American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 124 Platform Construction Completed (4.6K words to soothe the wounded hearts of readers from the first two chapters)

When he returned to that familiar construction site, piled high with timber and building materials, and looked at the massive foundation platform that was already taking shape, his heart finally felt at ease.

For two consecutive days, Lin Yu-an was like a tireless machine, completely immersed in his work.

He tended to the vibrant seedlings in the greenhouse, his heart filled with a pastoral tranquility.

During the long days of the polar day, he would start his portable band saw and process huge logs into standardized building materials that could be used for construction.

He deliberately avoided thinking about Emily and everything that had happened in that cabin.

The twenty-day maintenance period flew by in a flurry of activity.

It's early July now.

The past twenty-odd days that Lin Yu'an has experienced feel longer than a year.

When David and Mike's helicopter landed on the Wiesman helipad again, Lin Yu-an and his stylish Zongshen tricycle were there to pick them up once more.

"Hey Lin! The holiday is over!" David gave him a big hug.

How have you been these past twenty days?

"I made some interesting little things." Lin Yu'an smiled mysteriously.

When the Ford Conqueror drove back into the wooded forest, David and Mike were completely stunned by what they saw.

Before they left, this was just a construction site where concrete pile foundations had just been poured.

Now, in the southeast corner of the construction site, a huge, modern greenhouse made of plastic film has risen from the ground! Through the bright film, you can even see a vibrant green scene inside!

But that's not the most shocking thing.

On the other side of the camp, the once messy "White Wood Mountain" has mostly disappeared.

Instead, there were several stacks of timber made of standardized building materials that had been flattened from top to bottom!

Each pile was elevated with wooden supports, allowing air to circulate freely. The entire construction site looked just like a professional timber processing plant!
"My God... Lin!"

David pointed at the greenhouse, then at the mountain of building materials, his mouth agape wide enough to fit an egg. He even rubbed his eyes, thinking the polar day sunlight was making him hallucinate!
"What...what is this? In the twenty days we were gone...not only did you build a greenhouse, but you also processed half of the wood?"

Lin Yu'an smiled and led them into the warm and humid greenhouse. Looking at the cucumber and tomato seedlings that had already begun to climb the trellis, he spoke calmly.

"I only did some preparatory work."

Everyone quickly got into the zone and started recording.

At David's insistence, Lin Yu'an took off his shirt, revealing his well-defined, bronze-colored muscles, then picked up the Steele chainsaw and pulled the start rope.

"Buzz-buzz-buzz-"

A deafening roar once again echoed throughout the valley.

He only filmed a few shots before putting his clothes back on; there were just too many mosquitoes.
Summer in Alaska is finally beginning to reveal its generous and wild side.

The sun during the polar day scorches the earth like a furnace.

The once muddy dirt road leading from the woodland to the Dalton Highway has become hard and dry after weeks of exposure to the sun and evaporation, making it strong enough to withstand the passage of heavy vehicles.

On this day, the long-absent roar of a diesel engine came from afar, breaking the tranquility of the "wood forest".

A huge, heavy-duty flatbed truck, like a long steel dragon, carefully drove slowly along the narrow dirt road into Lin Yu'an's camp.

This was the "Polaris Logistics" company he had contacted earlier. After confirming that the road was passable, they immediately transported all the modern building materials he had ordered to the heart of this wilderness.

Lin Yu'an called over Old George and Stan, and the group had been waiting there for a while. Seeing the truck arrive safely, they immediately began the inspection work.

Old George rubbed his hands excitedly: "Lin, the ammunition has finally arrived!"

His weathered face was etched with excitement at the prospect of making a big splash.

David and Mike also carried cameras, excitedly recording this important moment.

For reality shows, this scene of everything being ready is always full of a sense of ritual, marking the beginning of a new chapter.

Lin Yu'an started the XCMG XC760K loader and began unloading the goods in an orderly manner.

David's camera faithfully records these crucial materials that will soon be used to build homes, and guides Lin Yu'an's explanations with voice-over-voice questions.

"Lin, what are these things that look like saddles?"

David pointed to a pile of heavy hardware that gleamed with a silver metallic sheen and asked.

As Lin Yu'an carefully lifted a whole stack of supports, he explained, "These are heavy-duty galvanized steel pile top supports, also called column head connectors. They are the bridge connecting concrete and wood, and are also the key to ensuring the moisture and corrosion prevention of the wooden structure."

Then, he forked up piles of neatly stacked, heavy wooden planks.

