With a piece of structural steel in the foreground awaiting its ride in the sky, the skeleton of the 65 Campus Ave. student residence is shown on May 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Getting here from there (updated May 28!): 乐播传媒-bound motorists, watch for full closures of Campus Avenue the weeks of June 1 and June 8.

• June 2 and 3, Campus will be closed between Bardwell and Franklin streets;
• June 4 and 5, from Franklin to Central Avenue;
• and June 8 and 9 from Franklin right into the Central Avenue intersection. But note that a lane from Franklin across Campus into the Chase Hall service road will be open throughout.

You’ll be directed to a Vale Street detour while these two blocks of Campus undergo surgery to make sewerage connections. See a diagram of the closures.

Uprights in place on the first day of placing steel at 65 Campus Ave., April 22, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

We’ll steel away: It’s just shy of a month since the steel started rising for 乐播传媒 College’s new student residence at 65 Campus Ave. But already the shape and, more intriguingly, the size of the building are fully discernible.

The steel skeleton is the full four stories high. The roof structure started appearing on May 11 and was nearly done by the 19th. Most of the shiny corrugated metal decking that will support the concrete floors is in place.

A rigger for Stellar Steel looks for the next piece of the 65 Campus Ave. metal to give to the crane on April 22, 2015. Note the markings on the components that specify where and in what order they will be placed. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

So at this point it doesn’t take too much imagination to picture the transformation that’s coming to 乐播传媒’ south side as No. 65 and its fraternal twin at No. 55 near completion, more than a year from now. And that mental picture will be even easier to conjure up come June, when steel starts rising for 55 Campus.

Construction manager Consigli Construction and its subcontractors have made good progress since work in the field began, nearly a year ago 鈥� but it hasn’t always seemed like it, between a heavy winter, the green fences that block views of the construction and the fact that until mid-April, much of the work happened below grade.

The label on a piece of steel indicates where in the 65 Campus Ave. structure it will be placed, and when. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

But now the job is flying along, literally and metaphorically. “I’ve been very pleased,” says Chris Streifel, who manages the construction project for 乐播传媒. The steelwork at No. 65 “has been a well-orchestrated process, from the structural design to the fabricators’ design to the final approvals.”

Everyone has “worked diligently and thoroughly. And the result is that it’s been a fairly trouble-free installation. It doesn’t always work as smoothly in the field as this has.”

Erectors at work on April 22, 2015, the first day of hanging steel at the 65 Campus Ave. student residence. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

It’s always pleasant to watch other people work (especially when watching them is your work). But watching Stellar Steel Erectors of West Suffield, Conn., hang metal is flat-out compelling, between the aerial ballet of the steel dangling from the crane and the seeming ease with which the skeleton has gone together.

The state of the steel at 65 Campus Ave. on May 7, 2015, seen from Central Avenue and the official Campus Construction Update ladder. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Stellar’s crew at 乐播传媒 is a mere eight or nine workers. Up on the building, the people who are actually grabbing the steel out of the air and fastening it into place are called erectors.

On the ground is the rigger, who coordinates the work. He and an assistant called a flagger arrange the steel in a sensible order on the ground as it arrives from fabricator Norgate Metal. The rigger directs the erectors and the crane operator and keeps the steel pieces, marked accordingly by Norgate, floating up in the proper order.

The Link-Belt crane can lift 40,000 pounds to a height of 300 feet. The crane operator, with some radio guidance and hand signals from colleagues, places all of the steel solely by eye 鈥� no GPS or GoPro helping out.

The student residence at 65 Campus Ave. has entered its third week of steel placement in this image taken May 7, 2015. Notice the second-floor welding at right. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Making every lift count, the rigger will often attach to the crane’s cables as many as three steel components 鈥� and no more than three, according to OSHA regulation 鈥� making what insiders call a “Christmas tree.”

Campus Construction Update admires the metal’s tasteful palette of pale gray and dull maroon (sorry, Bobcats: not quite garnet), but in fact there’s a reason the colors vary.

With gray conduits for electrical, telecom and data service in the foreground, workers build a form for concrete footings at 55 Campus Ave. on May 7, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Some steel components will later be coated with paint. Others will take fire-resistant coatings, such as a thick textured spray-on goop or so-called intumescent paint, which, in the unlikely event of a fire, help keep the steel below the temperature 鈥� upwards of 800 degrees Fahrenheit 鈥� at which it starts to droop.

Different coatings require different primers, and the different primers come in different colors, says Consigli project engineer Kirk Mullen.

Concrete mixers ready to place foundation footings for the 55 Campus Ave. student residence on May 7, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Tim Schneider, Consigli project manager, explains that every joint in the steel skeleton has been designed by an engineer. Some joints are welded, typically when necessary for structural rigidity or in areas where a nut and bolt can’t physically fit. External inspectors make sure the welds are done right.

Most joints, though, are fastened with good old nuts and bolts 鈥� albeit much beefier than the ones that your Dad kept in old Sanka jars on the shelves above the workbench. These nut-and-bolt connections each need to be tightened to a specified tension.

With a “Christmas tree” — multiple pieces of steel in one lift — dangling from the crane, the framework of 65 Campus Ave. is shown from the west on May 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Back in the day, the prevailing “turn of the nut” method involved some math, so-called match-marks and a couple of loving caresses with a big wrench to attain the proper tightness. But today’s fasteners, like technology in so many other areas, tell you whether you’re doing it right.

So-called tension control bolts, or TCBs, come with a sacrificial part that breaks off when the desired tension is reached. (Pencils serve a similar role here in the Campus Construction Update penthouse when the big wrench of deadline pressure is applied.)

A tension-control bolt, with nut. As the fastening is tightened, the ribbed piece at right snaps off the bolt when the proper tension is reached. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

TCBs make visual inspections fast and straightforward, Schneider says. Streifel adds that “the TCBs themselves are tested on site to make sure they snap off at the right tension. And the guns they tighten them up with are calibrated to make sure they’re applying the right torque. So there’s a lot of checking and double-checking.”

Speaking of which, in a final step, the erectors periodically true up their latest work and only then finalize the fastenings. “Steel isn’t perfect 鈥� it’s got some bends and waves in it,” Streifel explains. “Each crew has their own technique, but usually you’ll put portions of a structure together loosely just to make sure it all fits.

“For example, when you need to put a crosspiece in between two other pieces, you might have to push them apart a little bit to get it in. And if you’ve bolted everything up rigidly, you’ve lost your flexibility to do that.”

With this phase of the Campus Life project now ahead of schedule, Streifel expects Stellar to move crew and crane across Franklin Street in two or three weeks.

“All other things being equal,” he says, “the steel should go slightly faster at 55 Campus Ave. The building is a little bit smaller, and without a basement it’s less complicated than 65.

“And you always get the benefit when you’ve done something before that you’re going to go faster the second time.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淲hat did those pencils ever do to you?鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

The crane lowers a piece of steel into place at 65 Campus Ave. on May 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

As this was written, on Aug. 20, Hedge Hall was something to watch as a crane swung long steel beams across the blue sky toward the building.

There’s plenty of new steel in Hedge already, says project manager Paul Farnsworth, but the creation of the building’s framework will become more of a spectator sport as it increasingly happens outside the building’s shell. That will include the skeleton for the building’s addition, adjacent to Alumni Walk — and the foundation for that addition was completed this week.

Then comes the roof structure. But before the roof work can be done, how about a place for the workers to stand?

Hedge as we know it comprises an original 19th-century portion and a 20th-century addition (the part currently lacking a roof). The older part never had a finished third floor. So to work on the roof on that end, a floor is in order. The underlying structure has “all been beefed up and now they have to put the subfloor over it,” Farnsworth says. “Once that’s in, they can shore up the roof that’s there, and then put in the steel for all of the roof at the same time.”

