttle it up... then wouldn't start again.

I decided to go get some fresh gas, did the fuel treatment, 50:1 two stroke oil mix, came home... and realized I was missing my cell phone. Searched the car, the garage, the shed, the leaf strewn area outside the shed. I had a sinking feeling that I may have left it on the back of the Jeep while I was doing all of the gas can stuff... wouldn't have been normal for me, but the day wasn't going normally. Drove back down to the corner going slow looking all along the road, asked at the gas station if anyone had found it; nope. Drove slow back home looking for it. Called Karl with my tale of woe, asking to borrow his chainsaw... didn't really want to disturb him from relaxing on the couch, which he seldom ever does... he does so much to help me all of the time as it is... best friend ever. He loads up his Stihl saw, little giant ladder and a big sling strap (in case we have to drag the tree off of the shed using the Jeep), and comes out to help.

He opines that if we try to drag the tree off it would do more damage than good, while I admit that I’m not too keen about running a chainsaw from a ladder (always ill advised) or standing on the compromised roof while running the saw. He’s game, so after cutting some of the tree that is laying on the ground up, I set the ladder up and toe it for him, he climbed up on the roof and started lopping off the heavy end that is still hanging cantilevered off the ridge to the rear of the roof. Fire wood sized lengths dropping on the roof (thud) and rolling off. Fortunately only two of them rolled very far down the hill. Retrieving those was a bit of a work out, but holding them close to my core and using my legs to climb back up the hill wasn’t too bad; although my back has been bugging me lately, what with hauling all of the axle housings around lately.

Once what was left was only leaning on the front part of the roof and we had shortened up the part on the ground pretty well, it was kind of standing up enough that we could just muscle it away from the eave and let it fall. Then we were able to cut it all up into fire place lengths. Turned out to be red oak, so perfect for burning.

I’ll borrow Karl’s wood splitter and bust it up soon.

We took a good look inside and assessed the damage. It’s pretty much a crap shoot if I’ll be able to save it w/o having to demo the whole roof. We agreed that I can probably just jack the ridge up some for now, put some temporary posts in, come-along the rafter tails together, and throw a couple of temporary ties in to get it thru the winter.

That was enough work for the day. After an errand to the store, after dark when Yvette and I both got back to the house, I had her call my phone a couple of times while looking in the Jeep and whatnot. Ended up finding my phone glowing out underneath the shed. Must have fallen out of my shirt pocket while I was trying to start the saw.

As a late addition to Yvette’s B-day celebration, I made my seriously sharp mac-n-cheese for dinner. I did half the recipe as usual for her, and did the other half with burnt ends, BBQ corned beef and some sweet BBQ sauce from our favorite smoke house. It was yummy.

[S. Heisley]

It reads like you are turning those thorns in your side into roses.

[S. Heisley]

It reads like you are turning those thorns in your side into roses.