Sunday, May 18, 2014


SHOP NOTES

HARVARD CARRIAGE SHED

EPILOGUE

Three weeks after arriving on April 16th, we left the job site very tired on May 9th. I had gulped prophylactic Ibuprofen daily. I call it “I Be Broken” (thanks Connie!) for good reason; this was the hardest work I’ve done since loading my own moving trailer in moving from Arkysaw. In fact, it was MUCH harder.

The company put us up in the local Holiday Inn, which made the ten-hour days bearable, but a cage is a cage, and it was good to get home. My farm’s foliage was in full bloom and I had LOTS of work in which I was behind. Go to www.standishfarmrestoration.blogspot.com to watch THAT saga unfold for the next few years.

Ken and I returned for half a day of cleanup and loading the company van with all the architectural goodies we couldn’t fit in our trucks or trust to ride gently on the flatbed. These included a box of small items, the hogshead, some doors (including an eighteenth century door I’ll feature in the next post), and a handful of rough-sawn 1x that the Boss didn’t want and so will be used to help sheath my barn with authentic-looking boards and battens.

So we are done with the thing for now. We unloaded the trailer on the 15th, and its components are under cover and await reconstruction down in Avondale, Rhode Island. I’ll feature it again in a future post, I assure you.
 
Before
February 24th 2014
 
 
After
May 14th 2014

HARVARD CARRIAGE SHED

 PHASE TWO



Once the siding and south addition were removed, we started the rafter and ridgepole removal. As we progressed, we selectively stripped the building of its sheathing. We did this in phases, as the wide sheathing boards were partially responsible for the building's structural integrity. So many post bases and plate ends were rotted or missing that we had to add bracing in a few places; more was added to the rafters themselves.


The ridgepole had some damage near the south end, so we sandwiched the deteriorated area with 2x6.


As rafters were removed, we laid them over the front plates; this allowed for a place to put the 40-foot ridgepole so we could adjust the straps.


                                                   Lowering the ridgepole to the ground

Loft floor with raised ceiling under the hogshead barrel. The hogshead had a family of mice we gently displaced and kept doing so until there were no more places for them to go. They eventually leapt from the ceiling to the workroom floor and finally hightailed it to the brush on the last day of demo.
 
Looking north
 
Half of the flooring and floor joists removed before one of two rain days
 
 
                          Beginning to remove the frame for real; first plate to the ground

                          Removing a stubborn hurricane brace by pounding out the trunnel

                                           More trunnel pounding. Some had to be drilled.

Removing the last piece of sheathing. My t-shirt reads "Without Struggle The is No Progress." How true.
 
                                Last wall standing. The plate is sandwiched at a rotted area.

                                            Dan and I wrestling timbers onto the lull.

Nothing left but the piles of lumber to be banded. Note the plywood to the right of the piles. It covers the partially-removed workroom floor.

The last bit of demolition gave us another hidden extra as exciting as the 'slaughter table' we found the second week. We had removed one layer of the three (!!!?) that composed the workroom floor, and had seen the end of a very thick chestnut timber holding up the flooring as an improvised joist. As Ken removed the last layers, he hollered at me.


"You're not gonna believe this!" he called. I looked and saw a round hole in the 20" x 20" timber being revealed.

"It's got a hole!" I said. "Wonder what it was for?"

"Like I said, you're not gonna believe it!"

When he pulled the last boards off, he revealed not one but three holes.


And two of them were threaded.


It was a frame for a large press, likely for cider. The remaining 'joists' were other members of the press, and though it was incomplete, it was pretty impressive.


               Though chestnut is a comparatively light wood, it took the lull to lift the headframe.

We brought it back and I hope we'll eventually make some of the missing pieces, but who knows? It may be milled into a mantle somewhere. Hopefully the threaded holes will be prominently displayed.

      Banding the sheathing, flooring, roofers, and timbers in preparation for transport to Rhode Island.

40-foot flatbed partially loaded; note the railroad ties as dunnage. The lull's ability to tilt its forks gave out the second to the last day, so we needed tall dunnage and strong backs.
 
 
Guiding the forks
 
Loading the ridgepole; it rode between the stacks in the middle of the trailer
 
Spider Jim examining the load as it is stacked
 
Preparing to finish stacking the load, though last time it was loading the stacks.
 
Last to be loaded; a ton of slate
 
Thanks God for the lull! Note the straps are being used to lift the slate, even though it's on a pallet. The lull's forks would not tilt.
 
Fully loaded; note the cider press pieces in the center of the stacks.
 
Not too high
 
Nor too wide
 
After three weeks, only the dumpster remains