The journey of building our new home!: 10.13.2014

Another day, another learning curve! Today was all about welding - and all the details that go along with figuring out how to weld 10 feet into the air.

I started the day with a trip to Home Depot for some supplies Jim needed while he got busy early at the site. To begin with, Jim had to make a new 220 volt adapter to connect the welder to the generator.

Then, he got to connect his new welding gun to his welder - the gun has a long hose that allows you to weld farther away from the machine. However, you still have to be relatively close. You have to be within reach for the gun as well as be able to put a ground clamp from the welder to the metal you are working on.

So Jim came up with the ingenious idea to put the welder on the trusty Bobcat. He can lift it up enough to be able to work on the deck as well as then be able to move it around where he needs it. He also had to practice making the kind of puddle welding he needs to make to connect the decking to the beams. The power involved really tests the generator's maximum output but it did a good job.

Jim did discover that the holes he punched on the decking pieces weren't quite big enough to get the size weld he wanted through them, so he had to punch a bigger hole - punching holes through the thick decking isn't an easy task on the ground, let alone trying to get enough leverage when you are 10' up in the air.

Jim also used his grinder and grinded off both a little of the galvanizing on the decking and some of the primer on the beam in order to get a better bond.

Now it's welding time! Since Jim already had 3 pieces of decking up, it was a little harder to go back and weld from the beginning - he kind of had to get pieces out of the way while he was welding. Of course, I don't have the cool Darth Vader welding mask so I have to be careful not to look at the arcing.

Here's a close up of a couple of the welds...

Then it was back on the ground cutting the next piece.

To make it easier, Jim is grinding the decking on the ground this time.

Making the bigger size hole takes a lot of effort to punch through.

Jim's got a better system for getting the pieces up now too, although it's still a lot of work for one person.

We were expecting the scaffolding delivery today, but the driver was supposed to call an hour before he arrived so we could be ready for him. It was coming on a tractor-trailer truck and they only deliver to the street - you have to take delivery from the truck. Mid-afternoon, we got a call from the dispatcher saying the driver wasn't sure where we were - he only saw a dirt road. Um...that's our driveway! So Jim hustled down to meet the driver and talk to him.

Then because Jim had planned all this out ahead of time, he was able to quickly offload the bucket with the welder in it and attach the forks and head back down the driveway.

The scaffolding was all on pallets so Jim was able to drive up to the truck and load up the scaffolding.

Some loose pieces on top and we're ready to head back up the driveway.

Here's all the pieces for our new scaffolding section!

Since he'll be needing it, we went ahead and put it all together. The casters have adjustments on them to be able to level them, so that will make things much easier.

After that big interruption, it was back to work. Jim was able to get the next two pieces up and welded to the beam.

Then it was time to readjust the location so that he could weld the other side. Again, with the welder in the Bobcat it made this process much easier.