Sandbag Castle

Step 5

Big Sticks

               
Step 5
                 
 
         
   
   
   

Take note of that tree with the birdhouse on it.

Due to the size of the bed posts I have to put them in before I frame the rest of the house. That tree with the bird house is about to became the right post at the head of the bed.

The installed post next to it in this picture is the right side post for the footboard.

Let me just start out by saying this isn't going to be an easy bed to build!

    
   
   
   

OK here we have that same tree peeled strapped to a winch.

When I cut this tree I let it fall onto that truck over there so it wouldn't crush my wifes wiskey barrel planter which you can see in this picture. It allso helped that we were not going to have to lift it off the ground again.

I used that giant saw horse to hold the try while we moved the truck and hooked up the winch.

   
   
   
   

Here you can see the small winch strapped to the tree near the top of the ladder.

Allthough the cable is hard to see here, it is connected to the white strap arroudn the tree with a hook and pully and then doubled back to the winch chains arround the support tree. This cuts the travel time in half but doubles the pulling power of the small winch.

At the base of the tree you can see the large tar covered rock it is being pulled up onto. In the begining the rock keeps the tree from just sliding along the ground. Eventually the tree is lifted right up onto the rock.

The problem or sometimes helpful factor here is the tar is quite slippery at this stage. So we have to be careful not to let the log slide off the rock. On the other hand once the log is on top of the rock about half of it will still be hanging off and needs to be slid up onto the rock.

 

    
   
   
   

Here is how we were able to stear the log as it is beeing lifted up with the winch which my wife was running when not taking pictures.

Slowly and carefully the tree was placed into it's new home as a bed post.

   
   
   
    Once the tree was in place, I added teporary supports to shore it up and voila! It's a piece of redneck gymnastics equipment.    
   
   
   

Just to give you an idea of the size of this thing, I am 6'2" at 300 lbs. This post is about 15' tall and probably weighs in at around 700 lbs. or more. Thats a guess but I couldn't even begin to lift the heavy end of this thing. Every other log I could lift the entire thing and twist or spin it once it was on end. Not this one!

This one we moved by dropping it onto the truck bed, then after we peeled it my son sat on one end and used it like a see saw to get the fat end off the ground. I then pulled the truck forward to where the base of the tree was over the rock and we leveraged it a bit until it was in the right place and then hooked up the winch.

This was definitely a piece of teamwork between my Son, my wife and myself.

   
               
Step 5