Josie Elise Carter belongs to @Mmeee2
All other characters belong to me, unless otherwise stated herein.
Lysle Branderson belongs to Jessica Bergmann.
I'll be writing another story, of this universe. Look for "Holden Keller."
Brenda and John Morgan...
He drilled and hammered on the bottom plates, then, hammered on the top plates before spacing the studs and hammering them in place.
Setting the frame up onto the subfloor structure, he supported it with a few small planks and nails.
Afterward, he drilled and hammered the wall frames into place.
He's gone through half of one bucket of pine tar and two containers of gypsum.
He still has more than enough left.
The roof frame required a little extra help so, we went and got the trailer.
Brent put two beams as ramps and backed the trailer onto the frame, careful not to let the tires slip off of the joists.
Lowering the jack, he raised the trailer off of the hitch and started cranking the handles for the four legs.
I was able to help with that, at least.with the trailer secured, Brent moved and parked the truck.
He came back and used six jacks and cut-off excess timber to support the joists that the trailer sat on.
Three jacks per joist.
Raising the crane from it's stowed position, he extended it high enough to use and moved the horizontal boom into place.
The boom is the same length as the column part and is telescopic.
It also has a moveable block and tackle
He began putting the end of one beam to the side of another, dead center, before drilling and spiking them.
Then, he cut an angle at both ends of each horizontal beam to attach beams for the slopes.
He only cut angles on the slope beams
They didn't meet at the top of the vertical beams and, instead, were touching the sides at the top end of the vertical beam.
He made several frames this way and sat them all at either end of the main frame.
I asked him to show me how to operate the crane and, at first, he was hesitant but shrugged and showed me anyway.
I tell him that I'll raise the A-frames for him.
He smiles, and hugs me.
Taking the rope, he ties it to the crest area of an A-frame, showing me how he ties it.
He went to grab more spikes but came back empty handed.
Picking one up, he looks at it.
He tosses me the key to the pickup and we go to the city hardware store.
I wasn't surprised that they didn't have any but, the manager said to go to the steel mill.
We did and they were immediately all over us about the "mega nail."
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Brent says that he would like to order twenty thousand and they calculated the cost at 900 gold. ($90,000.)
They said that they'd only charge 750 gold for the order if they could keep the one he brought.
Brent knew that they'd start regular production if they were offering to charge so much less, and couldn't turn away the offer.
Brent agreed, paid and we waited.
They started running 50 foot lengths of rebar through a cutter.
The nineteen inch pieces were, then, taken and chucked into a lathe.
As the piece was spun, a worker with a gas powered grinder started sharpening one end.
There were thirty lathes being used for this operation.
They don't receive many large orders and almost never get paid upfront.
While this was being done, a large steel block was prepared by drilling two hundred 13.5mm×18 inch holes in it.
Then, a 1×⅜ inch shallow recess was milled into the surface at each hole.
The rods were loaded, sharp end down, into the block under a massive press before the exposed ends were heated until they were white hot.
The press slammed down and then the block was rotated with a large machine to dump the finished spikes out.
Rinse and repeat.
Our order was finished in about three hours.
Cooled, boxed, stacked on pallets and out on the floor in the "completed" area.
Brent told them that he'd have to come and get them one pallet at a time and the foreman was all too happy to cooperate.
They loaded a pallet into the bed of the Dodge and we left.
When we got back, Brent grabbed a box and then realized something.
He measured the distance between wall top plates where the roof frames would sit and measured the same distance ont A-frames.
He predrilled the holes in the A-frames and then had me raise the one with the crane.
Lining it up at the edge of one end, he drilled holes in the top plates, poured gypsum tar, hammered, repeat.
After the A-frames were all in place, he laid boards on the rafters, like he'd done with the floor joists, and tossed his ladder up onto the boards.
He laid another board ont the first pair, parallel with the A-frame, and drilled 45⁰ angle holes into the upper sides of the vertical beam of each A-frame.
Measuring the distance, to verify, he got down and cut another beam to that length.
He carried it up, leaned it against an A-frame and hammered a small support to each A-frame.
Laying each end of the beam on the supports, he had to shim it to get it flush before drilling into the ends and dipping a spike in tar, as the holes went upwards.
Hammering it in, he did the other end.
He finished the crest support and then cut and placed lower center supports.
Then, he makes X-frames that he hammered vertically between each A-frame.
With that, the entire frame was complete.
It took a man, with a little help from a ferret, two days to build an entire house frame totalling a 4,250 square foot floor area.
The walls will be 12 feet high and the roof's slope is a common 45⁰ angle.
I think it will be intimidating to the eye, when finished but, I like that.
It matches Brent's personality in that he's gentle, caring and intimidating.
