Race Brook Bridge Finishing Touches

Feeling the need to work off some Thanksgiving turkey dinner, Richard, Gary (his friend from Oregon) and I climbed up the hill to the Race Brook Bridge last Friday to do the finishing touches.  We counterbored 1" diameter holes in the stringers for the timber loks to sit in and then used the brace to drive them in.

We used some of the hemlock branches to whittle wood plugs for the holes to cover the heads of the timber loks.

With the plug smothered with linseed oil to slow the inevitable rot and hammered home the protruding end was cut off near flush with the top of the stringer, hiding the timber loks below.

The last finishing touch was to finish removing the stringer tops down to the saw cuts and put a small flat top on one of the base logs to serve as a step up to the bridge.

It was a fine day for finishing touches and there was plenty of trail traffic and folks trying out our new bridge!  A pair of hikers told us the old bridge was installed 15 years ago.  Anyone want to make a guess as to how long this one will last?