Birth of a shop

[Marty Walsh]

Thanks, Rob. I was happier not knowing that... Before your email I understood that his show was big, but I just kept thinking "40x64". Now your email prompted me to actually finish the math and come up with 2500 square feet.

Yup. Bigger than my house also... But then again, in that weird way that they handle real estate up here, they never count the basement when calculating square footage. So actually, I guess my house really is bigger than Marty's shop. Whew.

(and no I'm not actually going to go and measure my basement to do the math. I'm just going to guess and stay happier in my ignorance...)

...art
(who, all silliness aside, really is mostly content with his 12x20 basement shop.)

Art,

As long as we're doing the math, the square footage of the first floor is 2560. If we add in the space that the room-in-trusses give me, (an additional 768 square feet), we have a grand total of 3328 square feet.

Heck, it's bigger than MY house!!

- Marty -

[randy street]

Marty,

Keep up the great work. I'm checking to see if you’ve posted several times a day. Your thread has become my "Crack Addiction".

Regards

Randy

[Bartee Lamar]

Maybe the guys with theBIG yellow things can lift up your wall

[Marty Walsh]

Marty,

Keep up the great work. I'm checking to see if you’ve posted several times a day. Your thread has become my "Crack Addiction".

Regards

Randy

Randy,

Glad you're following my adventure, and sorry for the delay. I should be back full steam after tomorrow.

- Marty -

[Marty Walsh]

Maybe the guys with theBIG yellow things can lift up your wall

Bartee,

Shucks, you discovered my backup plan if there are any issues with the jacks...

- Marty -

[Marty Walsh]

Delay almost over...

As I posted above, the crew showed up un-announced to work on my pond. That's put a real crimp in my progress, including messing with my plan to get the sheathing done yesterday and today.

As it turned out, my pond had to be completely drained to effect the repairs:

Attachment 42421 Attachment 42422

Draining the pond meant that something had to be done with all the fish I've put in there. Well with zero notice, and no where to put them, I had no choice but to grab my fishing tackle and get to work. Here's what we have as of about an hour ago:

Attachment 42423

Denise is back from her trip and has already cleaned them. At least we'll be eating well for a while...

You can see in this shot the mess they've made of our yard. If you look closely, you can see the shop in the distance between the excavator and dozer:

Attachment 42424

At least with the huge pile of dirt they created, I was able to climb up and get a good overall shot of the shop:

Attachment 42425

Ok, so tomorrow I'm back on track and back at it full steam ahead. I pick up the last sheet of subfloor, then the jacks, then I sheath the two walls and get them raised.

Sorry for the delay...
- Marty -

[Mark Pruitt]

Sorry for the delay...
- Marty -

Well I'm sure glad you apologized You know, I was just sitting here saying "the nerve of the guy, experiencing delays like this..."

Seriously, glad you're getting back on track. Good to see the progress. Hang in there!!!
Mark

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Boy........that's the pits.........have to take the day off from hard physical labor to fish that pond out! Marty.......with all the physical labor you've been doing lately.....a day off may keep you from "burning out"! Gives you time to further plan the project! Keep the photos coming! Enjoying the thread!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Thanks for the update, Marty. Like others here, I've gotta check this thread regularly to get my "fix". (Must be the old construction inspector in me. I love hard work...I can watch it for hours. ) I agree with Ken, though...it's probably been good for you to have a bit of a break.

I may have missed it, but what needed to be done to your pond? And I'll need to remember your "drain the pond" trick next time I'm not having good luck fishing. Seems to have been an effective technique for you.

- Vaughn

[Michael Gabbay]

Marty - Since you have that large backhoe why don't you use it and the excavation crew to raise the walls? Nice catch!

Mike

[Bart Leetch]

My Dad had a small 3 wheeled home built crane that he could lift walls with & wheel them around on the deck & set them up even then If I remember properly the longest panels we raised were only 12' long. I don't envy you at all wall jacks or no wall jacks. I would never never make the sections longer than 12'. If you need help get it. It's not worth busting your butt or anything else for that matter.

I have to admit that having seen the different buildings I've seen built I'd really like to be a little mouse in the corner watching you raise this long wall. Yes I've seen walls this long or maybe longer raised but there were framers, plumbers & laborers all working together something like 20 - 25 men or more all heaving together.

