Not your typical post

On Thursday the ride engineer was up at the worksite looking things over as the first ride was installed. The posts holding up the porch roof caught his eye as he walked by and made him take a second look. I smiled and assured him they had indeed been engineered. His comment was that they weren't the standard way of doing things. But then again few things at this site are done the standard way. We are building to a visual standard that also has to be plenty strong.

The posts holding the porch roof up are in fact a great deal more work than doing things the standard way, Each post is carefully cut and welded, designed to both hold the roof up and yet do it in a way that will make everyone take a second look. While a regular straight post could be built and installed in minutes, each of these will take days to complete. The magical effect will be worth the effort by far.

The structural steel inside column is designed to support the beam and transfer the forces to the bottom. A decorative log shape is welded around this structure using pencil rod.

Our crew then wrapped these forms in galvanized diamond lath. The fiberglass reinforced concrete will be troweled on and then the bark and wood texture will be carved in. The last step is our paint and glazes to make it all look real.

There are nine posts in all, each one very unique.

The posts, like everything else we are building, will help tell our story in a visual way.

-grampa dan

Friday shop day

With a good dump of snow on the ground everyone was in the shop for the day except for the giant snowball fight at second coffee break. The tool trailer was emptied of a months accumulation of tools and assorted all kinds of stuff. That doesn't make much sense but that what was in there and LOTS of it too. In the shop the sign tree was finished today. It sure looks great! Well done Jenessa and Hailey!

The water tower timbers got their coat of fiberglass reinforced concrete today as well and were sculpted to look like old weathered wood. It was a group effort and is looking pretty cool.

The tank for on top of the water tower got its final coats of base colors and glazes today. Getting it done was a real push as quitting time quickly approached. Everyone jumped in to finish the task.

It's been a great week, both up at the work site and in the shop. Two more work days until the Christmas break. Everyone is getting very excited!

-grampa dan

In the middle of it!

Today was a day of painting, welding and wiring in our shop, getting ready to move the pieces out and laying the groundwork for the next pieces to be fabricated. I managed to grab one cute shot of Sarah as she put the last strokes of paint under the trestle.

Up at the worksite the big news was the erection of the ferris wheel. Chris' goal from the start of the project was to have the ferris wheel standing before they took a break for Christmas. They made it - barely! Tomorrow is their last work day of the year.

While the big lift carried on, many other machines were also busy as they started to fill the center courtyard up to it's final level. By the end of the day the site looked substancially different than it had first thing in the morning.

Today's post reminded me of the post I made back on July 31, 2013. (I looked it up) Back then we went up in the boom lift to see just how high the ferris wheel was going to be and to decide its orientation. We had previously painted lines out on the blacktopped land to mark out where everything we were building was going to be. The whole idea was still very much a dream back then as we drew and redrew the plans to get the perfect layout. Now almost five months later the dream is becoming more real with every passing day. Here's the photo I posted back in the middle of summer from almost the very same spot.

Tomorrow promises to be another big day in the shop as we try our best to finish off most of the large pieces in the shop and then scramble to bring in the new. It's our last day of full crew before the holidays and they will all be in the shop. It's going to be high energy for sure. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan