Progress is Slow and Rafters Go Up

The fourth weekend of building at the "end of the world ranch" is slow. For the most part, we aren't even there. Both of Dan's trucks have broken down. Mysterious fuel pump issues that everyone seems to have out here. Some blame it on ethanol, some on the volcano. The 91 Dodge Dakota is running, but only gets up to about 10 mph and cuts out constantly. The 81 Datsun isn't running at all. I had changed the fuel pump a few days before, still, nothing.

So before we can build any jungle cabins, we have to get a truck working. Dan messes around with both trucks for most of Saturday, and then on Sunday morning Keko comes over and we look under the hood of the Datsun, inspecting the chain of wires and cables from the fuel pump to the battery. We can't find anything, but Dan uses some spare wires to bypass the electrical system and runs them straight from the fuel pump. The pump turns on, but the truck still won't start. Further down the line we go, just looking for any obvious problem. We come to the coils (I didn't even know a truck had "coils") look under the caps, and they are corroded and caked with a white crusty substance. Keko drives us to an auto parts store in Hilo, and we get some new coils. When we get back, and install them, the ancient truck sputters into ignition, and so by mid afternoon we drive up to the land to see what we could get done. It felt good to lift some of the veil of mystery out of car repair; to see that you can just look around the engine, visually locate a problem, something that looks wrong, and then fix it.

The goal is to put up the rafters, but first we have to complete the middle wall. At present the middle wall is just a couple posts on each side with a 20 foot 2 x 4 connecting them. When we arrive, we are saddened to see that our elaborate tarping system had failed, and the deck was sitting in water. Dan had got sanded untreated plywood, which would be nice for a floor but wasn't made to handle the elements.

Our sad-looking fallen tarps:




I should add that we do have a new member of our work crew. Dan has hired a second dog, a young male pit bull. I was a skeptical at first, but Joe (originally Kujo- which I think is a murderous dog from Stephen King) has won me over with his good-natured, curious-about- everything puppy spirit.




The water sitting on the untreated plywood had made the wood swell and bubble. Very depressing to see the house you're building already starting to decay.




Setbacks were all around us. There was nothing to do but to get to work. We push the water off the deck the best we could and set about building. The middle wall was going to be built around a post, three 2 x 4's of about sixteen feet nailed together. To find its place we lay a string across the floor, measure off from each side, and then stand up the post. I hold it in place while Dan climbs a ladder and nails off the top.






We nail in a couple of vertical eight foot 2 x 4's at deck level to either side of the post, and then do the same on the outer posts. This is for big 4 x 6 beams that the loft would rest on. We get these into place:




and nail them in.




And then we have most of the middle wall built.




The top portion of this wall was going to get support beams too. We nailed in 2 x 4's above the big support beams, that 4 x 4's would sit on, but by this time it was almost dark.




We spend the last of the light getting the tarps back in place, and nail them in many more places to try and keep them up for the next week. This has been the slowest weekend of building thus far, and we leave with a mix of frustration and apprehension for the next storm.

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The fifth weekend the Datsun is still running somehow. Every time we stop we have to disconnect the fuel pump, or all the gas would be pumped out of the carburetor and the battery would be dead to boot. We'd had a couple of breakdowns, but it is still sputtering, and after a trip to Hilo to run errands and buy some lumber, we arrive up at the land on Friday afternoon with Johnny, a carpenter friend of Dan's.

First thing is to see if the tarps are still up. Miraculously, they had held through a couple of good storms that week. A thing of beauty.




Then we have to finish the middle wall. So we take down the tarps, and climb up ladders carrying ten foot 4 x 4's, and place them in the slot we'd made. Next we cut a couple more 4 x 4's, to support the upper portion of the wall.






We are ready to build rafters. To make the 26 foot roof span, we stagger two 2 x 6's at 16 feet with two at 10 feet. So each side of a rafter has one sixteen and one ten.




The first completed rafter:



After a couple hours Johnny has to leave to pick up his kids from their busstop, and I give him a ride down the mountain. When I get back Dan and I decide to try and get one of the rafters up, to see if we can. We carry one up to the site, and debate how to get the very heavy, very long thing up to the roof. After we try several unrealistic and bad ideas, we settle on a workable plan. We set the rafter halfway off the platform with the overhang on the low side. I take the end and climb a ladder in the middle, while Dan pushes it towards me from the ground.




Then Dan climbs up with his end and gets it atop the low wall. We get it into place with great effort and nail it in. As the rafter only touches the wall in one place on each wall, all the nailing is at difficult angles and is the most challenging so far.








And so we have a rafter up, and that's it for the day. Sometimes things just fly along, and other times progress is just slow.

The next morning we arrive early. It is the day before my 32nd birthday. Our goal is to get five more rafters up there, and then purlings. Purlings are boards nailed atop rafters in a perpendicular grid. They serve to reinforce the structure, tying it all in, and give something to nail the roof to. Anyway the goal is to get it all done, so we can go do something fun for my birthday the next day.

We get up on ladders to mark the spots for the remaining rafters.




The day before we'd figured out our method, and wrangle and nail the rafters into place. It is slow work and tiring to raise them, but the process goes smoothly.














I do some of my best carpentry work so far, nailing in rafters atop ladders at angles. Now it's time for purlings. To put these into place, we have to sit on top of the rafters. It's a little scary.




It's rapidly getting dark. Dan is furiously trying to get purlings nailed in, but as I've been looking through a camera, I can see the light slipping away, and know we're not gonna finish tonight.




I convince Dan with some difficulty that there's no way we can finish. We stop and sit on the deck in the dark and drink a couple beers. The next morning, my birthday, we return. I don't mind working on my birthday, at least not on this project. We're gonna try to complete the purlings, one every two feet across the structure, by midday and then go to the beach.






In the daylight, not trying to rush, it's less frightening, but we're still way up in the air, straddling the row of purlings we've just nailed in.







In the late afternoon, as we finish nailing the last one, I am skeptical both of the safety of this project and the idea we will make it to the beach.




But we get them up. The structure is tied together now in many places, and is very solid.




We're ready for the roof, but that's another story. Another weekend gone by, and this is looking more and more like a house. There is a hurricane coming in a few days, so we put the tarps back up, and nail them down everywhere we can.




Keko, who lives a few miles away, is having a barbecue. There is talk about Lau Lau's (pork wrapped in tarot leaves), pateles (green banana tamales) and other delicacies. We head that way in lieu of the beach, feeling good about our work but a little nervous about Hurricane Felicia.