Has anybody tried to build the 12×16 timber frame shed they had a few issues back? I bought a timber jig by logosol for my chainsaw and am going to go out and cut the beams for it starting next week some time I think it will be a good way to learn. timber framing
Any and all suggestions or comments would be welcome
Thanks Jim III
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Replies
Hi Jim, you don't seem to be getting much traffic. So while there are others with considerably more experience, I'll offer mine.
Took a peek at your gizmo. I'd expect it to work with a decent saw. Micro Mill is what I've used with a 4 cu in saw. Quite successful.
A friend bought an Alaskan mill and a variety of rip chains. None performed well. I finally convinced him to refile along the lines of a crosscut chain. Cutting speed increased immensely. I have no idea why those rip chains are marketed, or who would find them useful. For my Micro Mill use, I'm using the same chain I crosscut with.
Didn't see the article, but a hundred yrs ago there was a FH solo timber frame raising article that was very good. Give a yell if you'd like to peruse it. My timber frames are considerably larger, but I've used a variety of raising techniques.
Raising a bent was the FH article suggestion, and one that clearly works well. A 16' beam will get pretty heavy, unless you've mechanical advantage. I like hydraulics, but not everybody has tractors like mine.
I also like dovetailed diagonal members, rather than sheet sheathing. Not as strong, but seems to be adequate on this very windy mountain. Here's a 2 story, sitting on a concrete 2 story.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thanks for the reply I have a 853 Bobcat with forks or bucket for that matter I think that will work to lift them. But I have a couple of friends that made me carry a fully built duck blind through a swamp by hand and set it up on a posion sumac plant that I think I owe the oppurtunity to help me raise it by hand;) .
I have not decide at all how to side or roof it. I will worry about that when I get the frame done I do have a question thought how tight should the fit of tenons be in the mortises? and where is the point where to loose is ? and are there fixes other than just starting over for that?
Thanks, Jim III
If your Bobcat will reach high enough to set beams, my impression is that you're planning the building too short. Make those posts a little longer, you can get a (partial) second floor for very little extra effort. That was a mistake I made on my first post&beam building here. The other major mistake on that one was using tulip poplar for posts and beams. Second time around it was oak.
To me, there's only one roof choice, traditional standing seam. And if you're doing that, copper is obvious. Below is a pic of mine, with some recycled translucent panels I happened into. I also forewent roof sheathing, against recommendations. There are a lot of very old structures here with 1x purlins. Good enough for them, good enough for me. We're mountaintop, high winds, no problems. No plywood in my building. How traditional do you want to be?
Are you measuring the mc of your timbers? You really want to know how they're going to move if you're working very green wood. How tight? Depends.
My only tenons are in the post tops. Seasoned timber, tight joints. For diagonal bracing, again no ply sheathing, I let dovetailed diagonals into the posts and beams. Then pinned them. It's tight. On the first building, with minimal 2nd floor, I let the floor joists into the beams with sliding dovetails. Nice, but a lot of work. Confused the hell out of the building inspector.
One mistake an acquaintance made was pinning a tenon high into a beam. His beam shrank, leaving it suspended on the pin, 1/2" above the post shoulder. You want to pin low, if you're using them.
Have fun. Pretty sure I still have the article about raising bents if you'd like. I didn't, but that had to do with my height and lack of adequate platform. My uppermost beams ascended with a pair of comealongs and some temporary bracing, clamped to the posts. By myself. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
The Bobcat reaches about 12 ft tall. I would like to see the article on raising bents I think that is what they are doing in case they built the floor made all the bents then tipped them up and they dropped into holes (mortises) in the floor. Did you buy a slick or just use a regular wood chisel? I just want a functional building it will be proable a nice looking storage /potting/ playhouse depending who takes it over first. If it works out I will build another one. I just dont like the look of the cheap sheds i see in everybodys backyard. I dont know how much that copper cost but it looks beautiful= expensive :) I would love that look though.
Thanks JimIII
Jim, I'll side-band the article to you later. Depending on where the Bobcat sits, might be enough. My shorter posts were 12', giving good space on the second floor with a moderately steep roof. Far as I can tell, excess storage is always solved as a function of time.
Haven't used a slick, but I have a chisel almost as large. For wasteing dovetails, I use a good-sized router. Probably not OSHA approved, but worked well.
Copper's maybe $2.75/lb (sq ft) now? You don't have a whole lot of it to buy. Finding the old-fashioned seamers might be considerably more trouble. I borrowed from a retired roofer, who spent a short day (paid) here getting me started. I also used copper to cover end rafters, beam ends, and my gable peaks. Strikes me as cheap, for what you get. Why re-roof?
For that matter, I sheathed my whole house, and the next one, with copper. Zero maintenance, lasts almost forever.
If you're doing much, a set of standing seam tools (2 seamers, 2 pan tongs, hand anvil, mallet) generally bring around $300 at auction here. Good for any of the metal roofing. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Sorry Tom, but that is a storage building, not a shed.
be shed of a shed
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
I'll bite. What's the difference?
If a shed ain't a storage building, what do you do with it? Hold meetings? I mean, your doors have gotta live somewhere....
Mine's also been called a barn (drive-in on two levels). But this is a tree farm, for pete's sake, no (domesticated) livestock. Did get a new commercial customer for my kiln dried lumber yesterday. Now I've gotta finish the kiln (same building). Always somethin'... PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
What MC do you reccomend? I have a cheap meter but i am sure the wood will be very green. As a side note in a book on drying lumber i found an article on building your own meter from scratch but the cool thing is i found out that all it is,is a high impedence 10meg ohm meter which i use everyday for work so all I have to do is drive two nails in at a set distance and use a chart to get the correct mc using my 500 dollar meter I already own
LOL Yup, FWW had an article a loooong time ago about moisture meters. Conclusion was they all worked, from $20 up. I like pinless.
