After 2 and a half Fantastic Weeks of Construction, the Shelter is almost complete.
It was Superb to see the children interact witht he build as well and play within the structure on Sunday the 28th August at Jessamine Hughes' Birthday.
Simon Mason
A great turnout from the Iona parents, teachers and kids today as the roof structure finally met the posts.
Thanks to days of careful and complicated (and to a certain extent, boring) preparation, the installation went smoothly.
We installed the beams in pairs, propping up the unsupported end of the structure as we went. After a couple of hours we had worked our way all round the structure and were able to join the final beam to the first. Then the moment of truth for the structure- removing the prop to leave the roof spanning freely between the posts. Would it work...?
Iona Land Shelter: Moment of truth for the reciprocal roof from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
Result.
Meanwhile the deck team toiled to create the curved edge of the platform- tricky work to make the boards 'kiss' tree trunk poles in a smooth curve, but worth all the effort as it looked fantastic in the end.
End of day progress shots:
Friday was grim, a constant steady downpour. But the team battled on with the build and made good progress with reduced numbers.
Top brackets were bolted in their final positions (32 M16 bolts should do the job), the roof structure given it's final prep and the deck scribed for it's final radius cuts.
A big call has gone out for help on Day 16... Saturday is going to be roof structure day.
Until now we have been incredibly lucky with the weather- Friday might be grim but today worked out well, with heavy rain clearing before we arrived on site. We were welcomed, however, with a couple of surprise water features on site- one in the tarpaulin over the roof structure and the other a rather beautiful bowl lake trapped on the events shelter/site office...
Nick soldiered away with chainsaw and drill to give us 8 roof brackets.
Finally we could survey the real beam end locations, and we had a bit of a shock discovery- we'd adapted the beam ends too hastily and they were now too short. Fortunately engineer Steve Wickham was able to advise on a solution and as is sometimes the case, the end result is probably an improvement on the original plan.
So here is the plan for tomorrow....
With the finishing line within our sights it was just a matter of putting the final aspects of the building into position...
Especially the Recipricol Roof structure
Which was alot harder than anticipated.
Bring on day 14!