My first attemp at an 8'x6' elevated deer blind with 16' posts

[CTM1]

The platform floor joists were made with PT lumber that I had left over from a deck build back in the mid 90's.
First lesson do not use such old lumber to save a few dollars as it was pretty tough to nail and screw into.

I decided to built it on the trailer to make transporting it to the "The 66" easier.
(2) sheets of PT 3/4 plywood for flooring
Built the wall sections on the rear deck and then assembled on the trailer.
I had some 2x4's left over from a rebuild of my old shacks roof, but I had to buy more including
some 2x4x10's for the roof.

 

[CTM1]

As opening day of our rifle season is fast approaching I was rushing to get this built knowing the real work will be in raising the platform
and assembling it at the property. As such I forgot to take additional pictures of the progress.
I cut the notches in the front and rear plywood walls to accommodate the roof, but I screwed up royally in my layout. So I wound up
cutting a few of the notches in the wrong place. Nothing like measuring twice and still messing it up.

In the picture below the roof section is strapped to the side of the blind for transport. The roof is 10' by about 9'6". I wanted a an overhang on all sides. I am hoping that the overhang on the front will cut down on some of the light that will be pouring in as it will be facing the rising sun and be in sun for a good portion of the day. Low winter sun will win I fear and blind me.

It is stained red as it was free. My friend (84) who has helped me a ton with the Evil Orange tractor had been storing it for another neighbor who wintered in Florida. Well that neighbor passed away a few years ago and I purchased his house so my friend figured it belonged to me as I bought the guys house.

Monday
So here we are embarking on the fifteen mile drive over to the property where my neighbors cousin will meet us. He offered to help given I had tilled his fields earlier in the year.

 

[CTM1]

Getting up the hill was a real chore pulling the weight of the trailer etc, even in 4WD low. Mental note buy new more aggressive tires, or stone the road (yep, spend more money to kill a deer) . My friends cousin was a good sport as he waited an hour for us to arrive, as it took longer to load everything we thought we could possibly need, and the ride over was slow going.

The one thing that was left behind was the small generator to run the large drill so we could drive the lag screws into the elevators. It takes quite an effort to put 32 lag screws into the posts and platform using a hand ratchet. It was all hands on deck so I did not get as many pics as I wanted to. We had a window to work within as the guys wanted to be done by 2pm so they could get out and hunt the afternoon.

Here is my 84 year old friend next to the 16' post. I quickly realized 16' was not going to work, but the guys were up for trying whatever I had in mine. I elected to cut the fronts to 12' and the rears to 13'.

Well we got the posts and the platform assembled and our first attempt to pull it upright with winch on my friends quad failed. One of the old PT floor joist ribbons failed, as did a few of the cross braces. We called it a day and when we looked at the clock the day was done and the guys missed getting out to hunt. We agreed to reassemble at 8am and the "Evil Orange" tractor would be called back to the property.

 

[Brokenbear]

have you set the posts yet ...if not I highly recommend setting the posts in concrete ..1-2 bags of Quickcret per hole ...making sure to put some in the bottom before the post ...encase everything in the ground in concrete ....they say the regular treated stuff is not for ground contact ...they also have supposed ground contact treated in timbers ...and I used the ground contact type timbers 7 years ago ...this year I sawed off (due to rot) 24" and sank some 6X6 and bolted my old posts to them ....another side benefit is it anchors to/for wind damage
Bear

 

[CTM1]

So I trailered the tractor over and it would not start, still never resolved the battery/alternator issues. We tried for about 30 minutes and then gave up and made our way up the hill to make repairs to what broke the day before.

After the repairs were completed we gave the tractor another shot and the issue was user error, my error. I failed to push in the automatic fuel cut off lever from the night before as the tractor no longer turns off via the key.

FYI that is all hawthorn and it is the bane of my existence. On this day I took a needle to the left index finger, another to the right thumb, one to the upper left thigh, and the best was when one went right through the sole of my sneaker and into the arch of my foot. That one hurt, bad!
It is work boots as a gift to myself for my B-day later this month.