MC is one of those mixed bag things. Totally dependent on your climate. I was recently asked what mc I use for hickory in my house. My answer (12-15% depending on time of year) wouldn't be appropriate in a lot of houses, and certainly not in all climates.
For instance, I air-dried lumber to 7% mc in Denver when I lived there. 7% would be a joke here, too dry. The commercial places here claim 7%, and they probably do dry to that. But by the time it gets to the user, it ain't 7% most of the yr. Last white oak I bought was 12-14%, which suited me just fine. But in Denver it would cause problems for the unwary.
The important thing is to know what mc your wood is and what it's going to do. Then you can plan accordingly. Did you mention where you were? Your personal profile doesn't, which would help anybody offering advice. Click on your name to find it.
IIRC, you also haven't mentioned species. Strong recommendation to take a peek in Hoadley's "Understanding Wood" from Taunton Press, if that's not the book you were perusing. It'll take you through species and give you a firm understanding of movement. No surprises is what you want. Are you going to be able to avoid pith?
That solo timber-raising article is apparently in my shop. I'll go down when it warms up a little more.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Haven't got around to building one yet, but I remember the article & it looks like something fun to try.
Just wanted to say good luck, & show us pics when you're done.
Mike
Jim:
Where was that article? FH? Which one? I was beginning to think I'd imagined it.
Also, if you don't get the info you need here, the Timber Framer's Guild (tfguild.org) has an "Ask the Experts" sort of forum on their page. I haven't used it, but the guild is a great organization that distributes tons in information.
Good luck. I'd love to see progress reports and pictures.
Fine Homebuilding No. 166 Nov 04
Mike
You know what is funny is I had thought i had just read that article when the idea came to me about timberframing using the trees off my property and that it was so long ago 2004. I just had dug through my pile until i found that article and i didnt even look at the year lol. the still have on thier website pictures and instructions on building it
http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/h00153.asp
That should get you there and that part is free
Thanks for all the replies Jim III
http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/h00153.asp
Yeow! That's what you want to build? Incredibly more complicated than what I did.
Post photos. If you're doing that much work, copper is a tiny investment. Thanks for the link.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I bought Hoadleys book a few years ago read it cover to cover and have not read it since. It was suggested by someone on breaktime, it might have even been you it is a great book I learned a lot of info. I think your shed looks every bit as much work as the 12 by 16ft I want to build you put dovetails in on yours and there are no joints that hard on this one i think
thanks Jim III
Eye of the beholder, I guess. "As much work", well, yeah, but mine's substantially larger.
Dovetails are not complicated, just better than mortise and tenon because they work in both directions. I also used a modified dovetail to join my beams to each other, a Z joint. My rafters got simple birds' mouths and I set my whole shebang on concrete walls, making a very simple foundation.
Guys who knew more about framing than I do (which isn't much), told me my contraption is more like a chair than a post&beam building. Well, what do you expect from a furniture maker? (Who's still looking for that solo timber-raising article.)
I once spent a very enjoyable afternoon discussing joinery with a wagon wheel maker in Colonial Williamsburg. Very little difference from what I'm accustomed to.
Here's my foundation: PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
and here's my foundation:
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
What're the round things, almost look like well casings?
I was planning for a little more weight on my foundation, like high lumber piles on the barjoist floor.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Local factory made them.
Fiberglass housings for sewerpumps. ROAR!
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Here's my dovetail joint for tying beams together.12 x 16 timber shed is on my todo list this year also.
Very pretty. Any problems with beam twist, putting undue stress on the joint?
In my first building I used tulip poplar that moved so much it would have destroyed that joint. Weren't timbers I should have used, but it was what I had. Building's still erect, but there are a lot of large checks. You know what happens when you try to constrain wood movement. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Haven't been back to check lately, it's only been installed since Sept last year. It is well supported, and tied to the rear sill also. Rear sill was 1 pc...........31' long........called to get another one but they didn't have a tree long enough, so........ I don't see a lot of movement happening, maybe some shrinkage, but it ain't going anywhere.In one of these pics you can see the half lap in the middle, before the brick foundation was built.In pic 1000049 of the finished barn, the joint is right at the brick/stone foundation line. Rod
Edited 3/7/2006 7:26 am ET by notagain
Great to see somebody take the trouble/money to do a good fix. Around here that's rare. I can think of a dozen old barns around in various stages of falling down, owners waiting for it to happen to make demo easier.
Size of trees comes into play here sometimes too. I was asked about some large oaks awhile back, larger than the saw mills could find, or longer than anybody bothered to transport to them. One of the reasons I was happy a friend bought an Alaskan mill, length limited only by the tree. Now, 50' beam is no problem, other than moving it.
My problems came from locking tulip poplar in place. You know what happens when wood wants to move and you constrain it: compression set. Oaks were much better. Or I was, at selecting timbers.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
That is a beautiful joint and very precise, so is it a halflap and opposite sides have dovetail? did you use power tools and if so how. I was hoping someone would tellme how to use power tools for most of it.
Thanks Jim III
Yes, it is a half lap with corresponding dovetails. I used it to join 2 8 x 8 pine sills together to get one 33' long.I did use power tools, actually my 28V Milwaukee saw. The barn I was working on was about 150' away from the nearest power outlet...........that Milwaukee kit came in handy.That joint was a copy of one I found in a timber framing book, it's credited to Ed Levin, one of the founding members of the Timber Framers Guild. (Thanks again Ed)I cut with the saw almost to the 1/2 point of the beam, and finished the cut with a jap saw. Then most of the work was done with a 1 1/2" timber framing chisel and a slick.It was a lot of fun to work on that barn. Rod