2003 Rendezvous

Phelps Barn Restoration & Rendezvous
Elmwood, Illinois
June 15-28, 2003

Day 4 Report

Another fantastic day in paradise! Better yet, the day started out with a wind from the north which allowed our sunburns to get worse before we noticed. Terrific working conditions, interrupted by an excellent lunch prepared and delivered by Mr. Knight, Professor of Journalism at the University of Indiana.

Carl Reinking is still whacking away at the hickory plates, which are proving tougher than at least one chain mortiser (but not tougher than Carl). Yesterday's TV station was Channel 25, and today a fellow from Channel 19 turned up, asked many questions, and took miles of video.

An even larger and more efficient crew of mostly local folks are putting down new floor boards in anticipation of the plate and purlin plate replacement events that will take place over the next couple of days. Floor boards are also of oak, resawn from local material via the band mill. These side cuts look very nice, and represent a substantial improvement over what was left of the flooring we found. This makes for a safer workspace, for sure. Scott Russell arrived from Ontario via Alfredo Rico's shop. .

Neville Bodsworth, Denny Hambruch, Rick Collins and Mike Yaker invested a good deal of time on the sunny side of the site persuading the new scarfed sill into place (with handtools, jacks, and the TeleHandler). The mason volunteers quietly appeared and began hand-cutting limestone to cap the foundation wall, which showed considerable daylight after Joe Miller and Rick Collins raised and straghtened and leveled the barn. All in all a great day, followed by dinner as guests of the Masons in yet another remarkable building.

We talked our way into the attic of the Masonic Temple after several helpings of remarkable desserts. That flat-roof building has a curious king post truss. Spanning 40 feet, with an iron rod for the king post, most of each rafter protrudes through the bituminous roofing; this makes for an odd-looking skyline, and probably accounts for the damage that led to the failure of at least one of the bottom chords in the trusses. A local house moving company of good reputation effected a clever in-situ fix: underrunning queen post trusses under each lower chord, make from 5/8" wire rope, tube steel standoffs, and homemade turnbuckles. This was boked in over the sanctuary, but available for our amazed inspection in the attic section. Altogether nice work.

New stone work.	Workers at the site	Newly scarfed eave, purlin plates
Frames against the sky.	Julie Hauter.
MORE PHOTOS