For the last year and a bit, I've been keeping my big tractor
in this flimsy car tent
And the tent barely fits the tractor
and these tents are really not meant to last this long
fabric is already starting to fray on the corners
and the frame is really not that rigid
and in fact, I've been worrying about it blowing away.
And I thought I should anchor it down to something heavy, and I realized
well the tractor's nice and heavy,
so I usually tie it down to the tractor when it's parked in here
and to park the tractor in here,
I always have to take the bucket or the forks off the loader
because the tent is barely long enough to take the tractor without
and I also need to take the exhaust off because the tent isn't high enough
for that to fit in, and I'd like to build a replacement for that tent
a little bit bigger so I can leave the bucket and the exhaust on the tractor
and park other stuff in there as well.
All the framing materials for this tractor shed
are actually gonna be from somebody's old deck.
I'm not a big fan of miter saws
but for this sort of job, it's the perfect tool.
So my tractor shed is gonna be, sort of, a gable roof that goes down to the ground
Inspired by these dreadful car tents,
I've got one frame for that laid out on the ground, I need eight of those.
And I've got all the side pieces already cut for the rest of them.
And four more of the long pieces for the top
and I need more of those
Unfortunately I have to cut up some of the much longer old lumber that I've got
which seems kind of a waste.
At this angle the saw, unfortunately doesn't cut all the way through
I wanted to reinforce the corners with a spline
I figure the best tool for cutting that slot was an electric chainsaw.
Unfortunately that chainsaw doesn't make a terribly clean cut
so I had to use quite a lot of construction adhesive
to glue in those splines.
I've now got eight halves on each side
and now I can start joining them in the middle.
This frame is gonna be the one that I use as a reference for the other ones
So, I'm just adding this piece of wood to make sure I don't accidentally
change the angle on it.
This frame is gonna be the back wall
I'm attaching one of the cross-braces to it already
just to stiffen it up before I erect it.
Aw shit!
The cross-brace on the rest of the trusses needs to be fairly high up
to leave room for the exhaust pipe on the tractor.
I'm reinforcing the corners with additional gussets.
and I'm giving that a bit of a sanding before so I get better glue adhesion.
Got two more finished frames on the floor, and these two standing.
And, it occurred to me that,
"Well, this building wouldn't be able to fit through the garage door."
half of it would, so I think I'm just gonna try to assemble it here as far as I can.
Okay, this is where it gets tricky working alone
I have the frame leaning against the shelf so it's not vertical
so I just put my base pieces at an angle
and I'll lean that whole building at an angle
while I put the next frame on
so I can just lean it against the previous one
and against that spacer I got clamped up there.
Disaster averted so far.
Okay, second frame is braced here and here
and I have it tied to the other frame now I should straighten this out
Okay, next challenge is how to get the next frame up
because this building is gonna straddle my table saw
and this scaffold isn't in the best position to pull the frame up anymore.
Okay, ready to raise the next frame. I've actually got this offset
to the side a bit, because the table saw is in the way.
And I've got a strap going up here and it's wrapped up
once around there with a weight on it. So in theory that will take up any slack.
as I lift this, but it won't release it
because there's too much friction on there.
I think that's a really good theory.
Aargh! Move that.
Too much friction.
Courting disaster.
Ta Da!
It wasn't in the best position where I had it
and Rachel was able to help me to move it somewhere else.
I kinda had to rearrange the shop to make room for that shed to go through.
And then Rachel helped me to raise up the next frame.
That was so much easier with somebody helping me.
With the shed, as built so far back here, I've got a bit of room in front of it
and I should be able to assemble the rest of it
and it'll come forward to right about here.
The tricky part is gonna be, this shed is just a bit wider
than this garage door.
so getting it out of here once it's done will be a bit of a challenge.