PCEI Timber Framed Artist Studio Project

Artist Studio Cordwood Workshop Pictures

2009-06-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, I've got some PCEI Artist Studio Cordwood Infill workshop pictures online!

The Cordwood workshop was an unqualified success that exceeded many of our expectations.

There was a great deal of preparation work that was done prior to the workshop. Most of this preparation involved peeling cedar logs, squarely bucking them into 8" long pieces of cordwood with a chainsaw, and generating coarse-grained sawdust.

On the day of the workshop, we met on the deck of the Perrine house and had some quick coffee and breakfast and everybody introduced themselves.

Then we piled into a bus and went to Peter's house to get a closer look at his timber-framed and cordwood infilled sauna.

We also demonstrated how to mark and buck up cedar logs into 8" rounds while simultaneously generating coarse-grained sawdust.

Then it was off to the Timber Frame. Here, Peter explains how to cleanup the ends of the cordwood rounds using a coarse rasp.

A lot of folks spent some time cleaning up cordwood, including the kids!

Down the hill, we had a recipe for our special mortar mix nailed to the shed post.

Mixing mortar was one of the day's most laborious and dirty jobs. Every wheelbarrow full of mortar had to be pushed uphill to the studio.

Here is the soaking wet sawdust we used in our mortar mixture to retard and even out the drying process:

Peter demonstrated how to lay two lines of mortar and span it with cordwood to get folks started.

We had some quick learners and very, hard workers!!

The workshop participants were really amazing. Many stayed much, much later than we had anticipated, and some even returned well past midnight to perform some crucial late-night tuck pointing.

The final result was absolutely stunning:

The 3' high cordwood "wainscotting" on three sides of the structure, capped with cedar trim boards is absolutely gorgeous. While covering part of the base of the timbers, it also accentuates the timber frame and gives some sense to the final overall scale of the building.

A Video about the Cordwood Infill Workshop

2009-06-05T12:05:00.001-07:00

Here is an excellent video about our recent Cordwood Infill workshop here at PCEI:

I've got pictures and information about the cordwood construction process and workshop coming soon...

A Video about Raising Day

2009-06-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

Marsha Kay Schoeffler, a local videographer and documentary producer with Marsha Que Sera Productions made an excellent short film about the Timber Frame raising for the PCEI Artist Studio.

Check it out!

Watching this video makes me excited to do another frame raising very soon!

Raising Day!!

2009-05-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

Raising Day was an enormous success! Great weather, timbers, food, and drink. Everything went really, really well.

Pictures will tell the story better than words will:

Moving the finished timbers to the job site!

2009-05-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

The frame is 100% finished!

The timber frame is complete, chamfered, sanded, organized and stacked in the workshop. We decided to move the timbers to the job site the day before the raising to minimize the timber's exposure to the elements prior to raising the frame.

We fit the whole frame onto my 5'x14' trailer. The weight of the frame was almost more than my poor battered utility trailer could withstand. It was very cool seeing a nice, complete, stacked set of timbers on the trailer...ready for transport to the site.

Me above the frame:

And Peter:

I could not quite get the frame to the job site up the steep and damp hill in one load. It was quite a bit of work to move the timbers into place.

Once the timbers were stacked and organized on site, we finished placing the cedar floor joists and cutting and securing the subfloor on the deck.

Meanwhile, Lisa applied a coat of LandArk penetrating oil to the joinery and endgrain of the timbers:

When everything was in place and ready for the frame raising, we placed a massive blue tarp over the whole thing to keep the timbers protected from direct sun and rain.

Everything is in place for raising day. Now, its just a matter of getting the tools on site and having fun on raising day!

Brace curves are cut!

2009-05-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the year, we bartered some elm and cherry for access to Chris Caudill's deluxe bandsaw. Chris is a local amateur woodworker, and we appreciate his help.

We used his bandsaw to cut curves into all of the knee braces. They turned out great!

Its good to see the knee braces completely finished. The lighter colored braces came from an elm tree that grew at PCEI. The darker braces came from elm in East City Park. All of these elm died from disease.

They will look stunning and live on in the PCEI Artists' studio!

