Loading and shipping days are always exciting. On these days we crane the fruits of many months of labour onto giant trucks and send them down the road. Shipping day always starts early with the arrival of our favourite crane operator from Wishlow Cranes. Greg is calm, smooth and unflappable - the perfect kind of guy you want on this critical piece of machinery. While he’s quick to provide suggestions when needed, he also knows the importance of playing as a team. Our crew has done this countless times and understand we aren’t in a hurry. Safe, slow and steady wins this race with every piece carefully rigged to ensure balance and precision. Our team knows to place themselves on both sides of the rig and to keep an eye out for each other as well as possible hazards. Today’s individual features weighed in at 3-5,400 lbs each. Setup and loading took six hours in total. When we were finished, four semi loads went down the road without a scratch.
A wish come true
It was another extremely busy day at our shop as the crew split up to do a wide variety of tasks. A few laboured at the Hazelnut Inn making the site ready to start the finishing work on the Under Hill Suite. By day’s end tomorrow the welding and wiring crew will begin finalizing the armature for the interior sculpt. This suite is going to be every bit as amazing as the North Star Suite already is. The Open House for the North Star is now only sixteen days away on June 1! Another group of our crew staged the large finished pieces for NEB’s Fun World in readiness for the crane and four transport trucks which arrive first thing tomorrow morning. In the shop the sculpting crew managed to work their magic on the wishing well for Vala’s Pumpkin Patch in Nebraska. On Friday we’ll be sculpting the bark on the two supporting trees and the well rock work.
Last piece of the puzzle
It is always satisfying to pop that last piece into place when you’ve been labouring on a giant puzzle for many days. This morning we lifted the dimensional NEB’s logo into place and welded it permanently to the wall to officially finish our work on this project. This entry facade required more than six months of effort in our shop by the entire team. On Thursday morning we’ll crane the many sections onto four semi-trucks and send it down the road.
