Nice. Never heard of an Alaskan slab before. I shall look deeply into it.

Yes, the ties will be quite heavy. An 18' 8"x10" WO beam weighs about $700# green. Yikes. But alas, it was Newton who said, "Give me a big enough lever and I shall move the earth". He also believed in Alchemy and was in general nuts. I live square in an Amish sect. If I have the bents ready, the Amish will just show up and pop the structure up. I won't have to ask...they have amish radar of sorts. They'll also probably bring chickens for lunch. The site is wooded and I'll have a few trees to help me out, and I plan on a gin pole too. Of course they'd buy an air nailer and a compressor before they'd chisel a frame. And if they did chisel (one guy locally does), all scarfs would be half lapped on a post. My sentimental side cringes at the thought. "Functional" and "pretty" are synonyms in my somewhat twisted backwoods dictionary.

I'm currently trying to get enough housework done (read: turn a zillion vases from the burl pile out front) so that I can chisel and not feel guilty about neglecting the lathe or let pretty wood rot. Back to the salt mine....

I will see what I can dig up regarding the monolith.

Regards;

AJS