lopezian said:
That barn is just gourgeous! Did you draw up the plans yourself or did you purchase them?
I'm not sure where one would even start to find poles of that girth. Given that you milled your own timber for the purlins, did you also cut the poles yourself?
Hello, and thanks...
The plans are all done on a piece of scratch paper and by ear... Brother-in-law is an Engineer and confirmed my 11"x10"x20' Oak beams would be suficiant and that the one pine beam would go best at the far end.
The poles have been a little difficult to get onsite. They are widening a bunch of roads in my area and they take down power poles all the time. I tried to get the green ones, not the older creosote kind. One of the companies doing this work were glad for someone to come take them, but you had to catch the right person at the right time to get the OK. I was persistant. I've got a 14' dump trailer and would take my tractor to the site and load/drag the poles with chains and the bucket. Some of the poles in the 32'+ range. Now for getting them into the holes was a different story and unfortunatly don't have any pictures from that.
After the first one or two, I got really good at it and by the time I got to the really big ones, I had the method down pretty solid. Basically chain the pole so that the butt end has just a little more weight than the other side and loop one chain around the pole and secure it pretty tight to the bucket. Then it's a matter of picking the pole up, someone would hang on to the top end to help position the butt end in the hole, then buy lifting and subtil movements of the bucket and tractor, I could get the pole to slide right in. I could then use the tractor to postion the pole plumb and in the right location. If I was carefull, I could even lift the pole off the bottom of the hole just a bit, to help located it just right. Sometimes adding another chain for good measure and some safety.
In the end, it pays to have everything as square and located in the right spot. I had one pole that developed a pretty good curve to it, that I had to force it back a little to get it to line up right.
From outside to outside beams that the joists rest on was 20' +- 1/4" and that is 18' off the ground.