building tools for timber framing

[ray299]

Hi all, I have a home made mill. I want to get into timber framing with the ultimate goal of building my shop but I want to start from the ground up because I have no experience other than general woodworking/construction/cabinetry...
I'd like to do as much building my own tools as possible... does anyone have any good books in mind I can read or resources for plans or maybe even videos I can learn from? I saw a real good tutorial on youtube about forging your own chisel... and have briefly seen plans for post and beam saw horses... I want to make all/most of the tooling before I start with building structures... any suggestions?
Thanks!

[Brian_Weekley]

Certainly beyond my skills and tools needed to make my own chisels!  However, here's a good video about making a timber frame chisel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64389P8_r78


In fact, many of his videos are very informatiive:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcaVClI50rGZmbYMhoSSDGA

[Brad_bb]

Well smithing a chisel isn't timberframing, it's smithing, and I don't know any timberframer who has done that. As far as horses go, if you are really going to be timberframing, I'd advise against timber framed saw horses.  While they might be a good first project to try some joinery, the truth is that they are heavy, much heavier than you need, difficult to move or load.  Just downright awkward.  If you will be cutting a frame, you definitely will want more than one pair.  I built 15 pair (30 horses).  I just built 15 more pair because I also need them at the same time for staining/finishing T&G sheathing and flooring.  My horses use 2x6 material, FastCap Powerhead screws (from Menards), a compound mitre saw, drill, impact, and titebond II glue. These are the best strength to weight ratio timberframe saw horses.  They are not too heavy and are very strong. All pieces can be cut very fast on the mitre saw.
My design is the 5th post down in this thread:
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,7165.msg1418321.html#msg1418321

[ray299]

Certainly beyond my skills and tools needed to make my own chisels!  However, here's a good video about making a timber frame chisel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64389P8_r78


In fact, many of his videos are very informatiive:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcaVClI50rGZmbYMhoSSDGA

Thanks! The video I saw the guy welded a section of hardened steel to the square stock, ground it down and then ground the end sharp... but he still forged the handle loop... I'm an over achiever I guess... I built my own saw mill and made some parts for it form my hole made waste oil burner and kiln... going to have to make a forge next apparently. Lol

[ray299]

Well smithing a chisel isn't timberframing, it's smithing, and I don't know any timberframer who has done that. As far as horses go, if you are really going to be timberframing, I'd advise against timber framed saw horses.  While they might be a good first project to try some joinery, the truth is that they are heavy, much heavier than you need, difficult to move or load.  Just downright awkward.  If you will be cutting a frame, you definitely will want more than one pair.  I built 15 pair (30 horses).  I just built 15 more pair because I also need them at the same time for staining/finishing T&G sheathing and flooring.  My horses use 2x6 material, FastCap Powerhead screws (from Menards), a compound mitre saw, drill, impact, and titebond II glue. These are the best strength to weight ratio timberframe saw horses.  They are not too heavy and are very strong. All pieces can be cut very fast on the mitre saw.
My design is the 5th post down in this thread:
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,7165.msg1418321.html#msg1418321

Sheesh, 15 pair??? Would you change anything about your design? Looks like I'm going to have to get started on saw horses first...

[Brad_bb]

Yes, 15pair.  You won't use them all in the shop cutting joinery, maybe half of them, but you'll use them all at the raising and subsequent finishing of the building or house.  For a 5000 sq ft building, we had 16000 lineal feet of 1x6 T&G sheathing that we were white staining on one side and clear coating.  I screwed 8 foot 2x4's to the tops of the horses to double what they could hold.  We used them all for the staining project.  Same thing when we stained flooring.

[Jim_Rogers]

Here is a link about saw horses:

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,3849.msg50765.html#msg50765

I have at least a dozen of these on hand most of the time:



 

Here is a link to a video showing how to put them together:

http://youtu.be/T9msLbvwNsc

Jim Rogers

[Dan Miller]

Tool Making for Woodworkers by Ray Larsen is about as good as they come with respect to books about forging your own woodworking tools.

Making a set of drawbore pins is another good project for the forge, and they are not something you can readily purchase.

There are a lot of ideas for shave horses on the net - you might want one for whittling your pins.