Interesting video of a reused timber frame

I found this video at FineHomebuilding.com and thought it was worth sharing. It’s a beautiful old frame that they dismantled, moved, and reconstructed into a home. There are a couple follow up videos also available (you can find them via the link above).

 

Video Length: 7:01 Produced by: Matt Berger

Milling porch posts (part 2 with video)

Sunday of this week was a nice day. Dad and I had already milled 15 6x6 posts for the porch, and I decided to get the rest of them milled. Last week I 3 new Oregon saw chains from from Treestuff.com (3/8” pitch, .058 gauge, 115 drive links). They shipped them out right away and I received them on Friday. These were regular cross cut chains with a 25 degree angle on the teeth. Sunday morning I ground the first one to 20 degrees with a 50 degree hook angle. Generally, ripping chains are ground to either 0 degrees or 10 degrees. I wanted to try it at 20. It worked fine. I’ll probably try the next one at 10 degrees so I can compare it to this one.

I purchased a new video camera (Canon FS100) for creating a video documentary of the house-building process from this point forward. Using the sawmill provided an opportunity to use it. My dad shot this video of me finishing one of the posts.

I’ll probably share occasional videos on the blog. The editing process for the documentary of the project will happen later.

After milling on Sunday, we now have 22 posts ready for the porch.

I still have some more cedar logs to mill, but I’ve not decided yet what dimension lumber/beams would be most desirable at this point. I’ll also need to haul some beech logs from Gill’s place and mill them. I think the milling will be put on hold for the next three weeks at least, though. I’m hoping to get the root cellar floor poured and the walls blocked and then to get a perimeter of concrete blocks laid around the timber frame. These will enclose the crawl space and help support the porch and straw bale walls.

Video of the frame raising

I just put together a video of our frame raising, or parts of it anyway. This video uses digital still photos that my parents took. They used a continuous function on their camera that made it possible to create an animation rather than a regular slide show. I have a time-lapse video of the raising that I would like to share, too, but it's still in VHS format (I used an old video camera). I'll see about getting it converted to digital format and sharing it before too many more moons pass.

Some photos of the frame

Purlins and floor joists

My goal for last week was to complete the frame by the weekend. So, after all of the great help on Sunday and Monday, there were two major things to complete: purlins and first-floor floor joists. We had already put in the second-floor floor joists because we needed them to put down a temporary floor for assembling the rafter sets. Mark and I had spent a few days cutting one end on each of the floor joists and the purlins. Once the frame was raised, we only had to measure for each one and cut the other end.

After squaring and leveling the frame on Wednesday (we did some other work on Tuesday), we made sure the rafters and upstairs posts were plumb. We used 2x6s to brace them in place, and then we measured for the purlins to go in bay one (the west side of the house). My dad, Mark the intern, and I set up an assembly line to cut the ends of the purlins. Once they were cut, Mark and I hefted them up and put them in their mortises. Dad stayed on the ground to hook the purlins on the ropes we used to lift them up the second floor level.

Once we completed the purlins in the first bay, we moved to bay three at the east end of the house. The procedure remained the same. Lifting with the ropes worked well. We didn't have a lot of room at the edge of the frame, but there was enough to set them down, unhook the rope, and then set them in place.





Here's how the frame looked with the purlins in bays one and three:

On Thursday morning, Dad, Mark, and I began on the middle bay purlins. We measured their needed lengths and cut the dove tail tenons and curves on the ends.
Inserting them into their mortises was a much more nerve-wracking job than the other two bays. There is no second floor in the middle bay. So, we had to work from the outside edges on top of the other purlins. We took an hour and a half to just put these 13 purlins in.

Mark and Dad began cutting the floor joists for the the first floor in bay one while I climbed drove wedges into the dovetail joints on the purlins. We purposely cut the dovetail tenons smaller than the mortises. This allowed us to use wedges driven in on the sides of the tenons to draw the joists and purlins tight. It worked well.

By the end of Thursday, we had all of the purlins in and wedged and the first-floor floor joists in bay one. Friday morning we started with the floor joists for bay two (the middle bay). We completed these and the joists for bay three before lunch. Then, while Dad and Mark drove wedges in to tighten up the first-floor joists, I drove pegs through the knee braces that we hadn't previously pegged. So, by lunch time on Friday, September 7, 2007, the frame was completely assembled and pegged!

