New England B.S. Thread

Happy Birthday Drew @tacobell007

 

Yessir, it will happen one of these days lol.

Thanks Joe!

Thanks Dan!

 

I cut through my old one recently with the sawzall and open ports without issue. Did see a few articles showing what not to do though!

 

Also happy belated Drew @tacobell007

Hopefully enjoying your day off!

 

Yep. Aleve lives in the rucksack.

I'll figure that out once the plum trees are in.

 

Thanks Chris! I will definitely enjoy the day off

 

Happy belated @tacobell007 !

I've been swamped all week, lurking but not posting. I had my PDR done. It's better than it was, not 100% but for $100 I suppose I should be pleased. My perfectionist streak is kicking in so I'm pretty sure nothing short of a fender would really "fix" it for me. It's one of those if you're catching light and reflections you can tell it's not 100% but if you just look at it I'd have to show you what to look for. I suppose at the end of the day it's an almost seven year old daily driven truck.

Water pump #5 is in the Jeep. I love the upsell that dealers try. I fundamentally get that's their source of income, but at least base it in some fact. When I had the original pump done at 60K I did a coolant flush. When it was replaced two more times in the next three months they didn't mention anything about coolant, just changed the pump and gave it back. This time I get the message oh we have to flush the coolant as part of the process and it's going to be $270. I politely explained that the coolant was flushed 10,000 miles ago. They came back with well there could be something in the coolant causing the failure. I politely reminded them the coolant wasn't flushed the last two times and asked them to replace the pump only.

Like, if you're going to upsell, be consistent. Maybe if I didn't know how to read the manual I'd have replaced it every time, but c'mon. The coolant is a 10 yr / 100K fluid anyways. Such is life, it's back, it was free, so I'll count that as a win.

 

Thanks Mike!

 

Who'd you use for PDR? I have a spot I'd like to get done, haven't started even researching yet though.

 

Stone wall around the whole plot

 

“Plot”? A cemetery??

 

New England is covered with stone walls. Most of them date back to the Colonial era when most of land was covered with farms. The farmers would have to clear their fields of trees and big rocks before they could start to plant. The wood went to buildings and fire wood. The stones were moved to the edges of the field and walls were built. Often they marked the property lines between neighboring lots.

There's one in my neighbors back yard that trails off into the conservation land behind our houses.

It used to take a lot of acreage to grow enough food to feed people. Now modern farming techniques increase the yield per acre so smaller farms can grow more food so not as much farm land is needed.

It was backbreaking work since it was all done by hand, maybe with horses, oxen, or mules to move the heavy stuff.

 

Built a spot for a chainfall yesterday, picking up the mill today.
Overbuilt or under-built for 800lbs?

 

800lbs is probably okay but my concern is that the vertical supports don’t run down to the floor. Now you’re relying only on the shear strength of the fasteners in the wood. Any reason why you didn’t run the beam across the top of the timber frame?

 

The span was 12 foot long and I had 12 foot 2x10s.

As for not running them all the way to the ground yeah that would be the better way to do it but I would have had to move a bunch of wiring. I used screws/lags for clamping then a bunch of nails sense they’re better in shear. Hard to see but there is 2 2x10s running across with the diagonals going into the middle.

 

Dude that's beautiful.

That and I wish I had a barn/shed that big.

 

Most of New England was clearcut and because of that, Winters pushed up all those stones every year.
Looked pretty labor intensive hauling all those stones with oxen and by hand for years on end.
I've done a bit of research on stone walls in New England. Pretty cool stuff.
I've been following this guy since he started making videos...

https://www.youtube.com/@GMMD

He hunts mostly in Vermont and is interesting to see what he pulls out of the ground near those walls and cellar holes.

 

From my Forsythia clearing project a few years ago I became convinced that roots like to grow around rocks. Just about every larger bush I cleared had a big rock right in the center of the root network.

Those rocks were probably 50-75 pounds and it was exhausting to dig one or two a day out of the ground. I can't imagine what it would be like to clear a field with 100s of them in it. That would be AFTER cutting down the trees and then digging up the stumps.

NOTE: Maybe they got so much accomplished because they didn't have cell phones, DVDs, Facebook or YouTube!

 

I agree. I would at least run a 2x to the floor under the small piece of 2x that is attached to the column to transfer some load to the ground and not rely 100% on fasteners.

 

@TacoTuesday603
I think you'll be ok for only 800lbs. I think of the way decks are made like the one on my mother's house. We've had 20-25 people on her wrap around deck and it holds fine.