Sorry if I missed it somewhere, but what type of wood are you using? How long did it dry before you cut into it? I see where you felled the trees in the snowm so I'm assuming that was last winter?
Contributor
Sorry if I missed it somewhere, but what type of wood are you using? How long did it dry before you cut into it? I see where you felled the trees in the snowm so I'm assuming that was last winter?
I don't find the mill work so bad, and it's easier now that I have forks for the tractor, but the chainsaw work gets me pooped. The problem is my muscle memory etc still let's me go at it like when I worked in the woods semi-pro, but I'm not fit for that work anymore.Originally Posted by Jim Becker
B
One thing I hadn't yet acquired was the material for the braces. I talked with the farmer who's land I was harvesting on about some materials for brace stock and since he has hundreds of acres he was sure we'd find something.
A couple of days later he came down to the mill site and said he had some trees for me, but they were already cut. Apparently a friend had been cutting firewood and dropped some trees that he felt were too nice to turn into firewood, so I bought them! White oak:
P5040086.jpg
P5040087.jpg
P5050088.jpg
P5050089.jpg
Of course I also got some very nice boards out of it!
P5050090.jpg
Here's a good chunk of them serving as the bottom layer of my beam pile.
P5060092.jpg
B
Contributor
Geez, im entertained already, and you havent even started the interesting part of the project! This is very cool documenting selecting trees to milling to building. Assuming from your other posts that you do this for a living, i hope you have decent footage of all these steps. Would be a great marketing video to have someone put it all together in an artful manner.
Doing it the way you are, what is the typical lumber cost for a structure like this?
Contributor
Do folks think termites may migrate north with global warming? Is Canada making anti termite codes extend further north just in case? I assume in Europe all but northern most Scandinavia has termites. I expect the southern tip of south America is warm enough for termites already.
Bil lD
Moderator
Bill, there is already an impact on insects and other creatures (and also plants/trees) extending habitat because of warmer weather, so the assumption needs to be "yes" for your question...it will likely happen at some point.
--
The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Well as I worked through the milling with only a few breaks for weather I pulled some long days. Full days milling followed by piling beams and lumber, managing slab wood and getting ready for the next day. The mill cost me about $55/hr so I didn't want anything to be inefficient after he arrived and set up.
So to answer Malcolm's question, the majority of the timbers are Eastern White Pine, however since most species are technically feasible for timberframing, I did pounce upon a couple of opportunities to have different timber species in the frame, again with the idea that this workshop will also be a place for future clients to see in real life what the different options might look like.
On one of my days without the mill, my farmer friend (who only has giant industrial tractors) said he had a job for my little toy tractor. I went down the road with him and sneaked around behind the neighbour's house and extracted a nice straight spruce log from a tree that had fallen across their lawn. New construction on a new lot with little risk of hardware so I milled it into a timber......produced a very clean 8x10 timber. Now spruce has some nice characteristics for timberframing, but some terrible ones as well (high shrinkage ratios, stringy grain, inclination to twist and knots that dry out as hard as stone....) but in our part of the country the price is right.
When I went to pilfer the firewood pile for my oak brace stock, I noticed a long ash log that seemed very straight so I paid the firewood cutter and the landowner for it and sure enough milled a very nice 8x10 timber out of it.
To make a long storey short, while the majority of the frame will be white pine, there will be a little hemlock in there as well as red pine, spruce, oak and ash.
While opinions certainly vary, many people suggest that allowing for one full year of "seasoning" before working finds the balance between post-working stability and the joy of working green pine with hand tools. Knot-free seasoned (but still green) white pine is absolute joy to work with a razor sharp framing chisel.
So time to haul them home and pile for seasoning!
Here's one of the sawdust piles we left behind....
P1010136.jpg
DSC_1210_075small.jpg
DSC_1214_079small.jpg
P5060094.jpg
I spent a lot of time getting everything level such that it won't season a warp or twist into it. I also made sure to so some additional levelling part way up the pile.
Here's the main pile about 2/3 done with some oaf sitting on it.
Beam Pile.jpg
This is just about a gold standard timber - FOH (Free of Heart)
DSC_1215_080small.JPG
DSC_1216_081small.JPG
Brent
Last edited by brent stanley; 12-19-2018 at 11:03 PM.
Contributor
Love the FOH! Used to specify it all the time where we'd have visible beams. Getting harder to come by. Lumber mills around here now dock you for logs larger than 18" and will take down to 5.5". Yikes! A far departure from seeing 3 and 4 log loads going into the mill when I was a youngster. The stuff they're milling for lumber today would have been hauled to the pulp mill back "in the day", as they say.
Looking forward to following your build. Have you been following Jesse and Alyssa at Pure Living for Life with their timber framed home? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Hy...XokW&index=241
NOW you tell me...
Member
Brent,
Man, this thread is awesome! It has my interest as I'm a professional timber framer by trade; before that I worked in the woods for a handful of years doing various small scale forestry related work. Small scale, low impact harvesting, horse logging, lots of custom sawing on a band mill. I loved the work, but found it too difficult to make a steady income to support a growing family.
We use a lot of Doug Fir and WRC in our timber framing these days, but I really love working with Eastern White Pine in comparison. It's relatively light, smells so fragrant, and works beautifully with hand tools compared to DF and WRC, which can both be really beautiful timbers in their own ways but tend to be more brittle and less "supple" to work.
I'm really excited to see your progress and am really happy that you've gone down the long road of hand selecting and milling for your timber frame. Thanks for sharing the process!
What part of the country do you live in?
Sorry Malcolm, I didn't give you the whole answer there. My plan was to cut the trees in the winter and use them in a year with the expectation of erecting the frame roughly 18months after cutting.....however that was two years ago, so life got in the way and in the end the timbers will have seasoned for something like 4 years by the time I cut the joinery! That's life.
There's good and bad with that.....the good is things ought to be more stable after cutting as the moisture is lower (though these beams will NOT be considered dry by any stretch!) the bad is they just won't be as sweet to work with hand tools, but I"m sure I'll survive.
B
Hi Ole, I'm aware of them and followed their channel and their Instagram feed. I've enjoyed watching their adventure.
My hope is to also video document my build (starting from the first days of beam sorting and layout) but I'd like to offer some more details around cutting and layout and kinda geek out a bit. I am not terribly interested in making really fancy productions like they do (which I enjoy and appreciate!) as I don't anticipate having the time and don't currently have the skills. I hope to offer some clear and informative content even if it lacks some pizzaz.
It is hard to come by.....I think I have a grand total of 4 FOH timbers in the whole frame!
B
Hey Phillip, another chisel whacker! Glad to have you here. I've been doing this off and an for a while, but am still a newbie so learning lots but I've brained my way through a number of things and am starting to get a system down. I took Steve Chapell's courses in '09 but he didn't teach square rule so I had to come up with my own system sort of based on Will Beamer's approach but pretty personalized too. I'm actually quite excited about trying to describe it on video.
I've bought and used Doug Fir and WRC too but I must agree EWP really is nice to work with hand tools if it's not too dry. Fantastic shrinkage characteristics too.
I"m a recovering horse logger too! Would still like to have a couple of mares some day to burn some hay and do a little work!
Cheers,
Brent
As you would expect, this time of year has me hopping but I threw together a little "teaser" video. The main event will start after Christmas. Have a great holiday all!
https://youtu.be/59LJGBUhxVc
B
P.S. This is the last load of timbers headed up to fill the work space!
20181211_123648.jpg
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote