Glad to hear your on the mend. Well begun is half way done. Right? I know, I know you’ll lets us know when you half way.
The old mill looks nice covered in snow.
Randy, thanks, it does look nice. And now that the bottom is plastic and stone, I hope it lasts another decade or so.
Progress on the derrick is, well, progressing. First I made the main beams for the derrick by laying up 1/8 square ceder, 1/4 x 1/8 ceder boards and 3/8 x 1/8 ceder boards. As I showed in the pictures I posted earlier, I lay up my glue laminated beams in a piece of aluminum angle stock. That way I can use shorter pieces of lumber (so it looks more prototypical) and get any length I need. Also glue laminated beams tend to be a bit stronger.
I have laid them up this way so I have a nailing (gluing) edge. Butt joint glue joints don’t tend to be as strong as lap joints, so I try and lap joint whenever I can.
Once the beams were set up, I taped a couple of squares to my mom’s coffee table, so I could lay out the geometry of the derrick. Don’t tell my mom on, ok.
Then I started gluing in the horizontal braces.
Once one side was done, I taped the other 2 beams to the first side, so I could build a matched set. I learned that trick from building RC airplanes years ago.
And I glued in the horizontal braces on the second side, even with the braces on the first side.
And I started adding on the diagonal braces, and soon discovered that I didn’t have enough of the spring clamps I was using.
When I cut the tape and separated the 2 sides, I have a matched pair.
Then I set up the 2 squares so I could set up these 2 sides, in proper relation to each other, and start installing the horizontal bracing between the 2 sides.
And all of this construction seams to just bore the heck out of Biscuit.
This morning Jessie awoke, hung over, and still upset about the lack of progress with her planned oil well. To cheer herself up, she caught the train downtown, so she could have her hair done and do a little shopping. Joseph Horne Company was having a sale on hats, and she thought that maybe a new hat would cheer her up. So after she had her hair done, and bought a new hat, with a pretty lavender bow on it, she went over to her favorite restaurant for dinner. Someone had left a newspaper on the next table, so she “borrowed” it and started reading about the day’s events. About the time she was eating her desert, warm apple pie, she was on page 5, below the fold, and she read the article about the disturbance at the old Pittsburgh Metal Airplane factory. This upset Jessie even more, because those two were supposed to be building her oil well, not over in Allegheny City, building airplanes! That does it! After she paid for her dinner, she went down the street to the trolley stop, and waited for one of them newfangled electric trolleys, so she could get to Allegheny city. Jessie was so mad, she didn’t even finish her piece of pie.
When the trolley came, it was nearly dark, it is January in Pittsburgh, and it gets dark early. Jessie got on the trolley, and paid her nickle, highway robbery she thought, and plunked her ample bottom down on the hard wooden seat for the ride to Allegheny City. When she requested to be let off near the old Pittsburgh Metal Airplane factory, the motorman thought that this women was a little tetched in the head, but he let her off at the stop nearest the factory. He told her it was 2 blocks down that way. As Jessie walked the 2 blocks, her anger built higher and higher. As she rounded the corner, in the light of a small bond-fire, she saw…
Now the Schmitt brothers were no where to be found. But there, in the glow of the firelight, stood the derrick that would soon, hopefully, make Jessie rich. After admiring the structure for a while, she straightened her new hat, took a deep breath, and walked back to the trolley stop.
Maybe those two Schmitt brothers aren’t so bad after all, she thought, as she rode back home.
Coming along nicely.
Very nice, finally nice to see Jessie getting her money’s worth out of those builders of her’s
Money’s worth? Oh, yea. Well since you brought that up, the current ledger for this project shows that exactly $00.00 has been spent so far on this build. Of course I haven’t built as much as I hoped I would have at this point. I figure, that if I can get to where I want to be by the end of next weekend, I will have spent 2 or 3 times as much as I have spent to this point.
Tonight I added more diagonal bracing to the derrick. And by keeping track of how many braces I am getting per board, I now have an idea of how many boards I need to rip on the saw. I need to dig more scrap ceder out of the barn, I don’t have enough in the workshop at this point.
So tonight I was relaxing after work, reading the build logs on Large Scale Central, when Tom Morrow, my shop foreman, came into the room. He grabbed my by the collar, and drug me, caveman style, into the workshop. Then he handed me a 1/4 inch drill bit, pointed at the table saw and said something. All I heard clearly enough to understand was the last part, “make some sawdust”. So, I am back to work on my build, behind schedule and wondering if I can actually finish enough of it in time.