After taking a few pictures, we put a tarp over the frame on Friday afternoon, in order to keep some of the rain that we hope to receive off of the frame (it's been very dry here, with no appreciable rainfall for the last six weeks).

Squaring and leveling

After raising the frame on Labor Day weekend, the first thing to do was to make sure the frame was square and level. In order to square it, I had to move one bent forward a few inches, another bent toward the back an inch or two, and move the center line of the house toward the west a couple of inches. If the frame had been set on a sill with mortises to accept tenons on the bottom of the posts, there wouldn't be a need to square up the frame. Having the bottoms of the posts sitting on concrete piers allowed for some things to be out of square depending on how close to the center they each stood on the piers.

The first thing to do was to insert pieces of aluminum under each post to act as a moisture barrier. I don't want moisture to wick up the piers and into the posts. Rot wouldn't be a good thing. I had plenty of aluminum from the siding off of an old mobile home that I deconstructed this spring. I used a hydraulic jack to lift each post just enough to slide the pieces of aluminum underneath.

The aluminum moisture barrier helped to provide a smoother surface under the posts for moving them into square. Mark the intern and I attached a come-along from the bottom of a post to the next concrete pier. Applying some pressure with it allowed a few judicious knocks with the 'commander' (aka a beetle -- a large mallet) to adjust the intended posts toward square.

After squaring the frame, we checked the level. I rigged a water level using a hose and some clear rubber tubing at the ends. However, it didn't want to work for some reason. The water in the level wouldn't stabilize. Something was going on. So, we used a line level on a taught string. This revealed two posts that were about 1/2" higher than the other 10 (it was level between these 10 posts). Rather than block up 10 posts with hardwood wedges, we jacked the two high posts about and inch off of their piers, and I then used a chainsaw to shave off enough from the bottom of the posts to bring them into level. This worked great.

Once the frame was square and level, we were ready to move on to the next project: purlins and first-floor floor joists.

Update and thoughts on raising the frame

On Thursday of last week (7/12/07), I was able to fit up the back wall of the frame. Mark the Intern helped. This involved fitting together 4 posts, 6 girts, and 6 braces and drilling the holes for the pegs. It went together quite well. However, I forgot to take the camera, so no pictures. It looked a lot like the pictures from earlier, though. It's really neat to see what I've been working on for over two years actually begin to take shape.

I'm contemplating raising the frame. Basically, I'm trying to get it straight in my head how it'll be done. I'm not planning on renting a crane to do the job. Yeah, a crane would probably make things easier, but it would also create its own challenges. I think that with enough help and a gin pole, we can get the job done safely and relatively easily. I've never done this before, so I might be wrong.

One of my intentions at this point is to raise each bent completely finished, including the rafters. Because of the design of the bent, the weakest point will be where the rafter and two posts attach to the tie beam. The only thing holding them will be 2"x4" mortise/tenon joints. My idea is to securely clamp three 6"x6"s or 6"x8"s on the back of the bent. These will be long enough to be attached to the lower beams, the tie beam, and the rafters. Then, when raising the bent, I will pull on these braces, not the bent itself. They will hold the bent rigid while they take the stress of the raising.

The gin pole I have in mind is what is called a pair of 'shear legs.' It's basically an A-frame of two poles. I 'borrowed' the picture at the right from The Mountain School. I'll probably use a couple of cedar trees since I have a lot of those here, and they'll be relatively straight and long enough. Long enough for my uses will be 25-30 feet. I won't have to lift more than 22 feet. The shear legs feet are securely anchored so they won't move. I'll probably set them in a couple of holes and chain them to a couple of my foundation piers. It'll also be secured by lines to anchors or trees toward the back. In barn raising from this photo, they used a block and tackle rigging and raised their bents with human power. I'm planning on using a tractor to supply the power to raise the bents.

I'll continue pondering on the raising. I want it to go well, smoothly, and relatively quickly. It'll be an exciting day, I'm sure. I don't know when it'll be yet, but I'll be sure to announce it and invite lots of help!