wedging

[Alexis]

Hello,

I am wondering what gaps is needed in order to drive a wedge...

I am building the sobon shed and my post tie beam mortise was cut with an electric drill and 2" bit... I have trouble drilling straight so the end of the thru mortise is wider than 2"... I have a 1/8th gap so I've thought of driving small wedge from the outside after raising... is it worth it or I should just leave it like that?

[Jim_Rogers]

First of all is the bottom of the mortise at the right elevation when the bent is standing?

If it is and the mortise is too long then you could put a wedge in the top of the mortise to hold the tie beam down.
If the tie beam will be at the correct elevation.
When it's not at the correct elevation then you should wedge or shim it up to be up at the right height.

If your mortise is too wide then wedging one side would be ok if it doesn't push the adjacent face of the tie beam out of line with the reference face of the post. The bent's reference face side need to be flush in order for everything else to line up.....


And might I suggest, to all, when boring a through mortise you always layout the mortise from both sides and scribe, with a knife, the perimeter of the mortise before you begin drilling.
Then drill in from both sides half way. This way you insure that your mortise isn't "too wide".
And if the drill bit wanders off the line it won't show as it will be in the middle of the timber.

To start, I layout the mortise like this:



Draw the perimeter of the mortise then the center line. On the center line layout some tick marks where you want the drill bit to begin. Move or draw the end tick marks over a little as shown in the drawing so that the bit doesn't cut into the timber outside the mortise.
Then using a carpenter's awl push a dimple point into the timber on the cross of the center line and the tick marks for bit's tip to rest into before you pull the trigger on the power drill.
This will help you align your drill bit to the proper location and hopefully you'll bore correctly.

I always bore the two end holes first, then any overlapping middle holes.

Hope this helps...

Jim Rogers