62 HOW TO BUILD A SILO. 



place only from the inside, and when set in place and pressed 

 down with silage the harder the pressure the tighter will the 

 door fit. After the silo is set up and the hoops have been put 

 on and tightened the cutting out of the doors may be completed. 

 Before doing this, cleats 2 inches by 3 inches and in length equal 

 to the width of the door, should be made which will conform 

 to the circular shape of the silo. One of these cleats should 

 be securely bolted to the top and one to the bottom of where 

 the door is to be cut. (See Fig. 15.) After the bolting, the 

 door may be sawed out, and it is then ready for use. When 

 set in place at time of filling the silo a piece of tarred paper 

 inserted at the top and bottom will fill the opening made by the 

 saw and prevent the entrance of any air around the door. 



Another Door for Stave Silo. 



Silage being heavy to handle and pitch up, has made contin- 

 uous doors a popular feature of a few factory-built silos, as it 

 is much easier to get the silage out of the silo for feeding. The 

 illustration, Fig. 19, shows a method of making a door in home- 

 made silos which is continuous with the exception of a narrow 

 brace piece extending across the opening, under each hoop, 

 to give rigidity to the structure. These pieces should be 

 securely toe-nailed at each end to the staves. The jamb pieces, 

 e, e, should be 2 inches thick, beveled off on the side away 

 from the door, securely spiked to the inside of the stave, as 

 shown, so as to leave a rabbet 2x2 inches. Great care should 

 be taken to have these pieces exactly the same distance apart 

 throughout their entire length, so that the door boards, being 

 sawed the exact length, will fit alike and properly all the way 

 up, and if care be taken in this regard it will not be necessary 

 to replace them in the same order at each successive filling of 

 the silo. The door boards should be matched, two inches thick 

 the same as the staves, and if surfaced and well seasoned there 

 need be no fear of the silage spoiling around such a door. A 

 strip of acid and water- proof paper may be placed in the rabbet, 

 between the ends of the door boards and the stave, as an extra 

 precaution, but if the carpenter work is well done it is not 

 absolutely necessary. 



Such a door can be Adapted to any form of stave silo, and, if 

 not more than two feet wide, the fact that the door section 

 is straight instead of curved will make no difference. 



