21-24/08/2021: Finishing foundation points and levelling posts

21/08/2021: We began by drilling and setting the final 15 foundation anchors. In the last trip, we had completed the all of the interior anchors (pictured here).
22/08/2021: One of our anchors points setting in the sun.
22/08/2021: The poxy cement first had to be mixed before putting it in each drill hole to set. You can see the difference here between the poxy unmixed (where it comes out black), and mixed (where it comes out grey). Once mixed, we had roughly 10 minutes to use it before it set in the mixing nozzle. It could be very stressful at times with this time pressure! We averaged 4-6 holes per tube in the end.
22/08/2021: Our other initial task was to rough cut all of the posts, based on the heights we had calculated from the bedrock using our evening survey.
22/08/2021: Once all of the foundation anchors were drilled and the posts were cut, we could match the post to each anchor. With 30 anchor points, that is a lot of posts!
22/08/2021: We labelled each post based on its column (A-F and row position
22/08/2021: We evaluated the rough cut posts by balancing them in their respective anchors. All of them generally looked good except one (on the back row, in the middle) which was really high. We called this one the ‘middle finger’.
23/08/2021: Our make-shift palette table for cutting (front).
23/08/2021: Our make-shift palette table for cutting (back).
23/08/2021: Alex’s “measure-er cutty thing” for spacing the circular saw correctly to where she wanted to cut. Very high-tech.
23/08/2021: We spent the majority of this day screwing each post into its anchor and struggling to accurately level each post. By the end of the day, we were tired and frustrated as we just could not level the posts with string lines – no matter how many times we altered the string lines, moved them, or attached them to different things. We had not been convinced with using our laser leveller as we didn’t think the beam was strong enough to see. Once curled up in our sleeping bags at night, Alex made one last-ditch effort and thought to try the laser leveller. And we are so glad she did! The green laser projected onto all-but-one post, and she could excitedly go round and mark the level on each post.
23/08/2021: This sudden revelation with the laser leveller unlocked a huge stumbling block in our cabin build. We felt like we had found a shortcut after this night, and had suddenly jumped ahead of schedule!
24/08/2021: With each post level marked on from the previous night’s laser antics, we moved swiftly with cutting each post. There was a conundrum with whether we should un-drill each post so that they could be cut laid down. However, by taking the post out of its anchor, there was a huge risk that it would not be placed back in the same position once cut. Alex really stepped up here, and after some googling of “how to wield a circular saw for vertical cuts”, she cut all the posts upright. Brave!
24/08/2021: A cut post!
24/08/2021: All of the posts sitting proud and level!
24/08/2021: The posts at the front of the cabin are quite tall (up to 1.8 metres!) After all the posts were level, we felt really great about this trip and wanted to continue. However, we had ran out of batteries for the circular saw and drills at this point, so needed to head back to Nuuk to recharge everything.