Welding the shop

 Finally, we were starting on the actual building of the shop. This slab was poured 2 1/2 years ago and has been patiently waiting. We gathered our troops along with the welding apparatus which consisted of a 220 V Stick Welder and a torch for cutting.

The building started with welding the posts to the weld plates cemented into the slab. This was accomplished by one person making sure the post was true plumb and square and the other person welding.

 The next step was putting on the side purlins on 4 foot center. The north side of the building is 14 feet tall and the south side is 11 feet tall.

 Here is the first bar joist to be put into place.

 Then the roof purlins were welded to the bar joists at 4 foot centers.

 The picture below is all of the bar joists in place, somehow it got out of order.

One important aspect of building we learned at the beginning of this project was to have good safety equipment. We realized the scaffolding we bought was only for inside on level ground. So this was as far as we could go on this building without purchasing scaffolding that could be erected on the outside of the building in on uneven ground.We also learned that it takes a minimum of three people to build a building like this,two people to hold the object up securely and the third person to do the welding.