Getting closer on the playground-final work getting ready for mission team

The view as I wrap up another day roughly 6:30 PM.  The light will last long enough for me to boil water for my shower and walk to the shower.

I know everyone is tired of hearing about planing boards, but guess what I did this week?  I did concrete, repaired a chair, repaired floors with concrete, repaired the generator, repaired the planer, set posts and yep I planed a lot more boards.

Finally, I get to show you a picture of some actually work that looks like something is being built.  On Wednesday and Thursday, I dug out the holes for the main posts (the 2x6 boards I sistered up the other week.

They are 2 feet 1" deep (the sand layer was 1" thinner than expected).  One way to get your holes dug squared up to each other is to set stakes where you want to dig your holes.  Run a string around the stakes then mark 3 feet from one stake and 4 feet from the other stake on the string.  If you measure from those two marks you should get 5 feet if your strings form a 90-degree angle.  You make adjustments and check all four corners until you get one full round where no changes need be made.  (for those wondering how this magic happens it is the right triangle rule of a squared + b squared=c squared.

Of course along the way you run into rocks you have to break out.

One big problem we have here is that the wood we get is softwood that is normally unseasoned or not dried properly.  Add that to the abundance of termites and this could be a real problem for a wood structure.  So I coated the wood with bitumen paint.  

One of the interesting challenges is one I have dealt with on almost all my projects.  When you work by yourself and objects are too bulky and/or too heavy to keep in place while you line things up or in this case get everything level and plumb.  A trick I use to hold the frame that is over 8 feet tall and made of 2x6 boards is to drive a nail half way in on the face and then use a piece of wood you will use for holding it in place to rest against the nail and hold the structure upright while I level the other side up.  Then I go over and level that side and remove the wood it is resting on.

About this time one of the medical staff comes over with two girls from the high school and a broken chair.  After several futile attempts to get them to wait until I was done, I went and fixed the chair for them.

You can't see the crack but it happened past the connectors on the front and is basically overhanging the curve in the metal at the front of the chair.  The glue can hold some things but will be weak if someone places any weight on the front edge.  So I reinforced it with a piece of scrap angle iron.  Why would they place weight on the front of the chair?  Well, my guess it was broken when someone used it as a ladder.

After that was finished and I walked back to the school, I got my framing all leveled up and plumb.  Of course, one leg was higher than the others even though the distance from ground level to the bottom of the hole was the same.  Most likely due to uneven nature of the earth.  So I had to pull that frame out and dig a little more out of the hole to finish it up.

The next morning Isayah and I set them in concrete.  The concrete is fun and reminds me of my childhood.  Carrying 5-gallon buckets of water from the well to the school is like watering the pigs on top of the hill.

After this Isayah and I patched some of the concrete floors around the site.  They are made with a thin layer of cement that is overworked (I think I have talked about this before) that is common in majority world countries.  Well, it breaks up and leaves holes in the floor.

Back to planing wood after that.  Had the fun of one of my blades on the planer breaking.  The fun came in it gouging the wood until I saw it about half way down the board.  It took a fun hour long phone call standing next to the latrine (only place I get a signal).  The shop owner is Indian (India not Native American) and he has to talk on the phone, not the local guys who actually know where everything is.  He speaks very little English and very little Kiswahili.  After several attempts, I realized he was speaking British English not USA English.  So the blade would be called a knife and after that we got it done and he ordered me replacements which by some miracle were here this weekend when I got in.

2 each 1x8 stacked on top of each other.  see the thickness difference

While it takes longer I was still able to use the planer with only one blade left and finished up my 1x8 boards which can be any size really.  some are 1x7 some are 1x9 some are 1 3/4 thick some are 16 feet long some are 19 feet long.

I finished up the 1x8 boards by planing the edges.  The 2x6 boards will stand on the edge but not the 1x8 so I had to modify my system a little so I would not have to use the clamps to hold them as that takes a long time of switching boards out.

The last thing on the boards I will hopefully talk about is how proud I am of the new sawhorses and their load bearing capacity.

So my prayer as I finished up everynight went something like this.

Dear Lord,
Thank you for giving me the strength and motivation to do the work today.
Thank you for the work to do today.
Thank you for everyone's support that provided the tools and lumber to work with.
Thank you for my new best friend Aleve.