My timber frame build

[Magicman]

Looking Good John. 

[Stephen1]

Looking good John, We had snow 10 mins north of me yesterday. I was expecting to open this link and find you are shut down for the winter. Great to see you are still going strong. Will you get it roofed for winter this year?

[Ljohnsaw]

Yesterday didn't go as planned. We tested the ridge braces I made Friday afternoon on the ridge beam. All good. Went to test them way up on the center posts and something didn't look right. The braces were the smallest on the cabin at 3 foot long. The braces pockets were 4 foot down on the posts. That's not gonna work! Turns out they need to be the standard 5 foot used elsewhere.

So, I had a set of 5s. Test fit those. All good. Then, with the three of us, we got all the lifting winches in place. 


 
Will add some cross braces. I'm going back up tomorrow to install that and make 8 more braces for the purlin beam. Then we'll regroup on Friday and get er dun.

If that all goes well, maybe slap up some rafters, some random planking and tarp the whole thing for the winter. I have a huge piece of horse arena cover to use.

[Dan_Shade]

This is starting to get exciting! 

Do you have any pictures of lifting winch setups? 

[Ljohnsaw]

I'll try to remember to get some pictures tomorrow showing more details. The picture above shows the 2x8s with the brackets on top. It is a 1,000 pound cable winch over a top pulley down through a snatch block and back up to make the lifting easy. 

[TimW]

John,
  That photo is mesmerizing.  That will be fun getting the tarp up and secured.
           hugs,  Brandi

[Jim_Rogers]

John,
 That photo is mesmerizing.  That will be fun getting the tarp up and secured.
          hugs,  Brandi

yeah and is that tape rated for your snow load?
Jim Rogers

[Ljohnsaw]

The tarp is a super heavy PVC with fiber reinforcement. Got it for free to use for this. I'll remove all my deck boards like last year so if it fails, no damage should happen. If it holds up, great! It is the same dark green tarps I used on my lumber piles.

[Ljohnsaw]

Made it up today. Light misting all afternoon but got some work done. Had 9 pegs to drill and place. Here is some pics of the hoisting setup.


 

 

 
Added some side bracing to my hoist setup and lifted the ridge beam halves part way.


 
Tomorrow I'll put the perlin halves up now that there's room for them to be ready for Friday placement. Also need to cut the 8 braces for them.

[Ljohnsaw]

Boy, did it rain last night! Felt like I should be building a boat, not a cabin. But, the sun was out this morning. Did a few repairs on the SkyTrak waiting for it to warm up a little. 42° this morning.

Lifted the perlin beams up and cut 8 more braces the right length this time.


 

 

[Magicman]

This is exciting stuff !!!   8)

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 10/16/2023:

Sort of a double update. We didn't make it up Friday. Just worked on Saturday and had a couple helpers.


 

 
The ridge beam is 19' above the loft floor so a LOT of ladder time for me. Lot of lifting, dropping and tweaking the braces. Which means taking them out and down to the floor to adjust then back up. Just ran out of daylight. Looked like just one brace needed a little more.

I came back up today for the week. Turned out that the two braces on the middle bent needed adjustments. Finally, got all the post tenons started, all the braces in place.


 
Success! Final set down at 2pm.


 
Took down all the rigging by 4pm.


 
And reset for the purlin beam halves and hug them by 6pm.


 
In the morning, testing begins.

[Magicman]

Thank You for sharing your exciting (but hard working) time with us.  8)

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 10/18/2023:

Tuesday was a full day of getting everything fitting smoothly. Had one of my new braces that needed replacement. Musta been an end of shift, Friday job. It was twisted. Got down to fitting the last brace and it needed a slight adjustment but the sun had set and was too dark to continue. Miss the 12-13 hours of daylight. Having only 9 or 10 hour work days cuts into production.

Got out on the job at 7:30. The near (south) section gets raised to accept the scarf joint of the north section. Then both get lowered together. The winches are at floor level so a little less ladder work.