Preparing the floor system

2009-05-03T18:29:00.001-07:00

In preparation for the frame raising, we decided to focus on finishing the floor system for the studio. The first step was to brush and paint the foundation steel. It turned out looking great. Two coats of Rustoleum should help preserve this metal, even though it will not be directly exposed to the elements.

I used a natural tone stain on the sill plate timbers. These timbers will bare the brunt of exposure to the elements, mainly water. We decided to really coat these timbers with a liberal amount of protecting stain in an effort to preserve them better. These timbers will need periodic maintenance over the years.

The stain darkened the wood somewhat, but they look very good. We decided to leave the sill plate timbers rough-cut (not planed and sanded). The salvaged piece of Douglas Fir turned out looking very rich and dark.

After setting the timbers onto the piers, we found that the sill plates were essentially perfectly square! I guess it really pays to test fit in the workshop!

We drilled holes through the timbers and through the metal. Into these holes we placed 1/2" anchor bolts. The J portion of the anchor bolts rests on top, and we chiseled a small groove to recess the top end of the J-bolt. This allows us to tighten the nut on the bottom.

Here is Peter drilling holes in the timber.

The sill plates look pretty good once they are all put together:

We hung 2x8 cedar floor joists between the larger sill plate timbers. We used cedar due to city code: all floor joists on a pier foundation must be at least 18" from grade...unless you use treated joist lumber or naturally rot-resistant joist lumber (then they have to be at least 12" from grade).

The city ran the span numbers and found that Western Red Cedar would work on this span, assuming we used a 3/4" plywood subfloor. We went that route.

The joists were hung in such a way that the plywood will sit perfectly flush with the tops of the sill plate timbers. We need to special order an additional 2 cedar 2x8 joists to finish the floor system, which will happen prior to raising day!

Less than 5 days until raising day. I think we're going to make it!

The roof system is nearly complete

2009-05-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

Peter and I mocked up the roof system for the studio inside of my workshop. We started by arranging the large top plates correctly with respect to spacing and height. We then laid out all of the rafters on top of the massive plates to mark precisely where to cut out bird's mouths.

We cut all of the bird's mouths and laid the rafters on top of the plates to get a feel for how things will basically look:

We left ourselves 1/4" of slop on the eave end since we don't know *exactly* how everything will sit on raising day. This extra 1/4" gives us the opportunity to make precise adjustments on raising day to get a perfect fit for our bird's mouths.

One thing became apparent to me. While this building has a tiny footprint, its roof area is fairly large due to the large overhangs on both the eaves and gable ends (especially the south gable end).

In a very non-traditional yet pragmatic move, we opted to use large lag bolts to secure the rafters to the top plates. I found some great 3/8" x 10" lag bolts that should do the trick.

Less than one week until raising day! We still have a ton of work to do to prepare, but we're definitely looking forward to it.

We finished the North bent!

2009-04-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

In a couple marathon work sessions, we finished the north bent of the PCEI Artist Studio frame!

I think it turned out much better than either of us ever expected.

The northern bent was originally designed as a really simple bent consisting of three posts, two girts and a couple knee braces with simple, unhoused, unshouldered joinery. However, after re-evaluating how much of the center Englemann Spruce post was going to be removed, we decided to include a hardwood spline passing entirely through the Spruce post and directly tying both girts together in a much stronger joint. In addition, we decided to shoulder all girt-to-post joinery, matching the shouldered joints on the southern bent.

Below, we are tensioning the north bent using rachet straps. At this point, we have not yet placed the knee braces.

And here is the completed bent, with knee braces, and test-fitted with drilled peg holes. This single bent consists of 7 species of wood! Ponderosa Pine post, douglas fir post, Englemann spruce center post, maple spline, two American elm girts, two American elm knee braces, a Grand fir sill plate, and black locust pegs!!

We will cut a nice curve on the bottoms of the knee braces prior to raising day.

Peter suggested a couple modifications to my basic brace design, and I think they turned out great. First, we cut the brace so that the tenon and brace are flush on the interior side. This makes great-looking joinery, especially in situations where the brace meets up with a wany surface.

Second, he cut a small piece off the far corners of the braces. The advantage of doing this is arguable since it can expose the brace mortise slightly, but I think it turned out very, very tight nonetheless.

Here is a closer look at that maple spline tying together the American elm girts through the spruce post.

