Gringos de Marimán

Weeks ago my brother Jim (an ex-roofer) commented that when our equipo finished the techo we needed to be sure to have a topping-off or roof-raising party for the workers. Chile has a tradition for this fiesta carrying the name "los tijerales". The name is derived from the word tijeral meaning truss or the framework for the roof. Traditionally, when the workers finish the tijerales they place a flag at the top of the structure. The flag signals the owners to start the preparations for a Chilean asado feast. Woe be the owner who chooses to ignore the bandera, or surely bad luck will soon appear on the horizon.
We'd been looking forward to celebrating the tijerales since we arrived in Chile last November, but I'll admit we were mainly eager to have a roof over the casa to reduce the threat of the winter weather. As often happens, now that the completion of the roof neared, the long anticipated feat became overshadowed by a new arrival. Monday afternoon the door and window frames grabbed the spotlight.

Kenny told me last week that the frames would be coming soon, but I guess the long cubierta delay tempered my expectations. The sight of this beautiful wood (Rauli Pellin) made quite an impression.

I suppose these frames represented the first chance to view some 'finishing' touches and we looked forward to seeing them installed.

Ok, the techo completion has been delayed long enough. After carting in the frames, the crew climbed back up to the roof. Here Leo prepares the notched vigas to be inserted into the grooved fierro on the garaje techo.

Here's an example of the small details that continue to amaze me. Notice how the fierro has one side grooved and one side flat. The grooved sides face each other as do the flat sides. If you look carefully at the fierro you'll also see small holes evenly spaced. First, vigas were inserted between the flat sides and nailed into place (using the holes in the fierro). Next, Leo notched vigas and inserted them between the grooved sides, hammering them into place. Here you can see the (almost) final framework. The size of the cubierta pieces and the location of the canales determined the pattern of the vigas. Ok, maybe that's more details than you really wanted to know.

The crew polished off the final cubierta work pretty quickly. They loaded the plancha pieces on top of the structure.

Claudio worked at bending the plancha tabs, while the rest of the crew fastened the cubierta over the top of the prepared surface.

Hold everything, the next morning the Madmass crew arrived to install the doors and windows. Madmass is the company, located in nearby Villarrica, that made the frames. Now we'll get a much better idea of what this casa will really look like. By the time I showed up the bedroom frames were in.

The crew then started on the kitchen, sanding the pillars down as required.

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Sorry those pictures make the process look too easy. Let's watch a large frame installation. Carrying the frame doesn't seem too bad, but I held my breath while they lifted the frame into place.

You can see the hojalateros were duly impressed.

Now you can appreciate just how open the house will be on this side.

Here's a view with all the frames installed.

Maybe you noticed Leo and Claudio nailing up the last few pieces of plywood between the windows. After finishing the lower techo they took on a few other tasks before completing the garaje.

Here they punched holes to clear the plywood in front of the bolts holding the rooftop fierro.

Which brings us to the fierro workers who kept busy by cutting iron, drilling bracket holes, and welding the brackets into place onto those bolts.

One other small but significant detail, the gasfiters began work on the sewer plumbing. Perhaps you've noticed that a lot of workers began appearing as we got closer to the tijerales? Mere coincidence I'm sure.

Back to the windows, or actually, the doors.

One more detail on the frames. See how the outer edges stick out beyond the plywood both inside and out? On the exterior, siding will be fitted inside that edge, while on the interior wood paneling will be used. For that reason the frames had to be installed prior to any other wall or floor surfaces.

Finally, a month after the first layer of wood went on the roof, the crew started the installation of the last section of cubierta.

Time to party. On Friday afternoon we opened our new door to welcome the workers to the tijerales. On the left hand side you can see three important elements of an asado: cerveza (Cristal, the Bud of Chile), pebre (a delicious type of salsa in the bowl - recipe to come later), and marraqueta (a type of bread that looks a little like a hot dog bun - baked fresh daily and consumed by nearly everyone here).

We started the party with cerveza and lots of empañadas fritas. The empañadas, a variety of types filled with cheese, ham, and seafood, served as appetizers while we waited . . .

. . . for lots of carne to cook. Daniel, one of the hojalateros, tends to the first round of longaniza sausages and trutros (chicken legs). Everyone started with choripan (sausages served in the maraqueta) with lots of pebre.

The crew made two large plywood tables and we easily fit 25+ people in the kitchen/work room.

After the preliminaries, everyone dug into Chilean ensaladas, the trutros, large chunks of grilled beef, and washed everything down with plenty of vino (tinto, of course). Several hours later all appeared sufficiently sated. Hopefully we avoided all forms of bad luck. Enough for now, I'm late as usual. Hasta la proxima!!