After waiting about 45 minutes for the rain to blow over this morning, we started at 10:45 by hauling up the first of the smaller I Beam at the Great Room end of the steel framework structure. Using the tower and our wooden crane leg, we hoisted up the 2480mm long I Beam up and slotted it into place against the heavy duty angle iron that we had already bolted in place, ready to receive this section. All fitted nicely and all bolted up good and tight.
Beam-6-in-place
Then, we moved the scaffolding towers down each side and loosened the bolts to the two long I beams (Number Two and Four) to see if we can lift the other end up in order to get clear of the big leg (Number Four) down at the Garage end of the steel structure. We positioned each tower diagonally across the end of the I beam, and moved the crane leg around so that we could use the winch to try and lift the ends of the I beams up, just a little bit so we will have room to slide in the final shorter I beam into place.
It Worked!
We got the last of the big I Beams (number Three) up and fitted into place. All is bolted together now, including the metal brackets to receive the big valley rafters sloping down to the corners of the roof. Phew!
Beam-3-in-place
It was a complex operation in coordinating all the different elements like adjusting the leg, loosening bolts and other tricks to achieve the end goal of completing the full circle of our Steel Framework! But we made it!
It was dark by now, but we thought we would put up the final Cross Spars, the last two to do at this end of the structure and we got one up and bolted into place and just about to do the last one when we realised that it was the wrong one for that location! We further discovered that some of our Cross Spars were the wrong way round so we decided that enough was enough and correct that lot on Thursday when we resume work!! Grin!
Cross-ties (some-are-wrong-way-round)