Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The New Sugar Shack!

The New Sugar Shack!

Normal? Normal is a dryer setting, not a building code!

About 10 years ago I found a picture of this style of building in a chicken supply catalog. It is called a starplate building system. It is 5 sided and looks a little different, but it is very lumber efficient! The kit was around $100 and consisted of 11 starplates and an instruction booklet. It can be built in many sizes, we chose the biggest recommended size and the 25 2x4 framing pieces are 9 feet long. That gives it a floor area of 140sqft and an overall height of 13 feet. Each triangle is 7 3/4 feet tall. It may look a bit odd but it seems really sturdy!
The frame is done!
The sheathing on this thing has a dramatic learning curve! I am sure that there are not 2 pieces of sheathing on this thing with the same measurements! We struggled with this part for two days! (remember I have a brain injury and cannot concentrate very long) The instructions that came with the kit are pretty good, but it was still a bear to figure out.

Parts of the walls
 The walls have to go on first, if not then you cannot get them attached under the eaves! The instructions come with cutting templates for the studs and braces inside the building, They help a lot! I had to keep Tommy or Emmy at my side and talk out the cuts to get them right!
A little bit of roof!

This is as far as we got, all 5 upside down triangles are sheathed and braced inside. The braces for the roof are cut but not installed and that one lonely window is just hanging there on a couple of screws swinging in the breeze.
January 15, 2014 This is where it is at, maple season is 4-5 weeks away!
No Rush, I mean maple season is like forever away (40 days) no worries it will come together! of course the evaporator is in the farm stand still, the stovepipe isn't even bought yet, the cupola for the roof is not drawn on paper yet, we do have the windows- none of them are the same size or style but they are here! God Willing we will boil sap in this building for the 2014 season and beyond!

No comments:

Post a Comment