Yesterday I pulled a 4'x3' piece of heavy plywood out of the basement and cut it into 9"x4' strips with the electric sabre saw. I pulled off the pieces of siding I had temporarily placed over the opening to the basement, and attached the plywood to the ends of the floor joists and the sill beam on which they rest. The sill beam is a rough old 6" beam resting on the top of the foundation. I marked the positions of the joists on the beam before I put the plywood on. Then I pried up the lower edge of the siding and pulled out the nails so I could slip pieces of tar paper up underneath to provide some degree of waterproofing, then stapled the tar paper to the plywood and marked the position of the floor joists in chalk, in case I needed to screw anything into them in the near future.
Today's job was to attach two 8 foot long pieces of pressure treated 2x6 to the sill beam. I rested the outside ends on the concrete foundation and, using a level for levelness, attached the other ends to the plywood under the tar paper using one screw for each 2x6. That was just to hold them in place. I marked positions every two feet to drill holes for the lag screws so they would enter the sill beam about an inch down from the top. This was all done blind, calculating the height of the joists to find the top of the beam. Well it makes sense to me, and it worked. Below you see the lag screw and the tools used to screw them in. Why they call them lag screws I don't know. I pre-drilled with a 1/8th inch bit, which I always do before using a large bit, so it keeps it from going crazy and wandering around. I drilled through the 2x6 with a bit almost as large as the diameter of the screw, then through the beam with a smaller foot long bit. The idea was for it to be fairly easy to get the screw through the 2x6 but be pretty tight in the sill beam. I was able to go inside and see where the bit came through to make sure my plan was working, and it did. I got the screws most of the way in with the ratchet, then used that fine old crescent wrench and a lot of body weight to tighten the last two inches.
Here it is. I really feel like I got my exercise today because getting those eight screws in was a lot of work and I had to rest a while after each one.
As I was cleaning up afterward, putting the tools in the bucket or something, feeling good and tired, my mind suddenly said to me, for no apparent reason and apropos to nothing I was thinking or doing, the word doomaflotchie. I had not thought or heard the word doomaflotchie in so long that I don't even know how long it was. As I recall it, doomaflotchie came from Grandma DeVries, as part of my Midwestern (Chicago) Euro-American heritage. Or maybe it didn't but that is how it seems to me. It is the equivalent of thingumabob or dealybobber, but it has an exotic elegance those rather silly terms lack. Doomaflotchie.
Today's job was to attach two 8 foot long pieces of pressure treated 2x6 to the sill beam. I rested the outside ends on the concrete foundation and, using a level for levelness, attached the other ends to the plywood under the tar paper using one screw for each 2x6. That was just to hold them in place. I marked positions every two feet to drill holes for the lag screws so they would enter the sill beam about an inch down from the top. This was all done blind, calculating the height of the joists to find the top of the beam. Well it makes sense to me, and it worked. Below you see the lag screw and the tools used to screw them in. Why they call them lag screws I don't know. I pre-drilled with a 1/8th inch bit, which I always do before using a large bit, so it keeps it from going crazy and wandering around. I drilled through the 2x6 with a bit almost as large as the diameter of the screw, then through the beam with a smaller foot long bit. The idea was for it to be fairly easy to get the screw through the 2x6 but be pretty tight in the sill beam. I was able to go inside and see where the bit came through to make sure my plan was working, and it did. I got the screws most of the way in with the ratchet, then used that fine old crescent wrench and a lot of body weight to tighten the last two inches.
Here it is. I really feel like I got my exercise today because getting those eight screws in was a lot of work and I had to rest a while after each one.
As I was cleaning up afterward, putting the tools in the bucket or something, feeling good and tired, my mind suddenly said to me, for no apparent reason and apropos to nothing I was thinking or doing, the word doomaflotchie. I had not thought or heard the word doomaflotchie in so long that I don't even know how long it was. As I recall it, doomaflotchie came from Grandma DeVries, as part of my Midwestern (Chicago) Euro-American heritage. Or maybe it didn't but that is how it seems to me. It is the equivalent of thingumabob or dealybobber, but it has an exotic elegance those rather silly terms lack. Doomaflotchie.
2 comments:
I miss the movie reviews, but I confess I'm finding the porch updates almost as good.
Dad used to say 'doomaflotchit.' Probably still does.
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