Bending on the ceiling

 The walls are up, the spars are cut, and the ceiling is varnished.  Must be time to install the thing!

I very carefully cut, planed and milled the spars a couple of weeks ago - 59.5''x1.0''x 2.0'', milled out slots for wire to run, pallet wrapped them together and left them in the corner.  When I brought the 1/8'' ceiling home, I carefully slotted the spar between the walls, and - it was a perfect fit!  At which point the bad news hit me that it should've been 1/8'' shorter in order to still fit on top of the plywood.  So load them all up and back to the shop for a few passes across the planer, bundle them all up again, back in the car and head home.  And two-thirds of the 13 miles home, I happened to think that if I were semi-smart, I'd do counter-sinks on the drill press instead of needing to do each hole individually and freehand them.  64 operations later (16 spars, 2 holes each, 1/8'' thru-drill, 5/16'' counter-bore on top of it).  Re-wrap and head home.  

Once I got here that Kregs screws are closer to 5/16¨ diameter, and so quickly set up the pocket screw bit as a straight bore stop.  Sixty four more holes and we're mostly set - well except for the 10 holes I drilled in the first spar to ensure it locked the ceiling.

Once the first spar was in, the others were simply a matter of spacing the spars (note waste sticks ct to 8¨ as a spacer between the spars.  Pocket screws driven straight into the counter-bores sucked the ceiling right on into place.  And finally on the inside, I used a few 23ga wire nails shot at pretty acute angles to lock in the ceiling.

There's still a lot to do on the ceiling - cut and secure the blocking, route the cabin and front end wiring, add insulation, and a host of cosmetic blems that I'm probably the only one who will notice. 

One of the biggest potential blems is the ceiling butt joint.  I wrestled with it for a bit, but I think it's going to get a very thin cap of cherry to cover it (same as I'm 'finishing' other not so tight seams.  I think it will look great.

The rearmost spar is a 2x2¨ bit of laminated oak.  Siwek, my local hardwood merchant has shorter random lengths of wood - usually not 4x4, usually not completely pristine, but certainly usable.  I picked up a piece of oak that was nearly 8'' wide, and probably a touch over 3/4 thick, I was able to rip it, laminate it and finish mill it to 2x2.  It's straight and stout - perfect for hanging the back door!

In an earlier post, I mentioned AC going up in the front box.  I made a duct for it, and am printing vents to match.  But today I brought it back from the shop for a test fit.  The idea is to redirect the AC output upwards along the wall and not have it blow right at our heads.  I think it'll work OK.

Lots of electrical work inside this week since it's forecast to be cold and rainy all week long 😞