June 20

John and I had our first full day at the observatory and got a chance to look the place over in very fine detail. We were glad to get the approval at the Board meeting on June 15; otherwise we would have had to wait until near the end of July. That gave us an extra six weeks to achieve our primary goal – have the observatory area roofed over by Thanksgiving.

The place shows the vagaries of 20 years of near abandonment and the halting of work in mid-project back then. On the north side of the building, 5 foot high manzanita and chaparral bushes have grown right up to the back wall. They’ll have to be dug out from the roots for about twenty feet. The outside walls were never painted so they have suffered some surface erosion in places that will have to be grouted before we paint it, especially on the south wall. Just a few feet west of the building is a left over construction debris pile, much of it half buried. There are as many as 30 cinder blocks piled up in good condition which we will find a use for. Other stuff like rotted plywood and roofing shingles were partly buried as well as lengths of steel rebar. We decided to dig up and move everything about 20 feet away because the junk would be in our way when we started to work on the roll off roof. We moved the cinder blocks and started on the partly buried stuff. Most of the debris was underground. There were several lengths of rebar up to 15 feet long that snaked their way just below the surface. When we finished we raked the ground as smooth as we could. This dirt is like flour: its very fine and puffs up with every step.

Along the south wall there were nicely stacked but half-buried steel beams 15 to 18 feet long. Only the top tier of about 4 beams was visible. We knew ahead of time that they were there but we didn’t know how many or what condition they were in so we decided to dig them up also and determine whether any of them were useable. After digging them up, we sorted them to size, eyeballed how truly aligned they were, and determined how badly they were rusted. The steel beams were a single 18 foot long 2X8, about nine 2X6s of similar length and half a dozen 2X4s as well as 8 1X1s we found buried with the debris on the west side of the building. It turned out all of them were useable – we just need some sweat equity to get them in condition – about $3,000 based on current steel market prices.
Here are some of the 2X6s and 2X8s staged for sanding and sealing:And the 2X4s:

Then we looked inside. The warm room was never painted either and it looked like a giant abandoned closet. There were several sofas and desks that we could see. Other junk was piled almost to the ceiling and we could barely squeeze ourselves in between the junk. Fortunately, the previous owner agreed to come out and take it all to the dump himself. I couldn’t figure that out. John and I offered to take care of all of that if he dropped his selling price by $500. On the phone he was about to agree but I heard his wife in the background telling him that he was going to move it himself. We felt it was going to cost him more than that as well as his time but as long as he got it out within a couple of weeks we were fine. The ceiling is made of panels hung from the roof. All of the panels will have to be replaced. We found a small electrical panel inside that had two 15 amp breakers. Power is delivered throughout the site by underground conduits. Our feed was part of a grid laid out over twenty years ago by club members. The main problem is that we have no grid map and all of the original people have moved on. We did know our power originated in a 200 amp main breaker panel about 500 feet away at the club’s observatory and there were several junction boxes along the way. Thirty amps should be enough for our needs with off peak usage but our main concern is how near capacity is that 200 amp box on star party nights. So far there have been no power problems but theoretically the panel must be near capacity when we have our star parties. We have as many as 30 people drawing power from that feed during star parties.

The observing room is about 4 feet higher than the ground level. There is a set of loose cinder blocks that have served as stairs forever. That will be replaced with steel steps and redesigned to give a wider tread. The observing area is in good shape despite open to the sky. There is a single permanent pier in the center of the area that we will remove and I will use as my pier. Two permanent piers will be installed. There is also enough space for John to build a small warm room for his use. There is some construction on top of the cinder block wall that will have to be removed so we c an install our roll off roof track. What is there now is the support structure for the dome that was originally planned. They completed it as far as having an 18 foot diameter track installed.
Summing up the first day, we really had no bad surprises. The very good thing was being pleasantly surprised with all that steel being in such usable condition.

John exhbited his welding skills to make a temporary and moeable fence to keep roaming kids out of our construction area:

The fence in place:

Some of the other club members think we are fooling ourselves with pushing so hard to have the Board approve our project so that we can work through the summer. Most construction activities on site don’t commence until mid-September at the earliest and complete prior to Memorial Day. This particular day was not too bad – temps were in the low 90s but very dry and bright sun. When it is hotter we will definitely have to pace ourselves and make sure we stay hydrated and don’t overheat.