Thread: Ongoing Tornado Repairs

Originally Posted by Slab

Dang, that like real work. Working on cars is fun, working on digging dirt, not so much!

At least down there it's dirt...Up here you would need a jack hammer and Dynomite to get through the rock...LOL.

After a bit of measuring we realized the old fence had to go. It was recycled fence anyway. I saved it when we built the metal building, reset the posts, cut the fence into 8ft panels, and screwed it back to the posts in the location here. Bon Temps had a screw gun (don't know what was on his mind in this picture) and I had one and we attacked the old fence. After stacking all the fence panels in one spot I demonstrated how well the Grapple worked on the Frontend Loader grabbing all the panels at once and removing them from our work area.



Kinda "now you see it now you don't". Bon Temps is holding up the last post.



Y'all get a load of Bon Temps Cajun measuring device, this is classic Cajun Engineering at it's finest. Aluminum pipe comes in 20ft lengths, not long enough for use laying out the location of the inside line for the outside posts. He stuck a broken piece of wood in the end so we could put our measurement on it. Got to say it worked great. If you look closely at the picture you will see the 258-1/2in line and the center of the post line written with a Sharpie on the piece of wood extension.



This is where we left it yesterday. I didn't have a warm & fuzzy feeling about it but could not put my finger on what was wrong. Well this morning I realized the Auger bit was too small for the posts. We had issues with the remaining cement from the old posts deflecting the Bit but is was more than that. After Bon Temps left I came back to figure out a plan to go forward.



So I pulled 3 of the post with very tight holes and using the post hole diggers opening the hole up a bit. Afterwards I aligned the bases before screwing the fence runners to each post holding them side to side. Bon Temps offered to return but the work was painfully slow today making sure to get everything right. Also I spent the early morning baking fresh Persimmon Bread so I got a late start.



I figured out the perfect balance to hang the trusses off the Grapple on my tractor. Since the old memory is not as good as it once was I took a picture of exactly where the straps go on the trusses. One strap is 1ft longer than the other to allow for the pitch of the truss.

Glad to help!

Call me when you need more strong back and some Cajun ingenuity.

Well I knew I had to notch the furthest most inside post but didn't realize I had to shift the bases of all the outside posts too.



Now that the first Truss is in place I was able to layout the rest of the outside post placement. Currently they are floating till all the Trusses are bolted in.



To keep our yard fence totally enclosed I went ahead and nailed on the Pickets with a Siding & Fencing Nail Gun. This type of nail gun doesn't sink the nail head below the surface but flush on top. Since I will be adding on to the fence on the right side I went past the old fence post with the runners and left them wild so I could seamlessly continue later.



The inside posts needed trimming and I got to say trimming with a Sawsall was slow at best. Laying out to drill the mounting holes was easy and the 3/4in self feeding wood bit on the 1/2in drill ate right thru these posts.

I still need to cut 5 of the outside posts. They are marked just I was too tired to do it yesterday. After cutting the outside posts I can set the rest of the Trusses. My Tractor Loader has 2 more cylinders leaking so I'm sure my mechanic / hydraulic repair cap will need to be worn for tractor repairs after the trusses are set. Always something to fix around here.

Looking good John. That my friend is some time consuming, back breaking work right there. However, will be sweet when finished...

Looking good. Gonna be nice when done. That is a lot of work. I cut two telephone poles up in 8’ lengths yesterday using a reciprocating saw so I know how slow you’re talking about. Wish I had a tractor or something besides my sore back to move them afterwards. Oh well, jobs done.

Originally Posted by Jamesdean

Looking good John. That my friend is some time consuming, back breaking work right there. However, will be sweet when finished...

I need the covered parking to store equipment & truck body parts before I can get started welding a new roof on my truck as well as fix everything else that was damaged on it. The truck bed will be put on one trailer, the Cap on another and parked under this new awning. The Cap has extensive damage to the fiberglass area that was next to the back of the Cab. It held most of the weight of the tree but was further damaged when the tree slipped out of the big Trackhoe's bucket. He had the Thumb on the bucket closed, the tree was heavier than we thought. So I have quite a bit to fix to get my truck back on the road.

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Looking good. Gonna be nice when done. That is a lot of work. I cut two telephone poles up in 8’ lengths yesterday using a reciprocating saw so I know how slow you’re talking about. Wish I had a tractor or something besides my sore back to move them afterwards. Oh well, jobs done.

Sawsall's can do a lot of damage de-constructing a house but they meet their match against a cured, treated pole or timber. I'm doing the cutting standing on that platform I used to pick blueberries so at least I'm not on a ladder while cutting.