It was a lovely day with virtually no wind out there and very nice sunshine! We continued with our task of getting up our Steel I beams up on top of the legs, this time, it was I Beam’s Four and Five to go on Leg’s Five, Six and Seven.
But first, we had to drill new holes to correct the position error we discovered yesterday (both I Beams Two and Four have the same error!), this is for fixing it down on Leg 5. We also drilled 4 extra holes on the other side of the I beam (number Four again) to provide a mounting point for our fake chimney to be attached to the roof, located about half way along the section of the sky light going towards the extension , on the back slope of the roof.
We got everything ready (moving the crane legs, towers and getting the winch machinery all sorted) and stopped for lunch.
After lunch, we went back and just simply hoisted up the big and heavy I beam (number 5) for Leg 7 and Leg 6 and plonked it on and all holes lined up so we bolted it down – job done!
Then, we unhooked and moved everything over to the next I beam, number 4, the lighter one, and set up everything ready for winching. It is a multipart job setting up the crane and scaffolding towers with the machinery in place and it takes quite a while to do this, making sure it is all correct and safe to go. Then the actual lifting process only takes minutes – smile!!
The second I beam of the day, went up smoothly and got it up on Leg 6 and Leg 5 and all the holes .. again .. lined up!! Hurray!!! So we quickly bolted everything together before it decides to change shape or something! Grin!
Beams-4-5-Up-and-Fixed
This means that we have all the big heavy and long I beams up now!! Yippee!
The final task of the day was to try to get up the shorter I beam, number 3, which is only 2480mm long, going across the end of I beam’s Two and Four to close off the framework box. We lifted it up with just one winch as it is only 60 kg in weight and move it up to the top of Leg 4 but we discovered that the two side I beams (numbers 2 and 4) were drooping down under their own weight by about 20mm so we couldn’t fit it into place. So we lowered the I beam back to the ground and closed the day off by undoing all the electrics, taking the winches indoors and tidying up. It was dark by now!!
We will think on the problem of getting the two side I beams to be “lifted” up so we can slot everything together and land on top of the final leg, all in one go!! Phew!