The original plan for the roof was to strip it all off and rebuild it completely. But general contractor Wright-Ryan Construction decided that time could be saved by retaining the remaining roof a while longer while the structure is built underneath.

In an interesting angle to the steel discussion, Farnsworth notes that after the beams are set in place, the bolts fastening them still must be tightened to an appropriate, er, tightness. Or, in the words of people like Farnsworth, who actually know what they’re talking about, torqued.

You can use a torque wrench, which shows you how tightly a bolt is turned. But later, when it’s time to inspect the steelwork, going around with a torque wrench to check the tension on every bolt would drive you nuts.

So instead the bolts are manufactured with cleverly engineered little extensions on the end. When the bolt is tightened up to spec, Farnsworth says, “the end breaks off, by design. Then, when they’re inspecting it, they don’t have to go around with a torque wrench.” The inspectors just look for the broken-off ends.

Roger Williams Hall is next in line for interior steel. You can see the smallish square holes in the roof into which columns will be lowered. A little steelwork has been done at the Bill already — perhaps you have seen the beam, set into the east wall, that will support a lintel over a passage between the new and old parts of the building.

So, much more steel is on the way. But you don’t need Campus Construction Update to tell you — although we will anyway — that with this sort of work you always have to do something else before you can do what you set out to do.

In this case, if you are going to hang a lot of steel, you need space to store it. And the Hedge-Roger Bill worksite currently doesn’t have much space because there’s so much excavation going on — digging for utilities and for foundation access.

However, says Farnsworth, “we are wrapping up site excavation, which is good because it frees up a lot of real estate when all the other trades” — i.e., workers for the next phases of construction — “and their materials start showing up. We need a place to stockpile stuff.”

He adds that no additional excavations outside the fence are expected.

The steam line installation between Hedge and Ladd Library, which required a big long trench that closed off the service road behind Ladd, is nearly done. The trench around the foundation of Roger Bill will be filled in soon, covering up the attractive Orangesicle-colored damproofing.

And what’s left for the underground work — a little more steam work near the Bill, and chilled water lines between the Bill and Hedge — will be started next week.

“Chilled water” lines? Farnsworth explains that a big water chiller in Chase Hall feeds the air conditioning in Chase, Ladd and Carnegie Science. Installing new, more-efficient air handlers into Ladd last year gave the system extra capacity. So during the Hedge-Ladd steam pipe replacement, chilled water service was extended to Hedge, whence it will connect to Roger Bill.

“It鈥檚 an efficient way to do it because it鈥檚 one central plant,” says Farnsworth. “The new projects don鈥檛 have to pick up their own cooling equipment. And you don鈥檛 have to find a place outside each building for the heat rejection portion” — that is, A/C exhaust.

Finally, Farnsworth shares a revelation that he and some colleagues had the other day while standing in a future classroom on the first floor of Hedge, at the end next to Dana Chem. They realized that this classroom will be “unique on campus because it has windows on both sides,” he says. “We have corner classrooms, but we don鈥檛 have one that has opposite windows.”

Look one way and there’s the Historic Quad; look the other, and there’s Pettengill. “It鈥檚 going to be a cool and unique place.”

Read about a and the renovation of. And here are the plans for the renovations of Hedge and Roger Williams halls.

John Hinshaw, a visiting instructor in the history department at 乐播传媒, is also a visiting scholar with the Institute for Studies in International Education at the University of Pittsburgh for 1995-96.

A consultant for “Struggles in Steel: The History of African-American Steelworkers,” a documentary film to be released later this year, Hinshaw is the author and editor of numerous publications concerned with race, ethnicity and labor history, including the forthcoming book he co-edited with Paul LeBlanc, “U.S. Labor in the Twentieth Century: Studies in Fragmentation and Insurgency” (Humanities Press, 1997).

Hinshaw received master’s and doctor’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. His bachelor’s degree is from Macalaster College.