"These are three-centimeter-thick tongue and groove plywood boards. See the tongue and groove joints on the edges? This allows the boards to fit together perfectly, forming a whole, with a strength far exceeding that of ordinary plywood. We will use it to lay the flooring on the first floor."

In addition, there were bundles of galvanized square-head screws of different specifications, and several huge wooden crates filled with tens of thousands of screws.

Finally, there was a whole roll of waterproof and moisture-proof material that looked like a black carpet, and several large buckets of thick asphalt adhesive.

After all the building materials were neatly unloaded and stacked according to their categories next to the construction site,
Old George's gaze fell on the twenty-one quietly standing concrete pillars: "It's time to put them to use."

"Before setting up any timber, we must make sure that the tops of all the piles are on the same absolute level."

Old George pulled a neatly coiled roll of transparent tubing from the toolbox of his old Ford. Each end of the tubing had a glass tube with clear markings attached.

David asked curiously, "George, is this just an ordinary water pipe?"

Old George scoffed, looking at him like he was a complete novice, and said in his Texas-accented accent, "Ordinary water pipes? Kid, this thing is way more accurate than all your fancy laser equipment, and it never runs out of power!"

He handed one end of the hose to Stan, took the other end himself, and began filling a large bucket with water.

As he poured the solution, he kept raising and lowering the tube, muttering, "Get rid of all the air bubbles. Any single air bubble will affect the final accuracy."

Once the water pipe is filled with water and it is confirmed that there are no air bubbles, the measurement begins.

Old George chose a concrete pile located at the center of the foundation, in the most suitable position, as the "elevation benchmark".

He took out a measuring tape and measured 10 centimeters down the side of the post from the top, then drew a clear cross mark with a red marker.

"Why not just use the top of the pile as the reference?" David asked again.

"Because there is an error in the top of the pile itself, our goal is to eliminate this error," Lin Yu'an explained to old George from the side.

Old George shouted to Stan, who was holding the other end of the hose, "Stan! Your turn! Take your end to the reference point!"

Stan stepped forward and pressed the glass tube in his hand tightly against the side of the benchmark pile.

He carefully moved it up and down, while having old George continue adding water to the glass tube until the top of the water level was perfectly aligned with the center of the red cross mark.

"Alright, George! This is good! We've reached the waterline!"

"Okay! Hold on! Don't move!" Old George shouted after confirming that Stan was aligned.

Then, old George took the other end of the water pipe and walked to the corner stake furthest from the reference point.

He also attached the glass tube in his hand to the side of the corner stake.

Due to the principle of communicating vessels, the water level on his side, regardless of the height of the pipe, would automatically remain at the same absolute horizontal level as the water level on Stan's side. He waited until the water surface completely stopped sloshing, then squinted and used the red marker to draw a cross mark on the water level line of his own glass tube.

"The first point is complete!"

Old George straightened up and said to everyone, "Now, the mark on this corner stake and the mark on our central benchmark stake are at exactly the same height, with an error of no more than one millimeter!"

Next, everyone began the standardized assembly line operation.

Stan, acting as the reference point controller, kept the position of his end of the water pipe stationary at all times.

Old George and Lin Yu'an, holding the other end of the water pipe, walked one by one toward the remaining nineteen posts.

At each location, they would repeat the same procedure: attach the glass tube tightly to the stake, wait for the water level to stabilize, and make precise marks at the water level line.

It took nearly an hour for the first step to be successfully completed when all twenty-one posts had a red mark on an absolutely horizontal line.

"Okay, now we have an invisible horizon."

Old George pointed to the marked points and said, "The next task is to grind down all the cement lumps that are above this line!"

Old George walked to the bed of his old Ford truck and pulled out a very imposing-looking, orange STILL TS800 hydraulic cutter.

“My God, George! You even have this thing?” David’s eyes widened when he saw the machine.

He recognized the big machine; it was a powerful tool typically found in professional roadside assistance and construction teams.

Old George proudly patted the machine's casing and laughed, "To make a living in this damn wonderful place like Alaska, you can't do without a few handy tools!"

"I used this machine to cut through frozen pipes in the oil field back then. Today, I can easily deal with these few small cement piles."

Old George directed, "Kid, you're young and strong, you do the heavy lifting! I'll direct, and Stan will be in charge of watering to cool it down!"

Lin Yu-an put on the heaviest 3M dust mask, goggles, and noise-canceling earmuffs and took over this fierce weapon.

He pulled the start rope, and the huge diamond saw blade, nearly 400 millimeters in diameter, began to spin at high speed.

Lin Yu'an gripped the machine tightly with both hands, precisely aligning the high-speed rotating saw blade with the red marker line of the first post.

“Sizzle!!!!”

