Construction Journal Entry Week of 11/8/15

11/11-13/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Wednesday through Friday.

On the way I stopped and visited with Uncle Charles but we didn’t have a checker game this time. A weather system had moved through earlier in the morning so there had been snow in the pass. There was snow on the ground above 3000 feet but it had been plowed off the road so it was bare and wet. The sun was out so the drive was beautiful. Dirtyface had more snow on the top half but there wasn’t much more on Nason Ridge than last week.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:58. I carried my gear up in two loads, the second of which I used my Trapper Nelson backpack to haul my cordless drill, my new DeWalt planer, and a bag of apples. It was a fairly heavy load. I also carried the sprayer up in my hands.

After hoisting the flag, I built a fire in the stove and had my lunch. I skipped my nap and went looking for a slab to use as the next stair tread. I found one on the log pile over the sewer drain pipe and skidded it over to the upper roadway. I cut it in half with the chainsaw and then used my new planer to plane the bottom and top surfaces. I was very pleased with the planer.

I was surprised by Ernie. He had made the trip all the way up to see me. I stopped my work and gave him some biscuits and left-over gravy along with a lot of hugs and strokes. It was good to see the poor old dog. It’s really an effort for him to get around anymore.

After I finished planing the slab, I planed the top of the tread I had installed last week. Then I mixed up a batch of Board Defense and sprayed it on the new slab. I moved it under the eaves so that it would dry overnight.

On Thursday I built the suspension structure and mounted the tread in position for scribing. Then I scribed the tread and stringers and cut the four notches with the chainsaw. When I tried the fit I was pleased that it fit pretty well on the first try. It needed some work on the left but not much on the right.

There was still about an hour to go before lunch time so I spent that time splitting firewood. I also brought down several firewood rounds that the loggers had left up on the high rock and left them on the front porch so they could dry out.

Then I had my lunch and my usual nap. When I got up at 2:00 it started snowing. I spent the rest of the daylight working on the fit of the new tread. Then I split some more firewood before I quit for the day. By 5:00 about an inch of snow had accumulated on the ground.

On Friday morning, I made the last refinements on the tread and got it to fit properly. Then I stained the bottom of it, set it back in place, drilled the holes for the lag screws, turned it over again, stained the bottom of it and the stringer notches, put it back in place the final time, and turned the lag screws down tight with a socket wrench. Since the rain had gotten the tops of most of the treads wet, I decided against staining the tops until a dry day. Then I put the tools away and split some more firewood before I had my lunch and left for home. I left at 12:30 happy to be in steady state installing one tread per week.



Go to Next Journal Entry
Previous Journal Entry

Index to all Journal Entries
Go To Home Page

©2015 Paul R. Martin, All rights reserved.