The Solar Kiln, Putting it all Together.

So this morning I woke up feeling like I had been working from 7am until 10pm every day. Which coincidentally I had. So I drug myself outside to feed the ungrateful hungry mouths and take the dog out so I could watch him sniff the same clump of grass for like, five minutes before I went into the house and latched onto the tea maker like some sort of remora.

A caffeine remora.

Once I felt like a person again we gathered our shit together and trooped on outside to put this damn thing together. At first it went pretty well. We took the back and the top, which I was calling the roof piece and hinged them together by laying them down on the sawhorses we had made and getting all crazy with it. Other then having to allow for some warping on the frames themselves, it was pretty easy.

Then we took the back with the top still folded all neatly in and I held it up while Scott hinged it to a board which he then bolted to the deck. So basically I just stood there and held the thing upright and thought about lunch while he did most of the work. Which of course left me totally unprepared for round two, putting the big front door on. Because this whole thing hinges together. So when you take the back, which pivots, and the top which pivots, and try to hold them at the correct angle for the front attachment by yourself with no end cap pieces on, everything goes straight down the pooper.

For one thing, plastic on plastic is slippery as shit. And of course we hadn't thought to, you know, maybe, put a stop on the front to keep the plastic door piece from just sliding off the front like the worlds worst carpentry based Slip N Slide. So I had to stand in front of the whole thing, keeping the front piece in place with my knees, which by the way were super happy about that, while holding the angle on the side with my hands, while the plastic slid everywhere and I pictured setting fire to the whole world with my mind.

So then we had to do a complicated dance because Scott needed to get where I was and I had to move which meant that I had to control everything by only holding the damn thing at one end and that was how I ended up injuring my shoulder bursting into tears, and then yelling about how I couldn't hold this thing anymore and Scott ran around slapping temporary bracing on the fucking thing until I could let go of it. Then I went inside and sobbed into a cup of shitty black tea from the Walmart while Scott looked stricken and tried to come up with a way to avoid this problem the next time.

He did not like my suggestion of burning it to the fucking ground.

 Burn it. Burn it all.

Now however, we could see the angles and could cut the end pieces out so that, you know, it would finally have some support that didn't involve my right arm. Then we made the end pieces and the bracing for the center, and slapped a coat of paint on those motherfuckers so that when we came back the next day all we had to do was bolt that bitch together and call it good.

 This thing had better fucking work.

 So after tweaking a few things, and obviously attaching the last front door we were all like yay we can move it now! And then it rained like a mofo. Because life that's why. So there are still a few things we will need to do on site, like attach the end doors, and replace a few bolts and argue about where to put it, but other then that it's good to go. It will probably be set up and ready you know, a week before we have to take it down, but whatever. Let's roll with them punches.

The plastic shoulder punches.