The moment the saw blade came into contact with the hard concrete, a large number of dazzling sparks were emitted!

Stan immediately sprang into action, taking a hose connected to a bucket and a small water pump, aiming it at the cut, and spraying out a thin stream of water.

With the help of the water flow, the dust that should have been spreading turned into streams of gray mud that flowed down the piles.

Lin Yu'an was focused. He first cut a deep circular groove, more than ten centimeters deep, around the pile along the red line.

After cutting the ring groove, old George took out a high-powered electric pick from his toolbox.

“Da da da da da—!”

With a series of dense, powerful impacts, large chunks of concrete were easily chiseled away, revealing the steel reinforcement cage inside.

Finally, Lin Yu'an took out his own small angle grinder, changed the grinding disc, and carried out the final fine grinding on the rough surface after cutting, until the cut surface of the entire pile top became smooth and flat.

After all twenty-one pile tops had been processed, old George took out a 1.2-meter-long German Stabila high-precision level and conducted a final inspection between any two pile tops.

When he saw that the bubbles on the ruler remained perfectly within the center marks no matter where they were placed, he let out a satisfied exclamation.

"Nice! Kids, very smooth!"

With the leveling work successfully completed, the next step is to install the twenty-one "steel thrones" on these solid concrete foundations.

Old George opened a heavy wooden crate from the delivered supplies, revealing neatly stacked steel galvanized pile top supports inside.

“Lin, these little things look really sturdy.” David leaned forward, picked one up and weighed it in his hand, finding it to be much heavier than it looked.

Old George explained from the side, "Of course, this is called hot-dip galvanizing, which guarantees that it won't rust for a hundred years, even in Alaska's humid summers and freezing winters."

"It acts as a 'barrier' between the wood and concrete, preventing moisture from the ground from passing through the concrete to the wooden beams and causing the wood to mold and rot."

"Alright, Lin, it's your turn to show off your impact drill," old George said.

Lin Yu'an switched to a high-powered Bosch impact drill and installed a 20mm diameter four-hole alloy drill bit specifically designed for drilling concrete.

"Tu tu tu tu tu—"

With a powerful impact, the hard concrete was rapidly pulverized by the alloy drill bit.

Lin Yu'an's body trembled slightly with the rhythm of the impact drill, but his lower body remained extremely stable, always keeping the drill bit perfectly vertical.

Stan, meanwhile, was holding a tape measure, constantly measuring the depth of the hole.

"Alright! Fifteen centimeters! That's enough!"

When Stan gave the order, Lin Yu-an immediately stopped.

Next up was old George's turn—rebar implantation.

He first took out a high-pressure air gun, inserted the long nozzle into the bottom of the hole, and blew hard a few times to completely clean the dust out of the hole.

After confirming that the hole was clean, he aimed the glue gun, which resembled a giant syringe, at the hole until it was two-thirds full.

Then, slowly insert an M20 L-shaped anchor bolt into the hole filled with colloid by rotating it until the predetermined depth is reached.

"Once this structural adhesive has fully cured, it will chemically bond the screw and the entire concrete pile together completely."

the following few days.

The three of them worked together, with Lin Yu'an in charge of drilling, Stan in charge of cleaning the holes, and Old George in charge of applying adhesive and installing the screws. This assembly-line-like operation greatly improved efficiency.

Once the adhesive for rebar installation had reached its initial curing strength, they prepared to begin the final installation.

For the job that required more manpower, Lin Yu'an took the initiative to invite Barton, Cody and the others to help. The group put the heavy, saddle-shaped steel bracket onto the screw that had already been firmly "rooted" and placed a huge washer on it.

Then, using a torque wrench with adjustable torque settings, begin tightening the nut.

“Alright, set it to 300 Nm,” Old George said to Lin Yu’an.

When the wrench makes a crisp "click" sound, it means that the nut has been tightened to the preset perfect torque value.

They installed all twenty-one steel thrones in the same way.

Once the last nut was tightened, twenty-one steel supports, gleaming with metallic luster, stood neatly atop twenty-one gray concrete foundation stones.

"Perfect!" Old George clapped his hands in satisfaction as he looked at his foreman's masterpiece.

"Now, Lin, you have a foundation that can be passed down for a hundred years. Next, tomorrow it's time for those big guys to make their appearance!"

Old George's gaze fell upon the mountain of logs and building materials not far away.

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(Thank you all for sending me 400 monthly votes!)

(At the same time, I've gained experience, and I'll lay the groundwork for the female supporting characters later on, so it won't feel so abrupt.)
(Love you all!)
(End of this chapter)