That American elm, salvaged last Fall from East City Park in Moscow is WET and heavy. It is also exceedingly beautiful. The color difference between sapwood (light tan/yellow) and heartwood (like black walnut!) is stunning. And by placing wane and sapwood in the same orientation for both girts, we create the effect that the girts are continuous. In fact, they were cut from different parts of the same massive elm tree.

Here is the best look yet of the impressive joint. One of the best parts of this joint is invisible: that all three pieces of wood (elm, spruce, and maple) were salvaged by hand from city and street trees in Moscow. All three trees grew very near each other in Moscow for at least 75 years.

We've made major strides in the last week. The foundation is done, both bents are complete, all the braces have been cut, and we're almost done with the west wall! We've cut all of the tenons and most of the mortises. Without exception, the joinery has turned out fantastic.

The next big challenge prior to raising day will involve laying out the roof system and mocking it up.

We're almost done with this timber frame!

Finished the foundation in preparation for the raising!

2009-04-18T22:37:00.001-07:00

We essentially finished the foundation preparation. Earlier, Peter welded together 6" wide, 1/4" thick steel plates. The plan is that these L-shaped steel plates will be welded to the angle iron protruding from the concrete piers and then the steel plates will be bolted to the massive sill plate timbers. This ties the timbers frame to the foundation.

The first order of business was to level all of the angle iron. We marked the level using a simple water level. We then used a circular saw with a metal-cutting blade to cut all of the angle iron at the level mark.

Here, Peter cuts the angle iron at the level mark.

Next, we used a metal grinder to grind the angle iron smooth and put a slight bevel on it to eventually make a better weld.

Isaak and Emmett, two local welders, came out to lend a hand with the welding. They brought a 120V arc welder and we strung over 300' of 10-gauge extension cables from the nearest power source up to the job site. After fighting with weak power problems due to the great distance, Isaak and Emmet were able to get their welder working satisfactorily.

All of the welding had to be done from the awkward position of lying down on the ground and working sort-of upside down. Here, Emmett is welding one of the plates to the angle iron:

After an afternoon of work, we got all of the steel plates leveled, squared, and welded. The foundation is essentially done!!

Its nearly time to start bringing out timbers to the job site, starting with the 4 sill timbers.

Hooray! The south wall essentially finished.

2009-04-10T09:27:00.001-07:00

1) Connect all timbers.
2) Tighten joints with ratchet straps.
3) Check that frame is square.
4) Look for any wood that can be removed to make joinery tighter.
5) Release ratchet straps.
6) Disassemble timbers.
7) Shave 1/16" here.
8) Plane 1/32" there.
9) Reconnect timbers.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

But at about 11 p.m. we finally got the joinery on the South wall to be as tight as we could.

Here is Peter cleaning out a strut mortise on the curved American elm beam.

Here is Peter shaving a fraction of an inch off the strut shoulder using his chisel:

Here is the finished South wall frame, pulled very tightly together with 5 large ratchet straps. These timbers are tight!

The next step is to carefully drill all of the peg holes, which will finalize the joinery on this part of the Artist studio.

Finished 14 rafters

2009-04-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

The Artist Studio design calls for a total of 18 rafters. 14 of the rafters are 3"x7" and the gable end rafters are 3"x10". I finished cutting the rafter tails and cleaning up the rafters (cross-cutting, ripping, squaring, planing, sanding) for all 14 of the 3x7 rafters. I think they turned out very nicely. I used a powerful jigsaw to cut the curved rafter tails, and it worked well.

These rafters are all Douglas fir or Western Larch, species chosen for their strength. All but one of the rafters is completely free-of-heart, which will decrease warping and checking as the wood dries.

I had to reject a bunch of Douglas fir rafters that I had originally milled due to severe pitch pockets and shake. From my experience, Douglas fir is a tricky wood to use. If you get a good, straight and tight grained log with no large veins of pitch, it can be an excellent wood to work with.

However, I ended up rejecting tons of Douglas fir due to veins of pitch and the related shake that weakens the wood substantially (and makes a gooey mess). On average, Douglas fir is one of my least favorite woods to work with. That is odd, because Douglas fir is the wood of choice for so many Western US timber framers. They must all get hand-picked, kiln-dried large-diameter coastal firs from British Columbia.

