Once the main A frames have been jointed together they need moving off the framing bed onto their padstones so they are ready for the frame raising. They are quite heavy, and a pretty awkward shape, so a well thought out plan was called for.
The plan was to move them using a telehandler (the big green machine you can see in these pictures, which has been kindly lent to us by our collegues at Hindhead). The framing bed had been constructed at an angle to help with the move and above you can see us putting together retaining woodwork for a temporary track that leads around the side of the site. This track allow’s us to keep the machine on solid level ground while it is moving the frame.
Once everything was in place and everyone was briefed on what to expect the telehandler was brought in and lifted the frame off the bed. We arranged the lifting strops so it was held steady and level, and then it was up to the driver to manouver it safely into place.
The temporary track made the job much easier, but manouvering still required some skill to avoid the hedge and keep everything smooth and safe.
Once the frame had been moved to the other end of the site the telehandler had to be lined up so it could drive in to position to drop off the frame without hitting any of the carefully bedded padstones, a bit like threading a needle on a slightly bigger scale.
Then the frame needed to be shunted about a bit so it found the right position on its own padstones.
Once it was in just the right spot it could be dropped off and the next set of timbers were brought in and put on the framing bed to be jointed together. Ben’s team have been doing a really good job putting the frames together, the joints all look really good.
We now have three frames sitting on their padstones and the last one is on the bed being put together.
It still looks like we are on schedule for thursdays frame raise, we are not quite sure what timings are likely to be on the day, so if you are coming along to watch you might have to bear with us a bit, it should be interesting to see though, and I hope everyone enjoys it.
