Progress report on a Green Oak porch

[HOJ]

Starting with the stock, fresh sawn, direct from France, QP1 grade, but having sorted through it there are a few pieces that arent particularly good, with heart shake, but that’s the chance you take buying sight unseen:



And for context this is the objective:



Dwarf walls are built, taller than the drawing shows:



Starting with the 4 posts, they all need tenons on their top ends, to connect to what is in effect the wall plate for the rafters to land on, so I start with kerf cutting close to the tenon depth:



Knock the pieces off, and clean up with a chisel and a No 10 plane:



With those done I start on setting out the mortices into the wall plate, I lay up the posts to the wall plates and mark/measure where the mortices need to be on the plate, I use a method by which I mark the center of the posts/beams with a chalk line for a reference (center square) with the beams set level to each other I plumb lines down to mark where the mortice will be, and also check if I need to scribe the tenon shoulders to suit the wall plate beam face, this allows for any discrepancies in how square the beams are and the fact they may be slightly different sizes, although they are mostly within 5mm of each other, at between 195mm to 200mm:



I use my plunge saw to cut the mortice shoulders:



With a 45mm Forstner, drill out the waste, It would be nice to have the use of a chain morticer but I let that go quite a few years ago, thinking I’d be not be making any more timber frames, but this method is still relatively quick to do.



And clean up with various chisels:



And then bring them together for a check fit, with a little help from a ratchet strap:



With that done I need to drill through for my draw bore Oak pegs, so with a19mm auger bit, that I have taken the edge of the lead screw off, to stop it pulling in to quick, and a rafter square as a visual aid for drilling true:



I’ll use my stainless steel podger’s in the short term, to test fit the joints whilst building it:



All for now.

 

[Mike G]

Very nice.

Oooh, I didn't notice before, Paul, but those posts should land on a plate. It's not only really difficult to get them to stay where you want directly onto brickwork like that, but the load through them can easily break the brickwork.

Here's a tip: drill for your pegs BEFORE you chop out your mortices. There's no breakout in the nortice, and it's much easier to keep the peg holes aligned.

 

[HOJ]

Hi Mike, understood, I did speak with the builders today, they weren’t concerned about it, so I’ll just crack on with making the frame and they can sort out the install.

 

[HOJ]

Some very slow progress, working on the knee braces, for the tenons on these I used my Tenoner, which made light work of them:



Then laying them up for setting out the mortices in the posts:



Then repeat as before to chop them out, but 2 of the knees had really bad heart shake so I made 2 more.

Next was to start on the King truss, made up the top joint mortice and tenons for the rafters to king post, then offered it up to mark all the shoulders for the tenons and to mark out for the mortices:



Trial fit, with ridge board in situ:



I will admit this isn’t ideal the way the ridge lands, as I only used 4” stock for the truss which left little material in the back of the king post to house the ridge into, so I will make an Oak shoe to able to do so, and screw it to the back of the post, on reflection there are a few other things I would have done differently, but we are where we are.

Need to give it all a good clean up now, so lots of planing & belt sanding to come and to trim the projecting ends of the beams, I am debating on whether to cut a shaped end or just a chamfer type finish, as in:

or

 

[Mike G]

DEFINATELY for me it's the first photo, Paul....curved. The alternative is to leave them square-ended, but with a generous chamfer all round. Twenty five to 30mm.

 

[AndyP]

Curved looks classy. I was encouraged to curve the braces and all exposed ends on an arbor a while back. It really makes a lot of difference.