You Can do it!! There is Oil to be drilled!.. Keep up the good work…
Ok, not much has been happening on the oil well this week. My pesky whatever still has me dragging, and crawling in bed early and or taking naps. I wouldn’t call it a cold, since most of my symptoms have cleared up, I am just not well.
The derrick is done, After getting the 4 sides together and putting in all of the horizontal bracing and all of the diagonals going one way, I had to put in 1/8 square strips, so that I could put in the diagonals going the other direction. And of course each board has to be individually cut to fit.
I have also trimmed the excess off the main beams, later I will get a picture of the finished derrick. Now I need to build the pump house. Since its mostly a metal box, it shouldn’t be too difficult to build. Cue the background laughter.
Hey David - feel better soon and don’t worry about you progress. You have mastered rule #1. I haven’t ventured down to the shop in almost 48 hours since coming down with this stomach bug, Feeling a little better today, but still not ready to work the table saw to cut my last needed parts.
The stomach bug is going around the nursing home where my mom works. I sure hope I don’t get that next.
Jessie was out of town for the past week, for some family business. So when she got back into town, she went straight over to the old Pittsburgh Metal Airplane factory, to check on the progress of her oil well. Neither the Schmitt brothers, nor the derrick, were anywhere to be seen. So Jessie became rather upset, and she was really burning by the time she walked back to the trolley stop. Now a really nasty cold spell had swept into Pittsburgh, during the week that Jessie was away, and it was darn cold at the trolley stop. So Jessie walked over to a coffee shop across the street, to get warm. While there she heard talk about some “excitement” that had taken place earlier in the week.
“What was all of the excitement?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, this large tower was moved from the old airplane factory lot, down to the mud flats, and loaded on a barge. I don’t know where they were taking it, but it was quite a project to move that thing.” Said the waitress.
About that time Jessie saw the trolley coming so she hurried out of the coffee shop to catch the trolley. After a trolley ride into town, and then another trolley ride to the south side, she boarded a P&CS passenger train to Shannon. As she settled into her seat for the ride home, she heard the conductor and another passenger talking about “that thing”.
“What thing?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, we had to haul an oil derrick out to Gastonville on Friday.” The conductor said. “The darn thing took all of the railroad’s flat cars to move it, and we even had to trim a branch off of a tree south of Shannon to get it through.”
Jesse was so excited to hear that her oil derrick had been moved all the way to Gastonville that she didn’t get off of the train in Shannon, but rode it all the way to Gastonville. To her disappointment she didn’t see the derrick erected on site, but it was there, laying on its side, covered in tarps. She also saw a pile of corrugated aluminum panels, and an old, junked pick up truck. I wonder what they are up to, Jessie though, as the train continued around the balloon track, to head back to Shannon. I must get in touch with those 2 Schmitts, she thought.
The finished derrick.
So today, late in the game, I cut the base for the oil well out of corroplast.
And I cut out the sub-walls for the pump house.
The coroplast had been spray painted with Krylon flat back, for another project back in the summer time, so I made sure when I cut the parts out, the black would be on the inside. That will save me some time.
Then I started assembling the structure.
I am taking a bit of a break now, to let the Goop dry, and to scare up some food. Since the structure is small, and since its an outdoor structure and I wont be doing much interior detail, I just might, might, be able to finish on time.
Great to see yo back at it David, I thought we might have lost you. It’s no fun trying to work on things if you aren’t feeling well. Kind of shoots rule #1 right in the foot.
The derrick looks great, and I can see some good shapes in that coroplast. I can see you getting in under the line if your just concentrating on the outside. Doing the interior of mine really burnt up the time. Maybe they won’t notice if your missing from work Monday. It is presidents day after all, and Jessie is the president of the oil company, right?
The derrick looks good Maynard!
The tin goes up pretty fast if you don"t have windows to work around.
TIP: From what I’m seeing, put the tin up aligning from the bottom first. After it sets then trim the top, and the tops are then hid by the roof overhang. I used GOOP, and gooped the edge of the overlap for water tight, but I’m on wood, and the corroplast dosn’t matter.
Randy I should have put in for Monday off. I have no idea what I will be doing at work, since my customers will not be working. No Randy, it isn’t fun, but I want this project done. If I don’t push for it to be done by the deadline, then it will end up sitting on my workbench with a dozen other unfinished projects.
Dave, um, yea. You always start from the bottom, don’t you? That way the overlap sheds water away from the structure. And I am going to be gooping the panels on. I don’t need water getting under the panels and breaking them loose. But right now I am putting in the floorboards.
I think with Monday off, you’ll make it. The derrick is awesome in its detail and workmanship.
I’m glad you know about siding from the bottom up, because I tried it from the top down first and it was a disaster.