I've got wood!

You might remember the sort of wood-sticking-out-of-the-ground thing I had going on from the last bit of concreting. Looked like this:

And then I started to make the actual decking. Given the overall haphazard nature of using oak sleepers cut in half and chucked in some holes and pouring in concrete, getting everything square and level was going to be a bit of a faff. That car jack you can see in the below is actually a precision lifting device, enabling very accurate setting of level:

Basically I worked out that making a square of the timber that I was using, and then making all the joists meet that, rather than trying to do it the other way around was the way forward:

And this is where we are today - there is actually bits of decking on top of the frame!

The timber is all treated, an as it's above the ground, it shouldn't rot from underneath, but the sun will really go to town on the topside. In any case, my assistant put a coat of preservative covering on the underside:

There's a fair bit more to do on the decking, but I'm pretty pleased that we are where we are with it - at least there's no more lugging of heavy timber about (joists are 8 x 2's at 4.8m long). The adding the decking on top is a bit monotonous though.

The kids zip wire thing is coming on. It also started as a few bits of oak sleeper sticking out of the ground:

The above is the 'landing zone'. Or the 'other end' of the zip wire. The launching pad is the bits of wood sticking out of the ground to the left of the jetty:

Making the landing zone. In my last post, I showed this pic:

Which is the cross beam for the zip wire. The wire goes through the middle of the beam, and it's this that holds the whole lot up. The two things bolted to the back are where the diagonal supports will go from. They'll go from there down to the the bits of oak sticking out of the ground. Of course, it's very heavy, so trying to lug it up to about 2.6M height would be pretty hard. So a bit of ingenuity and a crappy old Jeep Cherokee, plus a willing father-in-law gives us:

 And with the various bits cut off etc. The arch is supposed to be sort of lopsided - it is a design feature - honest:

The launch pad is basically a 3 storey tower. It's about 4m from ground height. This is it going up: The bracing is necessary to stop it wobbling all over the place:

The floors are 4x2's with decking on top.

Here it is with the actual wire attached to the tree- you should be able to make out the line a further 2m higher than the platform itself.

 And down it goes to the landing zone:

There's a load more work to do on the safety railing, and the recovery system for the zip wire trolley. That yellow cord you can see will recover it back to the platform, but it's a not very elegant solution. It's also the case the zip wire is very fast. A better recovery system will involve some more pulleys which will hopefully add a little bit of a braking effect.

I've bought a few tools along the way which enables me to make this stuff. Here's a little view of the (one of) the workshops:

I've also started to accumulate the necessary materials for the new outside office:

So, still plenty more work to go....