Page 9 of Load Bearing
“Mark it?” Hunter guessed.
“Mark it,” Trixie agreed. “X marks the scrap.”
“Always thought it was the spot,” Hunter quipped, giving her a sly look that made Trixie suspect he had not, after all, missed her double entendre. “X marks the spot.”
“X marks a lot of things. The chop saw is one of the things that runs on power, not air, so let’s go meet the generator.”
7
HUNTER
Hunter met the generator, lovingly named Diva. “It was the last one that was big enough at Lowe’s,” Trixie said. “But she’s kind of finicky.” She showed Hunter how to start it, and talked him through the shut down and basic maintenance as well.
Then she gave him an orientation to the chop saw. “This is electric because a saw isn’t such an impact instrument. You want that blade spinning at full speed through the entire cut. Here’s the trigger. It’s like a gun, don’t put your finger on it until you want it to go and don’t let go until you’ve withdrawn it from your work or you can bind the blade. All the way down. All the way back up. Release the trigger. Make sure your material is against the backstop on both sides before you start. Last thing you want to do is waste a stick cutting crooked.”
She demonstrated cutting the 2x4, then had him measure another eight inches. Hunter could not help wondering if she’d chosen the length on purpose, because showing her his own eight inches was certainly high in hismind. She was so delightfullycompetentand he could not help wondering if she was as confident in bed.
“Check it again,” she cautioned, just as he was about to pull down the blade. Sure enough, the board had shifted. He snugged the wood up against the backboard again and made the cut.
“Good,” she said, and to Hunter’s chagrin, he felt like he’d just been patted on the head. If he’d been a dog, his tail would be wagging.
I’m not a dog, his bear said, offended.
“Measure it,” Trixie said, handing him the piece he’d cut.
Hunter did. “It’s…about a thirty-second off. Is that close enough?”
“For rough framing yes, for trim, it would show. Why do you think it happened?”
Hunter frowned, considering. He appreciated that she didn’t just blindly give him a list of rules to follow. She was invested in him understanding how things worked. “My mark was at the edge of the board.”
“Right. What does the edge of the board do?”
“It curves.”
“Never put your measurements right at the edges. Also notice where the blade is coming down on the board. It lands in the middle here. That’s where you want to put your measurements, so you’re lining right up to it, not trying to eye it from the edge.”
After she declared him proficient with the chop saw, she ran through the operation of a nail gun and the basic rules of air tools, showing him how to use the quick connections. At first, the heavy tail of the hose was a constant hassle and trip hazard, but Hunter quickly became accustomed to looping it over an arm and anticipating its heavy swing.
She walked him around inside the building. “Sheathing is the stuff on the outside. This is pre-primed OSB, a kind of heavy-duty particle board. Siding will be attached to it on the outside. Studs are the boards in the frame that go up.”
Hunter watched the tips of her ears turn red and wondered if she was as affected by his presence as he was by hers. She was not exactly flirting with him, but Hunter caught her gaze lingering on his bare arms. It was a little chilly for short sleeves, but the two of them kept moving and the rising sun warmed things quickly.
“Sill plates go across at the top and bottom. Over doors and windows we have headers. Eight foot ceilings, what’s a stud-length 2x4 going to be?”
Hunter was still thinking about studs and he smiled slyly at her. “A sill top and bottom add up to 3 inches so it’s 93 inches.”
Trixie grinned. “Close. There’s 3/8 of an inch to account for ceiling and floor. Commercial stud length is 92 and 5/8.”
“Commercial studs are properly papered, I imagine,” Hunter said in a deadpan. “For breeding purposes.”
Trixie stared at him a moment and then burst out laughing. “You’re going to fit right in,” she said. Were her cheeks a little redder than her laughter accounted for?
She talked about how the exterior walls had been built on the floor, tipped up, and nailed into place. “The cross bracing is temporary, until the sheathing is fully connected to keep it from moving laterally. For these interior walls, we’ll be building in place. Can you think of why?”
Hunter looked around thoughtfully, eyeing the joists above them. “When you tip up the wall, you’re taller than the final wall, by geometry. You’re going to run into the joists above.”
“Because the wall hasthickness,” Trixie said, her eyes glowing happily. “Good job! I would have also accepted the reasoning that the temporary cross-bracing is crowding up the floorspace in here right now.”
