Please enjoy the following music as I did these past weeks:
Imelda May - Johnny Got A Boom Boom
The weather has finally gone from erratic spring to early mild summer. It's building time. I needed to resolve some truss and rafter issues that just weren't translating from my brain to paper. So I went ahead with a 1:6 scale model from the shittiest pine in the scrap bin.
I suppose I was too lazy to use the nice red balau or alaskan yellow cedar. Never again. My last count of inventory showed 51 species of wood on hand. That's too much. Too many options makes me a neurotic tyrant.
The scissor trusses (or also known as St Andrews Crosses) and the rafters will also be made from some spectacular white oak I milled two years ago on the banks of the Hudson River.
After committing to proportions and measurement I had enough information to make a pattern for the knees (brackets) to keep the posts square with the beam and sill.
For example, people seem to "oooh" and "awww" when they see the track marks from the axe or adze on hand-hewn 300 year old beams. One person told me they thought that was a deliberate texture added after the fact to make it look "rustic."
While one could be deliberate or decorative with their chisel, gouge, or axe during the preparation process, it isn't a completely separate aesthetic step. At least not in large scale framing. Before the 21st century there was no spare time to be wasted. 4 of your 7 kids are dying from the pox, there is no relief for your gout, you have to be half-drunk all day to avoid dysentery, and most likely there are enemies scouting your crops. You aren't polishing your oak beams.
I could have run these through the jointer and planer, then run a router around the edges for moulding, etc. But then it would be so perfect that the entire project must follow suit. Too much. I also don't like loud noises and saw dust (except chainsaws). Using really well made blades is much more fun.
Support your local blacksmith.
Instead I dressed down the rough stock with a compass plane, gouged out the moulding beads and softened the edges where needed. Some spots still have some chainsaw mill marks. It's a practical and real aesthetic. And to be honest, it looks handsome as fuck in person.
There are times when I need something perfectly milled square, flat, perpendicular, planed, and polished. Just not this project.
This model has been traveling around like the Travelocity Gnome.
A mix of my high-speed steel Japanese timber chisels and my French Arno slicks makes nice quick work of these soaking wet knotty white oak posts.
Can we talk about that medullary ray fleck? Zoom in on that. To die for. No, really, let's talk about it. Send me your thoughts.
Since there's going to be a lot of decoration and some phrases carved into the rafters I decided to practice on the same material. I started a new frog made from the same white oak boule.
MTF.