First Light (Installation) IV

Ever go out and take some photos and come home, download them onto you computer and then find that the camera setting you had was the wrong one and the pictures didn’t come out well at all? If not, take it from me, it is not a recommended technique.

The high strength 3/8″ all-thread rods arrived a couple of days ago, so I pulled the post and boulder off the foundation, pulled out the temporary rods and used them to template the new rods for length.

I picked up some ‘Precision Grout’, which does not shrink and is commonly used for packing under heavy equipment mounting pads after leveling has been completed. Here’s that product:

I mixed a bunch of that up in a 5 gallon pail, aiming for s fairly ‘stiff’ mix. Then I washed off the concrete pad and the bottom of the stone so they were clean and, while they were still damp, placed a ring of mortar around the perimeter of the pad. I wanted to leave an empty space in the middle around where the wires transited. I threaded the wires through the middle of the stone, and placed the stone on the pad, squashing down onto the mortar bed. With the stone settled into place I fished the wire through the column and placed the post onto the stone, and tightened down the nuts. Then I cleaned up the mortar a bit with a trowel leaving a collar, a portion of which you can see in this next photo:

That sould make the foundation fairly rigid and durable.

Then I fitted the lower mounting beams, (hijiki), pillow blocks (makito), and the lantern head sill (dodai) with its floorpan:

The wires snake through the parts and are completely hidden from view when all is assembled.

Another view of the bracket complex:

The lantern as it stands for the time being:

The lantern is plumb – I didn’t manage to hold the camera plumb however. This photo had me second-guessing so I went out and re-checked and all is well.

One more for good luck:

That looks more plumb in the photo at least.

I have to halt the assembly for the time being as I haven’t found the box of all the pegs and wedges yet! Hopefully it will turn up soon enough.

All for now, thanks for swinging by. Installation (V) follows.