Yup, don't look like much here though.
Bud wants a twelve by twenty one three sided shed for his horses to be able to get out of the weather.
Here in north Texas we have a lot of rain and even more clay. A shed for two horses will become a bog in no time at all.
So bud asked me if we could build one that would be moved occasionally. During the winter when our storms come from the north and west the back could be facing thataways. When spring rolls around and the storms start coming in from the south and west it could be turned to protect them from that.
Here's my plan. A galvanized pipe frame for strength and resistance against rust. Four inch C purlins attached to the pipe frame via my brackets and welding. Then the sheet metal attached to the purlins.
This picture is us making the back and front frames with the trailer pretending to be a welding table.
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The idea is to fabricate the front and back pieces. Then to tie them together to complete a box shape.
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Sorta like this.
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I don't know if you can see it in the pictures but I'd like you to notice the sweeps or nineties welded at the ends of the bottom pipes.
Here's the thought process about them. They decrease the effort necessary when the shed is being moved. But just as important I believe is that we're welding uprights to them that will be attached about five feet up. The logic is to have something to attach to and yet something that will keep the livestock off the corners where they might find something to hurt or get hurt on.
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Here's one of my brackets.
They are designed to be used either as a welded piece or one attached via self tapping screws. We're going with the welded process on this project because it has to be able to handle the forces experienced when the unit is being moved.
This one's on a top corner.
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This is how the purlin is attached to the bracket and via bracket to the post.
If you noticed on the bracket there is a top ledge for those situations where a screw head might be in the way on the vertical surface.
Inside view
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Outside view
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The brackets are attached to the posts. Then the purlins are folded over and on to the brackets. They only go on one way.
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Voila!
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Finished corner
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There are two different ninety degree brackets. One is a square cut for joints like the post purlin. The other is cut to allow for inside of purlin to purlin connecting.
There are a couple of different ways to span the twenty one feet. I decided a back to back double purlin front to back would be stronger than trying to either span it with a support purlin under the purlins.
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Here's the finished joint
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Completed framework
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Another shot
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Then it was a simple matter of putting on sheet metal.
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Here's from another angle
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We ran out of daylight.
Later this week we'll put the roof on. Then we'll put on all the trim work. I'll keep taking pictures.
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( hey HARVE: was just wondering if it would not more practible , to build a couple of sheds? then he could move the livestock according to the weather! or would it be to cost prohibitive? )
First. This is rented land. It's only about an acre of pasture. The abuse of two horses during the wet season would be very destructive.
I've built these before for men who had more land and could have afforded the cost of multiple sheds. But their logic always was about moving the damage if possible.
These are not cheap. There's a thousand dollars in materials in one of these. And remember, there's labor.
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His horses don't seem to quarrel much. It isn't a stall. So initially I don't expect him to wood the interior.
If at a later date he decides to make this into a pair of stalls he can do that himself. The design accomodates using common connectors like Simpson to put in a two by dividing wall and inside panels.
If he does put in a wood interior then we'll have to fabricate a wheel system to have portability. The way that works is one end is lifted up and axle stubs are attached with tires. Then the other end is lifted up and the shed is moved. A hay fork on a three point does this fine.
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( what is the best way (your way) to cut the steel sideing? TIA George)
This time I used the torch because where I was cutting is going to be covered by trim. My preferred method is plasma.
I once went in and replaced the bottom eight feet on a twenty foot wall about a hundred yards long. It was in Dallas and evidently they'd recruited their fork lift operators on the Central Expressway. They'd bent up and busted out all along the bottom.
I made a jig that fit the panel and then used my small plasma with nitrogen tanks to supply air for the plasma. The burn mark was less than a sixteenth. But it takes more nitrogen than it does compressed air when cutting with a plasma.
Using a circular saw and whatever kind of blade, steel cutting, reversed plywood, or just straight wood cutting, is too nerve wracking and loud for me. Sabre, jig, and sawsall are too slow. I have both a Bosch nibbler and a Milwaukee electric shear. They have their places where they shine.
But all in all there's nothing like a plasma and a jig for cutting siding slick and fast.
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( My horses would have a hole kicked in the metal in about a week otherwise. If you plan to drag it, you'll need to put some small gussets on the corners to stiffen the frame.)
Twelve by twelve is a little small for more than one horse at a time. They do have a tendancy to get snippy if they feel crowded.
I don't believe gussets will be needed. If you look close you should be able to see the joints are coped and three sixty welded.
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I watched some professional building builders out of Oklahoma cutting in a bunch of windows with a circular saw and a nibbler. As far as I'm concerned it was about as smart as getting your wisdom teeth pulled with anesthetic to save a couple of dollars.
I've seen the sheers but they'd have to be handy and necessary for a grand. Most cuts are on an angle I have no idea how that would work with a shear.
There are plasmas with self contained compressors that will work off of a welder-generator and cut the fourteen gauge purlins and twenty six gauge skin all day long. Neater, cleaner, slicker, faster, has to be worth something.
But heck, this comes from a guy who builds an attachment for his tractor for every aspect of a project.
