woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Don't give up Brendon. Just purchase a decent machine, you will be glad you did. Nothing wrong with a newer machine for making mortises. 
Timber Framing
- Thread starter brendonv
- Start date
- Replies 1K
- Views 110K
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Sit down before you hit the Buy it Now button! http://www.mafell.com/produkte/prod_fraesen_ls103_i.htm 
tblough
Climbing Up
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
That's only about a third of the Mafell.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
It's been awhile since I uploaded the pics from my camera, and I found a bunch from the barn project that you guys might like to see. Most people don't get to see the repair process, just the finished project. I'll probably break it up into a couple of posts. Here are a couple of random shots. I hope I'm not boring everyone.
I got tired of working around 40' timbers, so I built a bunch of wall brackets to put them on. It doesn't look like it, but the two plates on the Lull, and the two on the floor right in front of it are all 40'-3 7/8". They are all on the five brackets on the wall now. A plate is a horizontal timber that posts go into, and that also support the rafters.
Face patch in a plate around a post top.
East range wall with all repairs completed and fitted. This shows the posts and braces fitted into the plate.
West range wall. Closest post is new, one of only five pieces that had to be completely replaced. It is hewn, and scribed into the assembly.
I got tired of working around 40' timbers, so I built a bunch of wall brackets to put them on. It doesn't look like it, but the two plates on the Lull, and the two on the floor right in front of it are all 40'-3 7/8". They are all on the five brackets on the wall now. A plate is a horizontal timber that posts go into, and that also support the rafters.
Face patch in a plate around a post top.
East range wall with all repairs completed and fitted. This shows the posts and braces fitted into the plate.
West range wall. Closest post is new, one of only five pieces that had to be completely replaced. It is hewn, and scribed into the assembly.
SkwerI
Treehouser
Wow! 
Not boring at all, Dave. I think more accurate adjectives might be 'astounding' or 'amazing'.
Not boring at all, Dave. I think more accurate adjectives might be 'astounding' or 'amazing'.
rskybiz
TreeHouser
Dave on the sill ends, is that rot repair?
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Often in early buildings, small parts were riven. We talked about this regarding axe handles in one of the threads this week (mind is slipping, can't remember which one). In straight stock, riving is very fast, and reduces the amount of not only hewing, but waste as well. The brace stock in this barn was riven, and I had to replace three braces in the wall. Unfortunately, my stock was not very straight-grained at all, but I got them split.
I started with a white oak log that I squared up on the mill. You start the split with the froe, and then add wooden wedges, called gluts, as the split opens. In the end, I had a bunch of black locust gluts, as well as a bunch of my felling wedges involved in the process. I'm told straight oak just pops apart.
Quartered brace stock. Lots of wedges, beating, and possibly some swearing involved.
I made up a little fixture to hold the stock for hewing. White oak hewed better than I had expected.
Finished brace fitted into the wall assembly. This is a scribe rule building, so each piece is fitted into exactly one spot. This requires actually laying all the pieces out and pulling dimensions and corners to get it all square and level. In later square rule buildings, each piece is cut by itself, and does not require any test fitting or mocking up of the frame.
I started with a white oak log that I squared up on the mill. You start the split with the froe, and then add wooden wedges, called gluts, as the split opens. In the end, I had a bunch of black locust gluts, as well as a bunch of my felling wedges involved in the process.
I'm told straight oak just pops apart.
Quartered brace stock. Lots of wedges, beating, and possibly some swearing involved.
I made up a little fixture to hold the stock for hewing. White oak hewed better than I had expected.
Finished brace fitted into the wall assembly. This is a scribe rule building, so each piece is fitted into exactly one spot. This requires actually laying all the pieces out and pulling dimensions and corners to get it all square and level. In later square rule buildings, each piece is cut by itself, and does not require any test fitting or mocking up of the frame.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Thanks for the compliments.
Yes, most of the repair work I have done is to repair decay. As you can see, the repair work is primarily to the bottoms of the posts. One more series of photos coming tonight. Yes, the shop is nice, 6,000 square feet. I assembled both 40' walls end to end in the middle of the shop, with 20'to spare.
Yes, most of the repair work I have done is to repair decay. As you can see, the repair work is primarily to the bottoms of the posts. One more series of photos coming tonight. Yes, the shop is nice, 6,000 square feet. I assembled both 40' walls end to end in the middle of the shop, with 20'to spare.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
I'm at a loss for words, and that doesn't happen often.
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
Not only astounding, but very cool 
Really awesome work Dave.
