completed hip rafters

Poles

supporting the front Wings

The poles are connected to the pillars by hip rafters, completing the Temple's skeleton.

Poles ready for liftoff

Making octagonal poles

December 3rd, 1998 - the poles rest for one more night before being lifted into place - a stirrup waits in the dwarf wall for the morrows meeting.

Looking northeast from the central room - the Temples strength is apparent before the rafters are placed.

The poles were made from 200 X 200 square rough-sawn hardwood poles by sawing the corners off to create 4.5 metre octagonal poles.

Looking to the Northeast

Back to the ground

We had ordered 2 5-metre lengths of 200X200 (8"X8") Ironbark for the front poles to complete the inner octagon forming the main room.

They were green when they arrived and weighted a lot. It took Norman and I half a day to manoeuvre them round the building to the front of the site.

Getting the poles to the work site

the poles arrive at the work site

Arrival at the work site

I am sure many cultures have moved weight building components in the same fashion. We used cut-offs from the PVC plumbing pipes as rollers and a crow-bar to provide the steering and motivation.

Lifting into place
(1^st time)

This was no longer a time for subtlety and leverage - we needed to get them up onto sawhorses to allow us to work on them.

The two of us could just lift them, one end at a time.

poles being lifted to working height

being shaped to octagonal cross section

Shaping the poles

I was not happy with square poles in an octagonal space so we needed to covert the poles square cross-section into an 8-sided one.

First we sawed off the corners and then planed the surfaces smooth.

Lifting into place
(2^nd time)

These were 4.5 metre green hardwood poles which needed to be raised vertically and sat on 2 protruding steel bars about 100mm high.

Obviously a crane would make short work of the task.

raising the poles - first stage

second stage

Inch-by-inch

It was around this time that it became blindingly obvious that there was no way we could get machinery round to the site and so we confidently set out with a loose assortment of ladders, trestles and props to persuade the poles into place.

Oh @#$%^^%$#

This is that awful moment when it seems nothing more can be done - standstill.

We had run out of pushing platform!

The only alternative was starting over which meant laying it down and we were very reluctant to surrender one hard-won inch.

third stage

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Could this work?

I was having flashes of having to live with something like this.

However, notice the rope?

It made all the difference.

Whoah son!

We soon had it past the hump and the task became much more demanding of finesse.

It felt very appropriate to ease it into place rather than keep shoving as hard as we could.

fourth stage

fifth stage

What was the fuss?

It had taken us 5 hours to raise the first pole but the rope had given us an idea.

That afternoon we brought a winch to bear and had a much more enjoyable experience raising the second pole.