if you’re keeping score, the amazingly dense black locust has broken jigsaw blades and a drill bit and today while trimming the ends off the treehouse deck boards it wore my circular saw blade down until it was totally smooth and about as effective at cutting as a butter knife.
granted it was an old blade – the lesson learned, if you’re ever working with black locust be prepared to invest in new blades and drills bits!
yes, we know the black locust is dense enough to break new jigsaw blades.
and tonight it caused my 5/16th inch drill bit to get so hot from friction that it snapped!
i can’t imagine working with it without power tools like some of the amish builders in the area.
i’m trying to cut out holes for the railing posts in the black locust decking for the treehouse so, you know, nobody falls over the edge.
the black locust is so dense it’s breaking the jigsaw blades!
just drilling the holes in the corners of the area to be cut out quickly drains the cordless drill battery.
it’s amazingly tough stuff.
standing 15 feet up on the outer corner of the treehouse, pre-drilling holes for screws in the black locust decking ( which is so dense that i think it’s going to heat the drill bit so hot it’ll melt ) and it suddenly occurs to me when the wind is swaying the trees that i have a lot of faith in the structural stability of my design O_o
i mean, i feel pretty confident, but still, without the railings up the slights sense of vertigo and swaying in the wind can give you a little pause.
we still have some work to finish the deck on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) and putting up guard rails but that’s not going to stop us from pitching tent to get a feel for camping in the trees, which is what we’ll do while i start putting together the actual treehouse that’s going on the deck. of course, no actual camping will happen until we get guard rails up. it’s a little hard to tell, but there’s about 9 feet between the trees which is plenty of space to put a tent that sleeps three and dog very comfortably.
pitching the tent also gives me a better feel for how much space we’ll need around to treehouse to sit comfortably on the deck and navigate around the 360 degree wrap-around porch. one design decision yet to be made, do i build the treehouse between the two trees or around the two trees?
i’m taking the picture from the flat section of our roof above our mudroom that will someday, maybe, have a zip line running to the treehouse. there’s a door in odin’s room out to the roof so it’s perfect for quick zip lining over to the treehouse.
it’s been a wet spring and early summer in southwest wisconsin which means the gnats have been extra bothersome. so we were sitting up in the treehouse deck attempting to enjoy the view while swatting gnats.
they were so annoying that we decided to try some organic vanilla extract which we heard was an effective gnat repellent.
it seemed too good to be true. can you really repel gnats, avoid nasty bug sprays, and smell like a freshly baked cookie all at the same time?
sure enough, you can – just put a dab behind your ears and no gnats! the anti-gnat effect doesn’t last for too long – maybe 30 to 40 minutes per application – but it’s a great smelling short-term solution.
after a 7 week delay, since i was able to pick up the black locust decking ( undeterred by horrid weather ) for The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s), it was time to get building again!
and nobody is always more willing to help than odin. he helped carry and hoist all thirty two of the fourteen foot very heavy boards from the garage to the ladder without a single complaint.
of course, the promise of finally getting to stand on the deck is a great motivator 🙂
two hours later after carrying board after board and waiting for me to straighten them on the deck, odin finally got to stand on the deck! a mere two years after hatching the original very crazy plan. then, i just had an idea with absolutely no idea how would build a deck around two trees 12 feet up in the air. it’s a really awesome feeling to finally get to stand up there with odin and feel the trees gently swaying and listen to the birds chirping.
it took awhile to figure it all out, but having fun building it with odin is the real goal so it really doesn’t matter how long it takes us.
while futzing with the spacing between the planks i decided to lay under the deck to get a look at how it looked and it occurred to me that i’m really, really, really glad i decided to hang the supports on solid lengths of 3/4″ threaded rod that go all the way through the tree. there’s a lot of wood up there and the black locust is astonishingly heavy. there might be over 3,000 pounds of materials up there that i want to stay up there. the good news is that it seems very solid and yet it’s still designed to move with the trees.
of course, after all that hard work we have to drag up some camp chairs and talk about how awesome it’s going to be to pitch a tent on the deck after the posts and guard rails go up. we’ll get some camping in while we design the treehouse that’s going to get built on top of the deck!
how do you make being with your son up in the trees any more awesome? run an electrical cord up there and start using POWER TOOLS!
this just keeps getting better and better. stay tuned…