Really awesome work Dave.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
I've only got a few repairs to go on this barn, then it will be stored against the wall, and the other barn in the pics will be pulled apart, and I'll get started on that one. I worked with our architect to measure and document each piece of the frame. Each time a part needed a repair, he would draw it up on the spot. The documenting took, I think eight days, he would come to our shop once a week. In the meantime, I would be cutting repairs the rest of the week. As the project progressed, he started making the repairs more interesting. No two repairs are identical, although some are of a similar nature. Yesterday, I started laying out and cutting the last timber to be repaired, and found two repairs the likes of which I hadn't encountered before, two face patches in an Anchorbeam. This has been an interesting timber to repair. At first, it seemed that it would be very easy to just pop a couple of face patches on, kind of like what I did on that plate patch. Then, after studying the drawing, I realized that the repair was not a simple square edged block, but a multi-sided contraption that I didn't really have a name for, although "face patch with compound double under squinted pains in my ass", was one I had in mind. In the end, it turns out these two patches are in a way the coolest I've done so far.
So, this is going to be a long one. Here is one of the anchorbeams. It's about 10"x17"x24'. It's one of the small ones, the big ones are 10"x22"x24'. The timber gets levelled in width and length. I do this for most layouts, but not usually for the cutting, but in this case, there is a special consideration. #1 Anchorbeam with some of the tools required to layout and cut the two repairs.
The rest of the tools. I also used my Boss Double Eagle boring machined, not pictured. The screw gun is only used to install the Headlok fasteners. Everything else is done by hand.
Here is the first repair partially cut. As you can see, the wood is a little crossed grained, and also a bit brashy, I think the term is. It doesn't work well, and already has some defect, as you'll see later. As I mentioned, the timber is levelled for the cutting in this case. That is because there is only one reference line (chalked line from the layout process) for each plane of the repair. I had to develop a solution for that in the next photo.
In order to ensure the repair piece will fit, I had to make sure the planes were square to each other, and cut according to the layout. I did this by establishing small spots that were level, and then using a square to make sure the horizontal and vertical planes were perpendicular to one another. These spots I marked, and then cleaned the rest to the same depth.
Finished. Repair is about 4' long. Notice that it is trapezoidal in both planes. This is where it gets interesting.
This is the next repair on this timber, and the one I've so far cut the patch for. The double undersquintedness of the repair is very evident here. An undersquint is where there is an angle in a joint that helps to capture one of the two pieces. There was a big knot in this repair, which I cut off with a hand saw. If the knot was sticking straight out, and the patch didn't have to slide into the hole, I would have drilled a hole in the patch and kept the knot. Why? Because I have a weird sense of humor.
When I rough out a repair piece, it has to be oversized by about 1/4" to 1/2" so that I can hew it to fit after I've glued or screwed it in place. This caused me a little concern at first, as I didn't know how I was going to lay it out oversized. In the end, I figured out that if I used one side of the block as a reference, and projected the lines around the piece, I could get the angles I needed. I'll admit I was a bit amazed when the lines ended up where the were supposed to be after I went all the way around the block. The next pic is a little fuzzy, but shows some of this layout. The upper horizontal line is the actual finished size of the block, give or take a little hewing. The red lines project past that to the upper surface and go all the way around the block.
Funny shaped block of wood.
Blocked dropped into the hole. Part of the reason for over sizing the repair block is so that I can plane of chisel away some of the wood to get it to fit the timber. In this case, the repair block will be the "standard" to which the timber will be fitted to, as it has been cut in nice hand planed and square block of wood. Now that the block is in there, I can see where I have to clean out a little in the timber to get it to fit the rest of the way in.
So, this is going to be a long one. Here is one of the anchorbeams. It's about 10"x17"x24'. It's one of the small ones, the big ones are 10"x22"x24'. The timber gets levelled in width and length. I do this for most layouts, but not usually for the cutting, but in this case, there is a special consideration. #1 Anchorbeam with some of the tools required to layout and cut the two repairs.
The rest of the tools. I also used my Boss Double Eagle boring machined, not pictured. The screw gun is only used to install the Headlok fasteners. Everything else is done by hand.
Here is the first repair partially cut. As you can see, the wood is a little crossed grained, and also a bit brashy, I think the term is. It doesn't work well, and already has some defect, as you'll see later. As I mentioned, the timber is levelled for the cutting in this case. That is because there is only one reference line (chalked line from the layout process) for each plane of the repair. I had to develop a solution for that in the next photo.