So we were ready for pull #2. We chained the rear corners to the tractor, and the I drove in a very large nail in the top rear and attached a tow strap to that and the tow strap to the quad winch. We also added a rope to the rear and ran it around a hawthorn stump so one guy could slowly let it out as it was lifted. This was to prevent it from over rotating and crashing to the ground. We experienced several issues, but they were all related to the fact that my 84 year old friend did not have his hearing aids in. He was winching at times when we did not want him to, he was winching at times we were yelling and frantically waiving our arms to get his attention to make him stop. He spent $4k on new hearing aids and never wears them

Well, it is finally up, one of the cross braces snapped, I guess their was to much torque on it, and another horizontal brace broke free from its fasteners.

Tomorrow I have two other neighbors coming over to help me level it and hopefully get it secured to the ground so I can start lifting the wall sections up. My cross bracing leaves a lot to be desired, but I used what I had on hand. Might have to crack the wallet and buy some better stock to replace some of them.

Sat is opening day so it is crunch time.

 

[OkieKubota]

My gosh that was painful to read...

Good luck with it...

 

[lakngolf]

That is quite a saga. Please be careful with heights and Hawthorne!

 

[BigMike]

May I suggest using high tensile fence wire and tensioners as your cross bracing? Stronger than wood and you can pull the blind into square. It will never rot in your lifetime.

 

[JohnL48]

Is that thing hurricane proof ????

 

[dogdoc]

Looking good. Always enjoy your animated updates.

 

[CTM1]

Is that thing hurricane proof ????

Thankfully it withstood our three days of wind storms here. Another hemlock at the house did not and took out my power for the fourth time in thirty hours the other day. Most insane opening few days of deer season I can ever remember for us.

 

[CTM1]

Well I wish I would have had two more days of nice weather to get it done, but it was not meant to be.
We got the wall sections and roof frame up last Wed. A buddy of mine did the cabling and the turn buckles. I bought three earth anchors, but we could not even get one in more then a foot because of the rock. My buddy gave me five six foot steel rods that were about 1.5 in diameter and we were able to drive them in at an angle. Another buddy helped pull the all sections up with a rope, while two other guys lifted and pushed from the bottom. One of the guys is my 70 year old neighbor who has been helping me from day one.

Getting the roof frame up was a real feat. One buddy who was on the platform with me proved not to be as strong as he claimed, so it really made for some interesting pulling and lifting. He took some good ribbing from the other guys after the roof frame almost took us both down.

We were spent after this day.

I came back on Thurs by myself to plywood the roof, but after the first sheet went on I realized if I continued I would have cut off my re-entry into the blind and the ladder as you can see did not go all the way to the top.

 

[CTM1]

My Buddy who is now know as "Not Mr. Hercules" made the mistake of volunteering to come back over with me on Friday which was the day before opening day of our rifle season. I figured we would have the the rest of the plywood up, the felt on and the metal roof on in two hours,
Yeah, it took like five hours and my buddy was not a happy camper. As the day went on he got sicker.

I climbed onto the roof from inside the blind and told my buddy once I was on the roof I was not coming down until it was done.
The ladder was not long enough to reach the roof, so my buddy placed it into the bucket of the tractor. He had no problems running up and down the ladder all day handing me stuff. It was so warm I had to take off my pants to get off my long johns. Nothing like standing on the roof of a deer blind in your underwear in the middle of Nov.

As time went on I kept looking down at the ladder and started to realize that I really did not want to come down it while it was sitting in the
bucket of the "Evil Orange" tractor. I know it history, my buddy does not. I finally told him the only way I was coming off that roof was via
a helicopter or via the local fire trucks extended bucket. He called me something that Trump claimed he liked to grab, but I was not having it.
I made him place stacks of wood behind the tractor tires and I tied myself to the ladder. Wish I would have had my safety vest and life line.