Please be careful.


Check this out. http://www.lni.wa.gov/Safety/Researc...allingWall.pdf

[Marty Walsh]

...
I may have missed it, but what needed to be done to your pond? And I'll need to remember your "drain the pond" trick next time I'm not having good luck fishing. Seems to have been an effective technique for you.

- Vaughn

Vaughn,

I never got into the details about my pond woes on here, so you didn't miss anything. The bottom line is that I had the dam re-cored shortly after we bought this place. But the dam still leaked. It's being fixed correctly this time...

And, about half the fish in that picture were caught with rod-n-reel. The remainder were caught once the water was drained, with me chasing them around with a dip net in ankle deep water. I don't recommend that as a pleasurable fishing technique...

- Marty -

[Marty Walsh]

My Dad had a small 3 wheeled home built crane that he could lift walls with & wheel them around on the deck & set them up even then If I remember properly the longest panels we raised were only 12' long. I don't envy you at all wall jacks or no wall jacks. I would never never make the sections longer than 12'. If you need help get it. It's not worth busting your butt or anything else for that matter.

I have to admit that having seen the different buildings I've seen built I'd really like to be a little mouse in the corner watching you raise this long wall. Yes I've seen walls this long or maybe longer raised but there were framers, plumbers & laborers all working together something like 20 - 25 men or more all heaving together.

Please be careful.


Check this out. http://www.lni.wa.gov/Safety/Researc...allingWall.pdf

Bart,

I appreciate your concern, and the link to that fatal article. One thing to note is that I'm *NOT* using that type of wall jack. The ones in that article use a 2x4 as the lifting post. The ones I'm using have an integral steel post, instead of a chunk of 2x4, as part of the jack that carries the weight.

And I have the excavator as a backup if there are any issues with the jacks.

I'm off the get the subfloor...
- Marty -

[Marty Walsh]

Sheathing finally begun...

How does that cliche' go...? Oh yeah, "The best laid plans of mice and men...blah blah blah"

I did suceed in driving the almost 150 miles round trip to retrieve the final sheet of subfloor. I was even sucessful in ripping and installing it. The subfloor is now DONE!

But, that's where my plans came apart. It seems that the loading dock manager at my supplier in Savannah took ill today and had to be carted to the hospital. It also seems that no one else at the supply house knows where (or if) my jacks are on their dock. They confirm that the braces arrived safely, but they suspect the jacks are still on a yet-to-be-unloaded tractor trailer sitting at their dock. I feel bad that the loading dock guy took ill...but sheesh...

So, after loosing a few hours trying to track down the jacks, I decided to go out and get a start on the sheathing:

Attachment 42485

I'm a litle less than half-way through the front wall. But it seems to be going pretty quickly. I should be able to finish sheathing the walls tomorrow. I might even get one raised, assuming the jacks are located tomorrow. Although, I probably shouldn't say that...and jinx myself...


Delays are annoying but unavoidable...
- Marty -

[Marty Walsh]

Drum Roll Please...

Ok, I know...I know...a full day without a posting from me and people are upset. Sorry folks. I just didn't want to bore anyone with the details of me finishing sheathing the front long wall, and then running into Savannah to get the wall jacks. Cuz' that's what yesterday was.

But...here's the moment lots of folks have been waiting for. Did the wall jacks work as planned...or am I going to have to get my buddy with the excavator to come lift these beasts?

Without further ado...I present to you...

The Sucessful Raising of a SIXTY FOUR FOOR Wall...

Denise helped me with this, although I could have managed alone by walking back and forth from jack to jack. She was also in charge of the camera, and set it up to record the lifting as a video. This first shot is a still I snatched from the video, so the quality isn't all that grand:

Attachment 42582

The jacks are basically cum-alongs with a cable that attaches to a metal plate that gets nailed to the top plate. It wasn't all that difficult jacking the wall up. And once it got over the 45 degree mark, it was a one-handed operation.

Here's proof that the excavator isn't needed...and I'm not as crazy as some of you thought...

Attachment 42583 Attachment 42584

Attachment 42585 Attachment 42586

That's all the pictures I can post in one thread, so let me continue this in another and I share some of the details of what went on...

To be continued...
- Marty -