Pergola - Assembly (part one)

The forecast for the week is rain!  But, today, Monday, looks like it will hold off for a bit.  I decide to take the day off and try to get the pergola planted before the rain starts messing with our beautiful holes!

Heading to Lowes to pick up straps and a come along and perhaps a 12 lb sledge hammer - but first a stop at our neighbor's to see if they have these tools.  I'm in luck, Bruce Glick is out at the barn and everything I need (including a 20 lb sledge - just in case the 12 ponder isn't sufficient) is just inside the door - including two twenty foot towing straps! 
 

Come along is the right tool for this job!

  Back home, Sarah remarks that I'm back awfully quick and joins me for a ride out to the pergola by the pond site.  Come along and sledge make short work of assembling the headers and posts.  The extra towing strap makes it easier to pull these assemblies into position.

 

Header assembly




224 Horses at the Ready


Now for the hard part.  If I had a crane or 3 strong helpers, I could have assembled the structure out of the holes and then set it in, but I'm working solo for the structural parts.  

Oops





Relieved the top to fit through

I thought that with the end profiles there would be enough room to bring the structure together but the angle of the posts was too great and the joist bound in the mortise.  I could have chopped the mortise bigger or plained the joist thinner so that it could be inserted from one side and pulled all the way through but I wanted to keep everything tight.  So I "solved" the problem by cutting the top of the joist so that it would not bind as I pulled the structure together. 

Visual Progress by the mm

  
Hours were spent getting the joists to fit and the fit was so tight that even with the 2 ton come along it took rocking the entire structure to bring the pieces into position.  When all was in place the remaining joists fell into position . . . except for the two on each end which were out by an inch or more @#$%&!

Perhaps it's just a leveling thing
 

Close but no Cigar