In any event, I used only the best wood for these rafters and they turned out great! I can't wait to see them placed on top of the erected frame.

More progress on the South wall.

2009-03-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

We've continued working on the labor-intensive southern wall of the Artist Studio. It is slow going, due to the scribing and repetitive test-fitting. We are trying to get the joinery very, very tight.

Here is Peter finishing up a tenon on the second strut:

And here is Peter using the Makita chain mortiser to cut the strut mortise in the bottom of the southeast Western Larch post. Its an 18" long, 2" wide mortise!

Here, we test fit the strut tenon into the newly cut mortise. A very, very nice fit.

We cut the mortise in the elm beam as well and test-assembled this whole corner. In general, it turned out quite nice. With some fine-tuning and some high-tension straps, we can bring the joinery together almost perfectly.

One more mortise on the elm beam, and we can test-fit the western strut. We're getting closer to completion with this South wall, but there still remains many hours of detail work before its done.

Cutting the large southern struts.

2009-03-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

We test fitted the joinery between the large curved elm beam and the two southern Larch posts. Peter mainly worked on this joinery, and got it pretty tight! You can see that the elm tenon extends completely through the Larch post on either side.

We will most likely round that tenon and leave it exposed. It should be a nice effect.

I always get a kick out of seeing wood of mixed species come together like this to form a strong joint. Mixed species frames can be aesthetically beautiful, since you get a sharp contrast of coloration and grain. But you also are mixing woods with completely different mechanical properties. In many cases, one can take advantage of both aesthetics and engineering when choosing which wood to use and where.

After these timbers were successfully test fitted, we started in on two large, curved, Douglas fir struts that will act as massive braces on the south wall. We had to layout the curves carefully and cut the curves using a combination of chainsaws, circular saws, chisels, mallets, power planes, hand-planes, and belt sanders.

We cut the outside curve using both the little 7 1/4" and the larger 16" circular saws:

The inside curve involved kerfing with the electric chainsaw and then cleaning up with a chisel and plane:

After the curves were cut, we laid out the mortices and tenons via scribing. We carefully positioned the timbers on the floor and then placed the curved strut blank on top. By using framing squares and our eyeballs, we laid out the tenons and mortices carefully. Scribing was necessary in order to get good joinery with such curved and wany wood.

Once laid out, cutting the tenons on the strut was pretty simple.

The finished struts turned out looking very beautiful. They will be amazing once placed inside the corresponding mortices on the elm beam and the larch posts.

We have joinery on the other strut to do, and then its on to the knee braces and rafters!

Cutting the joinery for the curved elm beam.

2009-03-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

We finished cutting all of the tenons at the tops of the six posts. We also finished cutting the corresponding mortises into the three top plates!

With the help of Linnea, we moved on to cutting the tenons on the curved American elm beam. :-)

Since the elm beam is curved and not at all rectilinear, we needed to layout the joinery the old-fashioned way: by scribing. In order to do this, we cleared a large space on the cement workshop floor and marked a perfect rectangle in permanent marker. We then placed the south-facing Western Larch posts on the lines and moved the curved elm beam on top of them. Peter was able to then mark exactly where the curved elm beam will intersect both Larch posts.

We cut 2" thick tenons on the curved elm beam which will fully penetrate the Larch posts via a through-mortise. The bottoms of the elm tenons will be shouldered 3/4" into the posts. The elm tenon will pass a full 2" past the side of the post, which will look really, really nice.

Here is Peter planing the tenon with a small hand plane:

We stacked the beam atop the posts to double-check the cut. Looks good!

After the elm tenons have been fully cut, we can cut the corresponding through-mortices on the Larch posts. After that, its on to the struts and braces!

The first tenons are cut!

2009-02-25T21:22:00.001-08:00

I cleaned up the five posts by planing and sanding them on all 4 surfaces.

After this, I laid out and cut the five 2x2x2 stub tenons at the base of each post. This short tenon will connect the post to the sill plates during the frame raising. I think the tenons turned out pretty well.

Our five posts are comprised of four local softwood specie: Englemann Spruce, Douglas Fir, Pine (Ponderosa or Lodgepole), and two Western Larch (Tamarack) posts.

Peter cleaned up the three humongous top plates, visible on the framing ponies in the back of the photo below:

The next step is to carefully layout and cut the tenons on the tops of the posts, taking into account variations in thickness of the top plates such that the top plates will be perfectly level and at the correct height.

