Dave and I assembled three of the six trusses on Wednesday. It was rainy and windy and there were a few breaks in the weather. We use an large Ingersoll-Rand forklift with an extending boom to position each piece. First i put one of the short struts that spans from the lower log (the “tie beam”) to the rafter. Then we position one of the rafters and i spike in the strut and the toe of the rafter to the tie beam. Next we move in the vertical log – the “king post” and then the other rafter. Finally we slide the last strut into place. We have had to do a little trimming to get things to fit and unfortunately some of the struts are gone – probably burned for firewood.

That’s pretty frustrating knowing how many hours were put into measuring and cutting them.

Tuesday Dave and i positioned the four center tie beams using the equipment to drag or push them and a peavey or brute force to align them along the back wall and the front support beam.

Then i scribed them and Dave cut them. We rolled them in position and lagged them into place with 1/2 inch diameter and 12 inch long lag bolts.

We removed the diagonal bracing from the front of the shelter too.

Tuesday morning we ran a string ten inches above the notch for the rafter on the front and back of the beams. Then we rolled the center four logs into approximate position. Simply measuring between the string and the notch showed us how much had to be removed (notched) to make the distance 10 inches. Notches ranged from 3 and a half inches to just one half an inch. The variable diameter of the tie beam primarily dictated this.

Setup took a while but was worth it. We were then able to scribe the four logs, make the cuts and lag them down and be done by mid afternoon.

We decided to start with the two logs on either end. After they were put in place (on Friday) we started with one end log. First we snapped a chalk line across the center of the log and leveled it. Then we measured the gap between it and the smallest distance to the top of the top log of the wall and decided to notch drop the log that much. We scribed the cuts and then Dave made successive parallel cuts with the chainsaw and knocked them out with a hammer. Then he used the chainsaw to smooth the cut out.

We leveled the other end log also by snapping a chalk line along the length. Then we ran a string line from the butt end of the log at the depth of the notch for the rafter of the index log out to the other end log.

the distance between the sting with a string level on it to the other log’s notch was how much needed to be removed. We scribed that and Dave cut it.

Scribing a cut is pretty tricky. But i started to really get the hang of it. Check out the notches in person and we didn’t do that bad.

That’s where we left the job site on Monday.

Today Wayne started the first course of rock to form the chimney – he’s encasing the concrete slab that he fixed up that the fireplace sits on.

Mike Tozzo, Dave Nauman and Dave Simon are ready to hoist the sixth post for the front of the shelter at Sandy Beach Park.

After the logs were placed crossing the stream at Sandy Beach Dieter started to work on the notches for the strap anchors for the bridge.

We used the lift to get the other two logs close to their support structure and then used volunteers to life and slide the logs into place.

The bridge is cantilevered. The crib that the far end of the logs are on will be removed once the logs are strapped down to the butt anchor and the mid section support. The logs are yellow cedar – locally harvested.