Ethan Schlussler is making steady progress on his northern Idaho treehouse — you may recall the bicycle-powered treehouse elevator post I put up about a month ago. He recently put up a video showing how he built and installed one wall on the hexagonal structure. Did I mention that he mills all his own lumber?
I was curious what Ethan does for his day job, and he told me:
I work for a neighbor doing just about everything. Sometimes I am a mechanic, welder, or fabricator; sometimes I am a carpenter, painter or roofer; sometimes a heavy equipment operator, and occasionally even a logger. With some landscaping and yard work thrown in here and there for good measure.
Ethan also sent me some photos of the build process. It’s almost done, now!
Ethan says:
The build process has been an incredible experience, and I have learned far too many things to share them all. That said, one thing that took me completely by surprise was how much the tree house can rotate with just a minor amount of force. This is primarily caused by the tree itself twisting, which is something I really did not expect, given the size of the tree. In terms of the elevator, the build process was fairly uneventful, though incredibly entertaining. I did have to make a few modifications to the original design to get the gear ratio low enough for it to work, but that is mostly because I did not really calculate anything in the design process; I just designed it in my head and built it in a way I thought it would work, which it did after the afore mentioned modifications.
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