All eight of the new loading benches have been set, leveled, and concreted in. I'll remove the braces tomorrow after the concrete has had a bit more time to set.
Thanks to all who helped. In all, twelve people participated in the project in one or more of its three stages: (1) removal of the old benches, (2) construction of the new one ones, and (3) installation.
Those people are: Keith Bee, Ed Benenabco, Felton Corbett, Ralph Council, Allan Ells, John Jones, Russell Mathews, Howard Payne, Vic Smith, Buillermo Villenaeal/"Geramo", Gary Walters, and me. I really want to thank John Jones for his help in each of the three phases. Pardon me if I misspelled someone's name as I'm not the best at reading signatures.
Today was a good day of hard work, tempered with periods of levity and good humor and accompanied by good food. Howard Payne brought a very excellent chicken and rice soup. John had his usual - Klein's Supermarket's incomparable jalapeno & cheese and garlic-pork link sausage, grilled to profection as always -- thanks Howard and John.
Circle S Hardware on Hwy. 2978 "really did us good". I've bought quite a bit of "stuff" from them over the years and usually go to them first when I have a project. Much of what we needed, they had. The rest, they had to order in. When the delivery came in and some of it was a bit lower on quality than we wanted, they (Heath, the owner) insisted that we move to the next longer lengths. He wouldn't let us pay him for the extra cost. Those people are excellent to deal with and I highly recommend them if you need lumber, screws/bolts, and/or general hardware. Mind you, even with all this service they discounted the price 10% and, since TGC is a non-profit organization, made the sale non-taxable. They are a really class bunch of people that I enjoy dealing with -- they make me remember the small town I grew up close to back when we could expect that kind of service. Try to get that kind of service at one of the "big-box" stores.
The total cost of the project was $970.43. That's for eight(8) tables, each 4' X 8'. That'll give us loading bench space for 32 shooters with 16' between the tables in each bay and an 8' aisle running the length of the covered area.
Thanks to all.
Glen:
