Building a bridge – part 2
Day by Day June 12th, 2007How to build a bridge:
- Find a hole in the ground for the bridge to go over. If there are no available holes, dig one. Optionally, consider putting water in the hole if there is not already some there.
- Find scrap lumber. You will need some pieces that are at least 10 feet long.
- Lay two or three pieces of the lumber out on ground, and fasten together as best you can.
- Cut out the parts that don’t look like the side of a bridge. CAUTION: Don’t spend too much time on this step, because it delays the construction of the bridge. Learn to adapt to what you have, and deny that the result is anything but exactly what you intended.
- Lay out some more lumber, and copy and cut out the parts you decided look like a bridge. (or is it cut out the parts that DON’T look like a bridge?
Either way, the result should be the same…) - Despite careful planning, the two sides will not be identical. They should be somewhat similar. Decide that they are close enough, and continue with next step.
- Find more scrap lumber for the “deck” of the bridge. At this point you should cut the lumber to pieces of the same length (or at least reasonably close) You can measure if you feel the need to, but that takes more time.
- Screw the deck boards onto the TOP of the parts that looked like the side of the bridge (see steps 4,5 and 6 for details)
- Realize you maybe should have measured before you screwed ALL of the boards on, because everything is a little crooked. Refer to step 6, and decide once again that it is close enough.
- Move bridge to the location selected in step 1
- Jump up and down on bridge to make sure it is safe. Wear safety equipment in case something happens.
- Admire you handiwork for an appropriate amount of time.
- You have completed the basic bridge. Decide you are not sure how to build handrails and will give it some consideration over night. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Thanks for the help, Sherry and Mick!
Lee has blogged
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June 12th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
My daughter told me a couple of years ago I was anal. I thought she meant I was an asshole, and considered it a term of endearment.
But it also means someone who has an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_personality_disorder ) “people with OCPD tend to stress perfectionism above all else, and feel anxious when they perceive that things are not right”
Well, I couldn’t stand that the boards ended up crooked, so I went over this evening and removed all the screws and straightened all of the boards on the bridge.
Yes. I know no-one will notice the difference, but I knew it was wrong and had to fix it. But it’s not being anal, it’s just doing the job right.
Isn’t it?
June 13th, 2007 at 7:50 am
I thought you had said you wern’t that way any more.After all,we didn’t hardly use the tape measure at all.Eyeballed most of it.And what about that making it look like it had been there for a hundred years thing??? Oh well,it still looks good I am sure.Even better now I am sure.Herb went over and looked at it,said thats really big.I dont think its that big,considering that the “hole” will be fairly large.I think its just the right size.
June 13th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
WOW, Lee . . . I can’t believe that you built your bridge since I was there on Sunday for the most enjoyable of times of beers on lawn chairs in your backyard whilst throwing the frisbee for Bandit on Sunday afternoon! The bridge looks absolutely awesome to me!! (Of course I’m only viewing it from a photo and not in person (I’m very anal as well, so I might have a more critical observation if I was actually seeing it in person.
I don’t think you even mentioned to me on Sunday afternoon that you were thinking of building a bridge . . .perhaps we didn’t have enough time for you to fit that into the conversation (or perhaps I was monopolizing the conversation as per usual???!!!). In any case, your bridge looks FANTASTIC to me, and I’ll give it a personal inspection the next time I’m in MJ!!!
June 14th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Actually, Lois, building a bridge wasn’t on the agenda at all on Sunday. It was sort of a “What should I do now” thing on Monday morning, and I talked Sherry into helping me. We started on Tuesday morning.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m easily sidetracked, and this just seemed like a fun thing to do.
Right now it’s about 9:30 PM on Thursday night. I just got back from digging the pond (most of it) Tomorrow I might try to do the waterfall and stream to the pond.