Today, we carried on configuring and adapting various equipment and tools to help us with the task of lifting these roof Rafters up into place. For example, we reinforced the other winch support arm to stiffen up the vertical pole. We did this by welding on two angle iron pieces on the opposite side of the metal pole so that the bending moment is much stronger in the direction of the winch arm hanging over the side of the tower. The other thing we did, was to extend the cable for the control buttons for this same tower. By adding another 10 metres to the four-core electric cable going from the control box and the winch mechanism itself, now allows us to control the winch motor from ground level and have much better control when we are positioning the ends of the rafter on top of the wall and getting it to slide onto a leg too.
We then moved both towers to the next position where the AB LVL diagonal valley Rafter will be going, rotating the towers so their ends are parallel to the wooden beam to make it easy to lift up smoothly up the sides.
The next job was to slice the 41° angled cut off the top end of the rafter (the one fitting into the metal bracket) up on the C Ridge, and then cut out a clearance hole on the webbing at the other end where it fits over and on the top plate of the wall corner.
We humped this 6metres long piece of work outside and got it up with our winches, did a test fit and all it well.
The next job was to get the corner leg fitted, by cutting it down to size (exactly 2381mm high) and doing a quick test fit there too.
After that, we squirted lots of the glue all over the contact areas where the legs fits into, both ends of the rafter and the metal bracket too and then slotted everything into place!
Beam-AB-installed
This is the second companion rafter fitted, to go alongside the other DE Valley rafter on both side of the big C Ridge forming the Front Door and Entertainment Room Extension portion of the house. This section of the roof skeleton framework is now done! Hooray!
Tomorrow, we will measure the next three corners (the PA Hip Rafter, EH Hip Rafter and the HI Hip Rafter) which are all the same size rafter (apart from their lengths [which ideally would be the same as well]) before the thunderstorms arrive in the afternoon sometime. Also, we will take in the metal foots of the scaffolding tower and drill holes in them to allow us to fit castor wheels to them for us to pull the tower around so much easier! Phew!