Yippee! The temperature overnight was warm, positively balmy at 5°C and the water lying around on our concrete didn’t freeze again and nearly all the remaining ice had melted by the time we started our work at 10am today.
We brought out our new homemade crane mechanism and got it assembled and installed at the top of the scaffolding tower.
First-leg-lift-ready-to-lift
First-leg-lift-the-top-of-the-crane
First-leg-lift-ready-to-lift-2
We then attached the end of the hook which had the wire going down through its pulley and back up to the winch. This setup provides double lifting strength at half speed which is good so we can monitor carefully what is happening and be able to stop and reverse if necessary.
So having tied the top of the leg to the hook, we started carefully lifting it up. The scaffolding tower was holding firm and was not moving, the long wooden leg as part of the crane mechanism was solid and showing no signs of distress so we carried on winding in the steel cable into the winch and finally got the whole leg upright and dangling from the winch all by itself. We then lowered it back into position on the X marks the spot!
First-leg-lift-halfway-there
First-leg-lift-upright
This steel leg is one (of 3) of our heavy duty legs weighing about 160kg and 5.4 metres long. It stood there on the concrete quite well and was pretty stable all by itself, but we weren’t taking any chances so we clamped a short piece of 2inch by 2inch timber horizontally onto the scaffold tower and the sticking out end was tied to the leg with rope, all this near the top of the tower as possible. That was that Leg done.
After lunch, we repeated the whole process over again, moving the crane unit over to the other side of the scaffolding tower and then lifted the 2nd heavy duty leg up into place and got that one tied to a second similar support arm sticking out the side of the tower.
Then we tied the two steel legs together using the steel U channel piece which will serve as the lintel over the Great Room entrance to the hallway. This lintel is 2.5metres long and it is 150mm high by 75mm wide with a flanges of 10mm! that piece of steel weighed 45kg as well!!
(No picture I accidentally deleted it…)
Finally, as to finish off the day’s work, we assembled the second scaffolding tower, put the wooden platform in place at the top and installed the safety bars and kick boards around the edge of the platform.
We were working completely in the dark by the end, but were well lighted with our super-duper 300W LED flood light! Tomorrow we will get up the next two legs and get them tied together AND back to the other two legs we have already erected!! Yippee!