The first floor concrete walls of the Hazelnut Inn get poured tomorrow. The construction crew had a busy day buttoning up the forms and checking everything twice to make sure everything was ready. That's very exciting news and a major step in the construction process. The pouring of the concrete walls also means the pressure is on to get ready for the next step which is the concrete floors on the lowest level of the inn. These preparations include the installation of the engineered structural steel on the castle suite. We first had to design and built a jig to hold the heavy steel members in place as the wall is to be curved. We measured everything out on the shop floor and then tabbed up the jig. The completed assembly was too large to fit out of the shop doors so everything was set up out in the parking lot for final assembly. Then the half inch thick 5" x 5" tubing was cut to length and forklifted into position on the jig. Cross members were cut and fitted before welding everything securely into place. We made good progress before quitting time and tomorrow it will be ready for next week's install.
Transom sculpt finished
At last it was time to do the sculpted concrete on the ship's transom. This polished off the sculpting on the roof section of the ship. The detail on the individual boards looks fabulous! Next week the painting can begin. It won't be long until the ship is lifted into position!
A hard nut to crack
Each day a little more of the Hazelnut Inn's Avellana ship cabin gets sculpted. The giant hazelnut under the stern windows got the treatment today. Tomorrow the big ribbon will hopefully get done leaving only the area around the windows remaining. The windows are due to arrive September 6 which means we should be able to complete these before the ship gets lifted into position.
