July 24 - Milestones Marked and Beginnings Begun

Achievement -
The firewall was finally completely double layered this past week. Sam and Loren worked on a warm humid evening to place the last panel high in the peak of the vault. There remained some lower pieces to be put in place after this picture was taken, but all were complete by weeks end.














Walnut Trim - 
In a process reminding me of the Tale of the Shoemaker and the Elves, the stack of rough cut walnut boards is shrinking and the supply of sized and planed boards is growing. It seems that each week a load of boards disappears and after a day or two more bundles of trimmed trim boards appears. Rumor has it that the boards are being carted off to Bob's shop where this transformation is taking place, not being done by elves while we sleep.




Significant Beginnings -
Paint is going on the interior walls. Not the intumescent stuff for adding fire resistance to firewall surfaces, but the really-o truly-o wall finishing stuff. Well, not the final coat yet, only the primer, but you have to start somewhere. Kenton Anderson is shown here rolling on the paint. This looks like a process that will not be torn out. It looks much more like the beginning of the finishing.


In the dining area of the church, the framework for the drop-in ceiling is being installed. The perimeter flange is already installed all around the room. Eric, Jacob and Lars are shown locating the hangers.

Once the location marks are noted, the hangers are secured to the ceiling, and the framework then installed. Another step that will not be removed. Another step towards finishing.

The Portico -
Earlier in the week, Sam cut a couple of holes in the exterior foam blocks which will be the resting place for the size large structural beams for the portico. Saturday was the first post raising. The way I count it, there will be four posts on each of two pyramidal pillars, so by the time the last one goes up we will have developed some expertise in this kind of posting.
Sam and Ben prepare the posts. Note the notch on the downside face of the near post.

The first post rising.

Securing the base of the post by driving the steel pins through the post and the base hardware.

As the second post gets properly positioned, Ben says the notches on the posts do not align. After some checking, it is determined that the notch on one post did not slide down far enough.

So, with hammer and chisel, Sam helps the notch slide into its proper position.

Sam's son Nels is the chief elevator operator, charged with raising and lowering the postmen. As near as I can tell, he did an excellent job.

The postmen check out the size large beam that will span the gap from the posts to the building. I was not able to stay long enough to find out if the beam made it to its destination on Saturday. I will check it out. Stay tuned to find out if they were as successful at beaming as they were at posting.