In order to ensure the repair piece will fit, I had to make sure the planes were square to each other, and cut according to the layout. I did this by establishing small spots that were level, and then using a square to make sure the horizontal and vertical planes were perpendicular to one another. These spots I marked, and then cleaned the rest to the same depth.
Finished. Repair is about 4' long. Notice that it is trapezoidal in both planes. This is where it gets interesting.
This is the next repair on this timber, and the one I've so far cut the patch for. The double undersquintedness of the repair is very evident here. An undersquint is where there is an angle in a joint that helps to capture one of the two pieces. There was a big knot in this repair, which I cut off with a hand saw. If the knot was sticking straight out, and the patch didn't have to slide into the hole, I would have drilled a hole in the patch and kept the knot. Why? Because I have a weird sense of humor.
When I rough out a repair piece, it has to be oversized by about 1/4" to 1/2" so that I can hew it to fit after I've glued or screwed it in place. This caused me a little concern at first, as I didn't know how I was going to lay it out oversized. In the end, I figured out that if I used one side of the block as a reference, and projected the lines around the piece, I could get the angles I needed. I'll admit I was a bit amazed when the lines ended up where the were supposed to be after I went all the way around the block. The next pic is a little fuzzy, but shows some of this layout. The upper horizontal line is the actual finished size of the block, give or take a little hewing. The red lines project past that to the upper surface and go all the way around the block.
Funny shaped block of wood.
Blocked dropped into the hole. Part of the reason for over sizing the repair block is so that I can plane of chisel away some of the wood to get it to fit the timber. In this case, the repair block will be the "standard" to which the timber will be fitted to, as it has been cut in nice hand planed and square block of wood. Now that the block is in there, I can see where I have to clean out a little in the timber to get it to fit the rest of the way in.
SkwerI
Treehouser
The way you can project all those multiple angles onto the wood and make those pieces fit just blows my mind, Dave. I think at one point in high school I probably could have functioned at the level required to follow along but today I simply cannot wrap my mind around the mathematical skills required to visualize that.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
I love this thread.
Burnham
Woods walker
Beautiful, just beautiful. Art of the highest order. Thanks for sharing, Dave.
tntree
Just slice it
No Shit that is awesome man, I am amazed at your accuracy. Very cool.
Like Burnham said pure ART to me
Like Burnham said pure ART to me
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Thanks for the compliments. It's really been a learning experience. I was lucky to get this barn for my first project. I'll be hewing out a new door post next week, I'll do a post on that with pics.
K
Knotahippie
Guest
Looking forward to the next episode.
Great stuff, Dave.
Great stuff, Dave.
PCTREE
Treehouser
Wow Dave, super cool. I wonder if 200 years ago the guy that crafted that frame ever imagined that somebody would be refinishing it......
Do you get some kind of "feel" for the original crafts men??
Do you get some kind of "feel" for the original crafts men??
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Todays timber framer is a much different person than 200 years ago. The idea was to get a strong building built with as little effort as possible. There are rules in joinery, like a 2" mortise spaced 2" from your reference face. In this building, the rule for everything but the largest, and smallest pieces is 2 1/4" - 2 1/4". However, it is clear that they weren't too worried about a little slop in the joinery. This is a scribe rule barn, meaning each piece was laid out on some sort of full scale rendering of the frame, probably on top of the sills and floor system. Then each piece is scribed to fit only that one place in the frame. Despite the fact that each piece doesn't have to be perfect, they clearly made an effort to see that they cut everything as consistently as possible. There were a few things that we found during the documenting that were interesting, like clues to how they laid things out, and in which order. One the big anchorbeams, there is a radius on the ends of the through tenon. At first, it looked kind of random, but then after I played around with a pair of dividers, I found the same hole that the original framer used, and was able to swing arcs that exactly followed the radius. That was a pretty neat moment.
Anchorbeams with through tenons.
Anchorbeams with through tenons.
sotc
Dormant hero!!
Wow, haven't checked this thread in ages, i'm with Brian!
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Nice looking beams there!
squisher
THE CALM ONE!!!!
If you need a Canadian holiday I've got a old barn or two that could use some love.
Jk'ing my old barns are nothing like what you're working on. Cool thread. Very impressive work.
Jk'ing my old barns are nothing like what you're working on. Cool thread. Very impressive work.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
I'm just about done with the barn I'm working on now. Put together one of the gables yesterday. There are a couple of pieces that have to have the repairs fit into the assembly, most notably the new post in the lower right. It's already been fitted into the wall sections I posted earlier. Had a hard time getting the whole thing in frame. I typed up a more detailed post earlier, but I must not have submitted it.:roll:
Similar threads