Last night I got a call that the mobile shed had blown over. We'd put the roof on quick like the other evening and hadn't got around to putting it in place or even ordering the trim for the rake and corners. Bud is up there in Wisconsin visiting family and getting his head straight about why he lives in Texas.
This is what I found this morning.
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Another view
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Lucy sees mud and wants to just sit there and wallow. I've never had anything in my whole life that enjoys just sitting in mud and spinning tires.
We had a front go through this morning and some showers. If I'd tried taking Lucy back there we'd rutted up something fierce and there's always that chance of getting stuck. I hate that.
So I took my wife's Bravada with Smartrak. That's fulltime four wheel drive that's always there. You never even notice it unless you hit the pedal hard and it doesn't spin a tire, just launches. It went in and out of the pasture without spinning a tire.
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Nuttin' to it. Outside of some mud on the back overhang you'd never know it's went bottom's up.
This is what I'm doing for the corners.
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From the inside
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Outside
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Here's the bottom. You can see how it's designed to be moved easily.
Again, this is without the trim and rake pieces which will make it look a lot better.
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Yup.
She didn't think it was a good idea.
But, just figure for a minute.
If I could talk a lady like that to marry me then playing with her car wasn't much of a challenge, right?
You ought to have heard her the time I pulled into a construction site right after a heavy couple days of rain.
Of course my two hours washing the blue thing wasn't near as funny.
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( Looks like a nice simple design, good work.)
Thanks.
One of the things I like about it is if later bud wants to convert it over to a two stall barn it's easily adaptable.
What some folks don't realize is standard two inch by one inch by eighth inch channel you can find at your local steel supply is a perfect match for two by lumber.
Let's say bud wants a wood divider so the horses can't see each other and is resistant to their kicking. A piece of pipe cut in between the bottom skids. Then he takes a piece of channel and removes a section of side that allows his choice of two by to fit. Say he's using two by sixes. He cuts out a section of one leg of the channel six inches.
He welds the modified channel to one vertical and another piece of channel to the other vertical. He can then slide in two by sixes one at a time and slide them down, one on top of the other until he's got a wall.
The same thing can be done to the existing walls.
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The worst vehicle that I've ever had for getting stuck was a seventy nine chevy van. That puppy would sink the front end and the rear wheels would just spin, for any old reason. Lucy's next worst.
I thought my problem wouldn't be as bad with her because she came with traction Michelins. The same bed was on a 97 3500HD and it'd get stuck but.....nothing like Lucy.
Before the 97 I had a 69 short C30 Chevy with a big cam, headers, intake, carb, and lots of attitude. She got four miles per gallon. But I could pull off into the gumbo and slop dragging a gooseneck. Put the pedal to the metal in third and watch the speedometer hit seventy, 4:88 gears, and she'd start crawling out. Plain old 7.50 sixteen mud and snow on the duals. She was worth the price of admission just for the audio. The sound of a screaming small block having fun is probably the neatest sound in the whole world.
The Bravada is our first normal four wheel drive. I can't praise it enough. It's got zip and it hooks'em in the corners. Little body lean, but heck, that's to tickle the grin button. Sometimes you have to get just the right angle to dangle for the grin button to work it's best.
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We finished out the shed a couple of weeks ago. Today was the first chance I had to take some pictures.
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33. Bud's got a deal working on eight acres about twenty miles from where the shed is now. If if goes through some Sunday morning early we'll winch that puppy on to my trailer and haul it to it's new home.
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Another shot. Note how little that Appy is.
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Doc, I haven't forgotten about you. My bud with the shed just closed on his new place last night. So in the next couple of weeks we'll move the shed. I'd like to have a how to on harveylacey.com from start to finish with a material list including it being moved fifteen miles.
Bud has the Dodge dually with the duck bumper I made back in 98. He has a slip in winch. So what we plan on doing is he'll plug in his winch, plug in a pintle insert, and then hook up to my trailer. We'll winch the shed up and on to the trailer. He'll disconnect. And I'll haul it to his new place. He'll winch it off and drag it into placey.
Now if, big big big if, it survives that then I think we can do a complete how to with a degree of confidence. It it doesn't we can have a how to on how we should have done it.
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We moved the loafing shed--stalls today. We moved it about fifteen miles. Some of those miles were at fifty five miles per hour.
Our winch for loading is only five thousand pound pull so we had to double up the line for the up the ramp portion of the loading. We used the skid steer to unload it.
We did pick up a new ding from a tree limb getting out of the old pasture. But it was pretty well straightened out by bud and a willing two by four.
We pulled the Dodge with the winch on the front to the hitch of the trailer and then ran the winch line out.
Yup. That's one of my bumpers.
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On the ground
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Coming up
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Diablo and Katy showing their excitement at their old home arriving at their new one.
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Diablo's the appy and Katy is a paint. She's about fourteen hands and he's eighteen, a little draft under that blanket.
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Ready for the dismount
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Another view. The shed is twenty one by twelve. It made driving some of the country roads interesting. Mailboxes on one side and oncoming on the other. Sure glad the truck is red.
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East end of the west bound
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Bud "adjusting" a corner who suffered a little bit in an encounter with a tree.
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Here's the skid steer bulldogging a loafing shed
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