Got me wondering how in the early middle 1800’s they would get a 38ft long 9 1/2″x10″ beam up onto the ridge in a post and beam framework of a 2 storey building?
What would they use back then? Some kind of pulley system with about twenty guys?
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
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Replies
they would assemble the frame on the ground and tip it up - the purlins are generally made from light wood (poplar/basswood/cottonwood) and could be slid up poles -
Go to your local library and see if they have the David Macaulay books "City" and "Cathedral."
Wonderfully and intricately illustrated by the author, they take you from ground up through completion, showing construction of a Roman city and medieval gothic cathedral, respectively.
It is a great way to see how things were done, way before the ages of steel, steam, electricity, and hydraulic power.
Seeing the pics of hoisting up the ceiling stonework into the heights of the cathedral interior, made me dizzy.
The guys in the old days were pretty smart. You can go all the way back to Roman Building techniques-look for a book called Ancient Engineering or Roman Engineering to get to some of the earliest techniques (the guys who built Stone Henge couldn't get a book contract so we can only guess. Maybe theres an old issue of FineStonebuilding still to be discovered). (The construction of Brunelesch’s dome of the Florence Cathedral is well documented. The museum there is full of widgets, tools and images of the cranes they used.)
Studying the old techniques can often help solve current on the job problems. Leverage, winching the number of ways you can apply mechanical advantage would surprise you.
Medieval Cathedral construction (as covered in the David McCaully books) used a lot of the Roman techniques. With the exception of the Beauvais Cathedral, their engineering was pretty advanced—to wit the flying buttress. (the guys building the Beauvais Cathedral wanted to make the biggest church so they just doubled the dimensions-not realizing they increase the mass and loading 4x or is it 8x? Anyway it fell in on them. Its still got a wooden ‘construction entrance’ at the end of the nave—for the past 800 years!)
There is a PBS program and a follow up on how the Egyptians raised a 30 ton cenotaph.
The first show is about a British engineer whose got it all figured out. He proudly shows his notebook and boasts how he’s done all the math. Total failure. You could take his notebook on any construction site and show it to the foreman and he’ll laugh. PBS went to Egypt.
A New England timber framer hired to make some of the gear for the failed method then came up with an elegant solution, involving sand, then he proved that it works with a 20 ton piece of granite. Lesson to be learned: Engineers are OK but they probably don’t know as much as an old carpenter (or a middle aged timber framer).
To lift something like a huge main beam can be done by cribbing under it and tilting it back and forth building up two sets of cribbing. You can work back and forth with the cribbing until you run out of cribbing material. Pulleys were often used if available. I don’t know specifically about the main beam you’ve mentioned, but the basic idea is to lift something like that as simply and as quickly as possible. This usually means some clever use of the materials at hand, and using whatever part of the structure is already there.
No need for 20 guys if you have a little rigging. I set 6x8 oak beams on top of the second story of my lumber shed by myself. Used 2 serious comealongs. They would have handled your beam. With another person, block and tackle would have been fine.
Tiltup is better, but only works if you have the room to assemble. Otherwise, you get it up there however you can. I had to take my beams straight up. Set up a pair of rollers sticking a few feet above the tops of the posts that the beams were to sit on. Nobody went underneath while they were going up, but it was uneventful.
I have a couple of CM lever handle chain hoists that'll come close to moving the world. Short pull, only 5', but other than hauling them around (heavy), they're great.
Here's my attempted Oldsmobile cupola. Nothing but cables and a tractor. Substitute a team of draft horses and you have the same thing.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
They didn't typically use ridge beams. The building was made of a set of "bents" Each bent would contain the legs of the outer walls, the cross timnbers of the floor and cieling and maybe second floor, and the two rafter beams, anlong with any kickwers needs to stabilize it. the whole thing was secured at base not unlike we do when raising a wall now, and then ropes and poles were used to raise the bent to position, then the next and next....about 4-8'oc
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check out R's photos of this job - big 'ole ridge beam - - seldom see them around here either, so I tend to agree 'not typical', but not unheard of either -"there's enough for everyone"
OK, tomorrow I'll go shoot some pics of the attic framing. Maybe the Amish girl will cruise by again.I see mom go by everyday on her pilgrimage to the corner store.
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
momma goes to the store everyday? they really are just like us, aren't they?...
"there's enough for everyone"
Yep, except their carriage doesn't go as fast. :o)
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
The Amish girl didn't ride by today, just dad with the groceries, so I thought I'd take some pics of the ridge beam instead.
be am me up
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
I lived for a while out in NE Indiana, Amish country, and in Allen, Dekalb, and Steuben counties, the local Amish there all used open buggies. One county west, and they are using covered ones, like in your photo.
Mis-understood the question a bit, but seeing the situation you are imagining from the photos, here is how I would have done it, based on procedures I've used for log home construction. I've enever seen a beam pegged in like that.twin ramp timbers from ground up, perpendicular to the log/beam being raised. Rope at each end from top, down under the log, and back to top again. Two or three guys at each rope. As they pull, it rolls right up the incline. I suppose one guy could do it with comealongs of other type of pulley system. The ramps mean that you are not lifting, just moving. A heavy one means use a capstan type system to maintain control, and keep you ankles out of the ropes.Another method for raising beams is one we've used for steel going in under exiting - cribs and use jacks to raise one end 8-10" at a time. The weight of the whole beam is not being lifted at once that way, only 30-45% of it.
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Any trilling experiences to report fromn that knob and tube?
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Luckily sometime in the past someone had run 12-2 romex throughout the attic feeding the second floor from there and killing the knob&tube in the process.
But the ell still has some live in there running under attic floorboards.
be now if I can just isolate the feed I'll feel better...
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
That's waht I mean. I was crawliong under a house with maybe 18" between ground andf mt body for workspace once. Amoungst all the newer Romex was a pair of K&T along the bottom of the joists. I unwisely assumed, " No way those can still be alive" Eventually, I found myself laying on my back on the damp ground and rolling over and comntacted both wires with my two sweaty forearms. I am now aware of what good contact is made with salty sweat. Fortuanately, the fuse melted down before I did, and nobody had put a penny into the fuse station to help the fuse out.Ya know something? seems everyone who's never had too much contact with things like that think of th edamage in terms of burns. I seem to remember more about bruises. When your body starts jumping and thrashing around and bouncing off of hard objects...
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heh heh That's why you make the big bucks! bwaa!
Just decided shelling out 25-30 bucks for replacement Kleins Linesmen Pliers isn't worth it anymore for as little of this as I do and the guy your working with always grabs your stash for that quick snip when it's not worth the walk across the room or to his truck to get his.
'Course he zaps yours and now they're practically worthless.
So I got a Lowes clearout half price special on Taskforce linemen's pliers. Hope they work.
Disposable diapers, disposajapbike, disposacarinfiveyears, disposavinylhouseintwenty and now disposalinesmenpliers.
I finally joined the 21rst century.
be disposed in repose
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
You got sumadat disposablehairontoppadahead too?
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Nah, I'm a spendthrift yankee and figured I could grow a ponytail for a mean combover.
be too cheap toopay
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
just don't snag it on those pegs or you'll bne hanging out with the bats up htere
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Steam powered forklift?