Bearers 6/8/2012

Today with just the concrete piles sitting there. We had to sit the bearers on top and make sure they were evenly sitting apart. While another group build the smoko shed. Our bearers had to be double jointed and overlay on top of eachother giving maximum support for when it is lifted up and carried away once finished.
Building the bearers
-First square of the timber with fresh cuts at both end (measuring 6m each)
-Measure 3m in and score
-With that we lay the end of one bit of timber and went along over laying each piece like so until we had our outside length
-Using off cuts, we lay in between the piles to give support as we mark out and put our nails in using a line we drew 250mm off the timber, all the way along.
-With a square, we kept one side flush (bottom side to sit on the piles) and went along keeping it straight as another went and nailed the bits of timber together, making sure the nails were on an angle to give the bearer more strength and so it didnt just pull apart

Once all four bearers were made and sitting on there piles. We then calculated the end measures and cut more bearers and sat them in place giving us 4 long and 2 short ones. Thus now all our bearers had been built. We started to measure our parallels and diagonals to straighten up our bearers. Once in place, we scored the concrete piles underneath to show us our true postion incase they got bumped around. Running a string we found our straight lines at the ends of the bearers, checking and rechecking. We now had our first step under way.

Tip-when hammering the end of a piece of timber, put a scrap bit upto where your gunna hit and use that for your impact. That way you stop the timber from re-shaping and forming stress cracks. Always be careful using a nail gun, point it down, know what your doing. Datum-a peg where each level of the site is taken. The peg must remain fixed down until futher maintenance is done.