 
And down by 8:20!


 
Take down all the rigging and pack up/clean up.


 
Now, on to drilling 62 holes to place a lot of these pegs and the two big bolts.

[TimW]

I can't wait to see where the bolts and pegs go.
 hugs,  Brandi

[Ljohnsaw]

I miss counted. I forgot that I purposely left the brace pegs out on the other perlin beams to allow for some wiggling of the posts if needed. So, you see the 6 pegs?


 
Two in the post-to-beam connection and two each for the braces. There is a total of 26 on this purlin beam. Then the scarf joint has 4 pegs (making a total of 30) along with one bolt and 8 timber screws. The ridge beam will be the same, bringing the total to 60. The other perlin beam took 16 for the braces, so the total will be 76 when I do the ridge beam in the morning. Too dark now.

So here is my streamlined process. I made several templates. This one marked the steeper pitched brace's peg hole. I sight down the brace/beam edge on the right in this picture, and also down the left side. No fiddling with squares and pencils.


 
Then I use a plywood triangle to make sure I'm perpendicular. I can drop it and not feel bad. I'm going to modify it for tomorrow to check both directions at the same time.


 

 
I use this little persuader to drive the pegs. Twelve pounds.


 
Done.

[TimW]

Are those pegs, oak?
hugs,  Brandi

[Ljohnsaw]

Yes. From Northcott, aka Pegs.us. A first class product.

[Ljohnsaw]

Finished pegging the ridge beam today. Took a 24 foot extension ladder. Here is the modified square for drilling. Should've done this a while ago. Makes for less contortions on the ladder!


 

I actually hold it with one hand and adjust the drill angle with the other.

Here's a shot of one of the scarf joints showing the 1" bolt, 4 pegs and the 4 timber screws in the top. Four other screws are at the other end from the bottom. The bolt is to prevent the scarf from splitting if it gets overloaded and the 8x15 beam flexes. :


One final shot.

 
Sunset last night. There was a prescribed burn in the area.

[Walnut Beast]

Looking fantastic!

[TimW]

Is your scarf joint gonna get a square peg added?

I use a lot of 12 inch aircraft bits for various jobs.  I have used a speed square to help drill square.  But never thought of a fancy square like you made.  Awesome design!
hugs,  Brandi

[Ljohnsaw]

No square pegs. When I designed this cabin, I was unaware of that style and my engineer didn't suggest otherwise. These were a little bit of a hassle to assemble. My original, original intent was to use a single piece beam 53 foot long. The loggers laughed at my request. After doing the basement 47 foot, I was glad I changed to a two piece design.

[Jim_Rogers]

I made one many years ago:





Jim Rogers

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 10/25/2023: The end of season

We were having a pretty hot Indian Summer until Monday. Weather reports were changing hourly. First it was rain for today followed by a freeze. Then it changed back to cool weather with snow by Saturday.

So I went up yesterday (Tuesday) morning. I took down all the gear from up top, packed away tools and ladders and cleaned up random wood chunks from making braces.

I was woken up at 0530 to lots of wind gusts.  Drained the main water tanks (about 400 gallons). Ate a bunch of oatmeal and started packing up the trailer. Got it folded up just as the rain was starting. Kept switching from rain to hail to snow and back. Nothing heavy. 

Left at 12:40. There were chain controls over the summit east of me and a big rig jackknifed near the summit. Fortunately, home is west.

I'll head back up on Friday to pull up the flooring and dewater the bathhouse for the winter. There will be good weather next week and I hope to mill up several big 16.5' pine logs into 2x8s for roof decking. I'll get it stickered in the basement and should be ready to T&G when the snow melts.

[Ljohnsaw]

Overnight temps were 29°! This didn't melt today.


 
Tankless water heater was frozen but undamaged. Got all the flooring up and bathhouse safe for the rest of the winter.

Loaded this log and another on the mill, end to end. Looking to head up next week and possibly staying at a neighbor's cabin.