After a long period where I couldn't get into the workshop at all, I've got my act together properly on this job. I had a few hours on Friday, a long, long day on Saturday, and today, and I've pretty much got it done.
There were a whole lot more mortises to chop out, plus the shapes to cut on the end of the joists, and I then did a dry fit in the workshop. There wasn't a whole lot of spare room:
Most of it went pretty well, but this bracket took a little adjusting:
Next job, after taking it all apart again, was to drill the holes for the pegs. I really should have drilled through the mortises before I chopped them out, but there is a little bit of an aesthetic choice to make when laying out pegs, so I wasted a little time. It's all pretty standard stuff, except for this bizarre arrangement on the middle posts, where tenons cross over each other inside the mortise:
I also did my final clean up and marking, and took all the arises off with a block plane.
That photo is a bit deceptive, as the holes are only 16mm in diameter. I had designed and ordered some post feet from a local fabricator. I collected 12 of these on the way back from doing a survey (6 of them for another project).
Fifty internet points for anyone who can work out what the 2 small holes are at the top.
I marked up for the slots in the bottom of the posts, and cut them out very carefully and slowly on the bandsaw. However, I left the cuts about 10mm short, and followed up with a handsaw which cleaned up the kerf nicely. Any wobbles disappeared:
Locating the holes completely accurately was critical, so I used this jig:
I searched the workshop high and low to find something to aid drilling the pilot holes, and found just what I needed in my box of router bits. This is a sleeve/ spacer for a winged cutter on an arbour, and it jammed into the hole to perfection:
It was then off to the pillar drill to drill out for the washer and nut, and then to drill the 11mm hole all the way through:
I'm using carriage bolts, and this is a temporary erection so I took care not to knock them home otherwise taking them out again can leave you with a mangled hole. I'm happy enough with this look:
That's all the bits made. Time to put it all together:
This was the hairiest stage. It was quite windy, nothing was pegged, nothing was secure, and I was working alone:
Once I started adding better props and stuff on the top, it all felt an awful lot safer:
I have a stash of temporary (undersized) pegs, so I tapped a few of those in, and it all went a whole lot more solid:
The other half of the design team will see this tomorrow, and once we've agreed on positioning, I'll dismantle it, remove the post feet, and set them in concrete to enable the final permanent erection. But even then, we're not done. There's the infill trellis-work yet to come.....
There'll be no carving or turning.