Oh, in my infinite wisdom I decided to load the tractor on the trailer while up in the property instead of driving the tractor down to the road and loading it there. Well the "Evil Orange" tractor got its revenge and as I went through the entry posts the truck started to slide in the mud and got sideways, with the weight of the tractor on the trailer it jack knifed and the trailer caved the rear quarter panel in on the truck. In an effort to make me feel better my buddy "Not Mr. Hercules" said it could have been much worse as he thought the truck and the trailer were going to flip as I was sliding down the hill. Again, if it were not for bad luck I would have none, but life continues.

 

[CTM1]

Here are a few from the blind on opening day. I got in the stand at 3am in the hopes if I blew any deer out of the fields that they would filter back in. I knew if I went in later like an hour before day light and I blew them out they would not come back.

I had nine does in the plot when I heard a car door slam on the road below and then all nine bolted up the hill. I then saw seven more run up from below. I can only figure that it was a road hunter jumping out when he saw the seven crossing the road.

I found this old double slider in my old shack. One pane of glass had a small crack in it but it was functional. Well when I went to put the other one in I torqued it and put a major crack in it. I placed this one of the hood of my truck and when my buddy went to turn the truck around to back it up to the trailer he did not see it and it feel off the hood and smashed. Nothing like picking up little shards of glass that are hidden in the grass.

My original plans for cheap sliders from Home Depot from TAFCO is not going to work as I realized left hand sliders only will not work. I picked up a piece of 1/4" plexiglass that had a cracked corner for about a third off to cut into sliders by using lattice track, but I do not see it working out long term. I did try to cut a piece of 1/8" plexi I had found to cover my right hand window but plexiglass doe not take to cutting well, or at least not with the tools I took to it.
I got it up and it serves it purpose for now which is to cut down on the wind racing through the blind.

I was in the blind yesterday along with a good amount of snow that had come in. Well between the temps and the wind trying to cut me in half it made for an long unpleasant sit, but I did see a racked buck about 150 yards up in the wood line pushing a doe around, they never did come down into the plots.

Carpet and insulation are next if we get a few warm mid-days this week.

 

[lakngolf]

Man, I hope you kill a bruiser out of that stand. Because I can't wait to hear that story!!

 

[wbpdeer]

I have great concerns about 16 feet legs working out safely. Reading this post makes me think I need to insure your life 'cause you have used 3 or 4 out of your 9 lives trying to get it built.

Working on that roof was too risky without a ladder that did reach. I hope people that read this avoid this situations.

We have built two shoot houses and two large shooting platforms. From this point forward I imagine our floor of shooting houses grades will be about 7 1/2 feet above ground. Just high enough to stand under the house.

Good windows are what makes a great shooting house. Hope you harvest a good deer from yours. You certainly deserve a reward!

 

[CTM1]

Here is my truck and trailer right after moving the trailer and tractor off the truck.
I saved myself $1,000 by building my own blind but cost myself over $1,000 for my own stupidity.
My buddy Not Mr. Hercules took a series of pics on his cell phone and almost all are sideways and read only so I cannot turn them.

 

[CTM1]

I have great concerns about 16 feet legs working out safely. Reading this post makes me think I need to insure your life 'cause you have used 3 or 4 out of your 9 lives trying to get it built.

Working on that roof was too risky without a ladder that did reach. I hope people that read this avoid this situations.

We have built two shoot houses and two large shooting platforms. From this point forward I imagine our floor of shooting houses grades will be about 7 1/2 feet above ground. Just high enough to stand under the house.

Good windows are what makes a great shooting house. Hope you harvest a good deer from yours. You certainly deserve a reward!

It is funny after hunting in the blind and having a better understanding of what can and cannot be seen I wish I had stuck to the original plan of
16' legs and not cut them down.
Here is my not so sane buddy taking selfies with no harness.

 

[lakngolf]

You guys scare me!!

 

[buckdeer1]

I hope you have that anchored good,I had one that was 7ft to bottom of floor and it blew over before I cemented a post going up the sides on the north and south side to take the wiggle out.Be careful out there a blind isn't worth it.Remember it's not the fall that hurts but the stopping.Looks good if you don't get sea sick.I built one last year and started off at 10 ft 5x6 and we raised it alittle and cut a foot off each post