Chris and I put up this prop yesterday. And we didn't even get stoned.
A very scary experience, standing under this wall, knowing it could just go anytime and you just have to hop out of the way (or be stoned) if it does...
Being the noobs that we are, we didn't want to touch the wall at all, or even breathe too loud anywhere in its vicinity. And then we had to get this huge wobbly thing up against it and hope for the best. The wall is 4.5m tall so it was all a bit intimidating.
First of all, I designed the prop based on what I thought was happening but we couldn't get any real professional help with such short notice, so we just went for it.
The way it was looking (and maybe I was just imagining it), it seemed worse every time we visited so we felt it could just go any time.
Our cars are tiny so we sourced the wood from a local place that could just drop it off with us, then we dragged it into our "workshop" (the area between the three buildings).
We measured everything twice and cut once, with a hand saw. It became abundantly clear that this was not the way to do it, just because the cuts were not straight in any direction and there was no way we could make a butt joint out of them. So we figured it was a good time to get some power tools. Luckily we just happened to be going to Dublin that same evening so we swung by Screwfix and got a circular saw and a set of drills.
We put them both to good use the next day. It really sped up the work and made the timber useable. We put together most of the prop but it was a slow day due to other commitments and ridiculously short daylight hours.
We finished it the following day, after borrowing a scaffold to hide under in order to put together the footings and level them. We then got the levels of those, so we can finish the actual frame (it was build to be an exact fit). Through triangulation we worked out the lengths of the dog legs we would need, and cut them to a 45 degree angle. Structural Engineers out there, please tell me that's a good angle to go with.
When the prop was done, we tried to put it upright and that's when we realised it was way too heavy to lift, let alone manoeuvre, and we were more likely to knock the wall down with it.
The light was going at that stage and we wouldn't be back for another six days to we had to think fast. We unscrewed the triangles and replaced them with some lightweight ones to help with the manoeuvrability. We managed to lift it then, but we also cut off the top bits of the upstands to try and make it easier to move and give us more precision. The triangles serve as ledges for the dog legs but we also attached little ears to the sides, to fix the dog legs with, so we don't have to push towards the dodgy walls when we attach them to the main frame.
We then picked it up and walked with it to practice our balancing and manipulation skills. Walking back and forth and up and down, we sneakily made our way close to the wall before it knew what was about to hit it (or not, hopefully). When we found ourselves about a foot away from our final position, we decided to go for it, one leg at a time. We placed it on the footings about an inch or two from the walls and leaned the dog legs in to hold the prop in place so we can move out of the way. Then, carefully, from the side, we inched it in, so it just touched the bulges in the walls without pushing on them (we hope). Screwed the dog legs to the side ears and propped the bases with concrete blocks and large stones. We still want to get some steel rod or rebars stuck into the ground to properly fix them in place but it'll have to wait until next Saturday.
We were pleased to see it was all still up as we were packing all our tools into the car and driving off into the night, feeling very deserving of a curry and a whiskey.
Here's the full video of the 4 day effort. There might be bits missing but there's also bits that we probably shouldn't have bothered with. We'll get it right eventually.
Needless to say, I woke up with a sense of dread to the sound of incessant wind and rain...
And here's the obligator expectation vs. reality slideshow. Not bad... not bad.
Comments