 |
Over
Christmas - New Years break, I took the week off of work and stayed
home with the kids (as they had it off from school). During this
time, we decided to do some work in the back yard. Part of the
work was to put up a zip line. This is not an easy task as we
don't really have a place for one, but Terra really wanted to do
something in the back yard and this is much much cheaper than putting
in a pool - so I am in. As to where to locate the zip line - well that is a little bit more difficult. We have a gazebo type device in the back yard that had many vines growing on it. The vines in the front were twice the size of the gazebo and hid they grape vines in the back. As far as I can tell the front vines were some type of weed. We decided to use this gazebo as a starting platform and run the zip line either east or west. |
|
 |
| First
off, the vines were removed - the grapes were just trimmed. I
hate to get rid of the grapes as they actually bear fruit. The
only down fall is that after living here 6 years and watering them each
year the birds have devoured the grapes every year. Maybe if we
can see them we may have better luck. We shall see. The roof of the gazebo had a lattice of wood on it to provide pseudo shade I think. We took it down as well and then needed to install some stiffeners to the sides to support weight to the top. At present the structure was a bit shaky and needed some reinforcement. Some of the 2x6 supports were missing nails so I had Ethen and Kyle install some Tico nails in the Simpson hurricane straps to support the roof joists. We took some 2x4s and cut them to install them on an angle from the center of the side spans and ran them down to the center of the vertical supports. |
|
|
Almost everyone
enjoyed working on this project. It took the whole of two days to
do all of the initial work. The weather was cool but
workable. Ethen was really the only one that needed extra coaxing
to join in the fun. At every opportunity he would say he
was tired, or hungry, or needed to go to the bathroom, or thirsty, or
needed to go inside to get something and would be right back, etc, etc. I had to fetch him from inside about a dozen times during the two days to get him to continue to help complete this project. |
|
 |
|
After all of
the side supports were installed then came the decking on the
top. I measured it a few times and finally decided to just cut
one board and see how it fit. As luck would have it, it
didn't. I (like always when I start a project) assumed that the
last person to work on this structure made it square. How wrong I
was... again. The board fit well on one end, but the other was 1
inch shy of even reaching the 2x6 underneath on one end. I moved
it over and marked it and cut it again. This meant that every
board needed cut on both ends to skew them as the structure was not
square. A minor set back, but it made the decking go much slower than I had anticipated. I have every intention to come back and trim off the extra wooden decking that stuck out from that first corner where I started, but I still have not made it back to do it yet. |
| The
younger kids really had a good time helping out. It has proven
very difficult to keep them in shoes even for projects like this.
They start out with shoes on but very shortly after starting the end up
walking around without shoes on their feet. I don't really know
why as they always end up with stickers or slivers in their feet that
need extraction, but don't seem to learn the reason why they ended up
there in the first place and will repeat the same behavior to sometimes
the same result. You may notice that Janelle keeps getting shorter and shorter hair. This is simply because she keeps cutting her own hair and we have to try to even it out. I am assuming that this is a passing fad and will fade away with time. When we started this project and made the trip to the lumber store, I ended up purchasing enough wood to build the decking and a hand rail around the top. With the time set apart to work on it this week, I didn't get the hand rail started. The result is that I didn't worry about putting a ladder on it either. I don't think it will get a ladder until it is ready to have kids on top of it. This may mean it will be a while until they are allowed up. We did go and pick up some old telephone poles from a gentleman in Tucson that sells such items, but they were not exactly what we wanted. I was hoping for a 8-12" diameter pole to string a cable from and ended up with two poles - one 21" in diameter, and one 20" in diameter. This made the logistics of handling the poles harder than I had anticipated. I can't lift them as they are over 1,400 pounds each. I may need to find a back hoe to dig a hole for them and stand them up in. The Bronco did fine pulling them home from Tucson with one exception. At mile post 292 on interstate 10, I lost one of the high pressure oil lines that transports oil from the high pressure oil pump the passenger side head. This pipe rupture didn't cause immediate engine failure, but did cause the people behind me to not be able to see any more. This oil is around 3,000 psi in these transport tubes and any leak results in a nice oil spray that soaks everything near the leak including the exhaust system. |
|
 |
 |
While the fix was relitively easy, it resulted in being stranded by the side of the road with a vehicle that shouldn't be driven very far. As luck would have it, Someone heading home from the power plant that I work at noticed the 4-door Bronco sitting by the side of the road with the hood up. As I was in the process of locating the problem, my phone rang. They noticed the bronco, and knowing that I had one guessed that the in-operative vehicle may belong to me. They guessed correctly and in about 5 minutes we had a ride back to town. |
|
|
Once home, I grabbed AJ's truck and went back to the Bronco and took the trailer home with the poles on it. Then I unloaded to poles (by tying a chain around the truck and the poles then driving the trailer out from under them) and went back to retrieve the bronco. After I got it home I unloaded the bronco and took the line off. The line takes about 10 minutes to remove. Ford said the two lines are only sold as a pair and there were currently not it stock in Tuscon. They would be happy to order me a set for only $285.00 I told them no thanks and took the hose to American Hose and Rubber in Tucson the next day who made them for $25.00 each. |
| Perhaps
this minor set back in the middle of the project is the reason why I
couldn't get further along with it. Two weeks later Terra and I
painted the wood to keep it from degrading as fast. The more I
painted the top of the 2x6s I kept thinking perhaps I should have
removed and replaced the entire structure rather than re-using the old,
tired lumber that was existing. I am sure that AJ may have some
words of wisdom about using old weathered lumber for structural
members. The braces I used were also old packing material.
They were part of the packaging of the metal building I acquired a few
years ago. But if you look at the structure from a distance, it actually looks rather nice. Hopefully it won't be another year before it is complete. | 
|
Return to Start Page