Barn update

I'm still working on the barn (I think it may take forever).

The truss carriers are all installed now and the barn is ready for the trusses. That will require more than just me to accomplish. So I'm hoping to tackle that in a couple of weeks. You will notice in the photos that the gravel floor is also in place. That made it a lot easier to stabilize the ladders.

Here are a few of the latest pictures:

Truss carriers installed. Doesn't look like much, does it?

Me, after work, driving the huge ring shank nails.

I learned a lot about hammering nails. I also bought myself a good hammer. It's pretty darn obvious when you start trying to drive big nails that a good hammer saves a lot of time and trouble.

We received several different types of nails with the barn kit. All the wall girts and skirt boards were attached with regular framing nails. Those seemed pretty big to me when I started. Then I opened the box with the ring shank nails for the carriers!

The top 2 nails are the 5" long ring shank nails that hold the truss carriers.
Bottom nail is the typical framing nail.

 After our first day of trying to drive those ring shank nails, I realized that even with a good hammer then weren't going in. They needed pilot holes.

First attempt at driving truss carrier nails (bent over nails). The flush nails had pilots.

We had to do a little shopping to find the long drill bits needed at the correct size. But after all that, we piloted and drove all 108 nails for the truss carriers (actually more than that, because I put in extra if I thought they were needed).

Hope the roof stays up after all that!