To see photos of the finished frame, go here.
It looks pretty good.
This is one of the four trusses we have been hewing the tie beams for. It is 35 feet wide, and I can't get a good photo inside the shop. I'll get some good photos when we go to site.
All of the sticks are sawn except the ties. Our bandmill will saw logs up to 24 feet, so we chose to hew the four tie beams. I have seen this before in historical buildings.
The roof of the Commissary building of the cotton mill in Graniteville, South Carolina was framed in the 1840's with kingpost trusses of a similar design. All of the heart pine sticks in those 13 trusses were water sawn except the 40-foot tie beams, which were hewn. I bet their mill couldn't handle that length either.
We finished a job in Alabama this week. The last trip was to complete this porch.
We had a little truck trouble getting there, but in the end we got the porch up in 2 1/2 days. Not bad, considering the roof was already on and we had 3" of clearance to work with.
The posts and plates were 12" x 12" cypress. Heavy. I should say Very Heavy. The scarf joints looked really good. The sticks are massive but the scale looks right from the entrance. The porch is 72' long and has 6" x 10" arched braces. Put together with hand made, riven and tapered heart pine pegs.
Rich made 50 pegs in under 5 hours on the shaving horse, which is not too bad considering how dry the wood is.
I'll try to take some photos of the porch after construction is complete and the stone is laid on the front of the house. Hopefully we will return for the barbecue that the owner plans for the completion party.