We completed some joinery and started in on the posts.

2009-02-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

I cut the joinery for a couple of the sill plates yesterday. Today, Peter and I both worked on finishing up some other sill plates. Below is Peter cleaning up a half-lap joint with his chisel and his cool hornbeam mallet.

Last summer, I salvaged some timbers from a 75-year old local barn that fell down. Somebody else had salvaged most of the best timbers, but I managed to find a few usable ones. This old Douglas Fir beam was not quite an 8x8. It may have been milled undersized or perhaps it had shrunk down to 7.5" on a side as it dried. In any event, we decided to use it as a 10' long sill plate on the PCEI Artist Studio. I like salvaged timbers, and this one has a lot of local history.

Here you can see how we cut away the curved portion of the older sill plate at the joint. It turned out reasonably well, and certainly looks cool:

Its great to see old wood meeting new wood.

We are lacking one 8x8 sill plate timber, since we decided not to use a warped Douglas Fir timber that had been sitting around the shop for a couple years. We'll need to mill a new one soon. We finished three of the sill plates and moved onto posts.

We cut them to length and determined exactly which timbers would be which posts in the studio. We also determined which surfaces of each post would face which directions and labeled everything.

We started cleaning up the timbers using a beam planer and a large belt sander.

Here is Peter cleaning up an Englemann Spruce post, which will be the taller center post on the North side of the studio.

Here is Peter with a belt sander, cleaning up a Larch post.

Here is the Western Larch post after it has been planed and lightly sanded. These timbers clean up very nicely.

We were excited to see what the posts would look like on the sill plates, so we played around with that. It gave a better sense of how large this structure will be and how it will look from the inside.

Next, we will start cutting tenons on the posts. We'll need 2"x2"x2" stub tenons on the bottoms of the posts and larger tenons on the tops. This work is going well!

Building a PCEI foot bridge, Part II

2009-02-16T16:20:00.000-08:00

I've finished all of the fun wood-centric portions of the PCEI bridge.

I laid 5' wide 2x6 Western Red Cedar decking across the stringers and attached 2x4 cedar boards on either side:

I applied two quarts of AFM Naturals Clear Penetrating Oil to the entire deck. I purchased this all-natural penetrating oil at The Natural Abode here in Moscow. This penetrating oil is made almost exclusively from organic plant oils and contains no heavy metals or other hazardous driers.

This penetrating oil will help keep the wood supple and healthy. It will retard absorption of water into the wood and keep the wood more dimensionally stable.

Here, you can see the deck is still wet with oil:

A side view of the completed bridge:

And some miscellaneous pictures of the bridge shown below. Overall, I think the bridge turned out nicely!

The next step involves mainly rock, gravel and dirt. The plan is to build compacted, natural earthen ramps up to the bridge from either side such that the grade is continuous up and over the bridge.

This will be useful for walkers and crucial for bicycles, wheelbarrows, and wheelchairs that will use this nice wooden bridge.

Building a PCEI foot bridge, Part I

2009-02-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with the PCEI Artist Studio, but hey.

Last Fall, Tom Lamar asked me if I would be interested in building a small bridge across a wetland channel here at the PCEI Nature Center. I told him that I would love to do it, but that I would keep it very simple and rustic. My plan was to mill a couple of stringer logs flat on the top and bottom and span the distance across the small stream. After that, I'd apply a 2x6 Western Red Cedar decking across the stringers.

In late Fall, Jacob Dolence (a PCEI Americorp Volunteer) and I milled a Western Larch and Grand Fir log in this way and we brought them to PCEI. Unfortunately, weather (snow and frozen ground) prevented us from moving the stringer logs into place across the span. However, before the snows came, I did excavate large "foundation" holes on either side of the waterway and fill them with river rock. The stringers will sit on these piles of rock, which in theory will help drain water away from the base of the bridge.

Above are the two milled stringer logs, waiting to be moved into place. The waterway is behind them in this picture. The logs are sitting on Western Red Cedar "footings" that I also milled flat on two sides. These 4" thick rot-resistant Cedar footings will have direct contact with the ground so that the logs don't have to.

The Larch stringer on the left is 9.5" thick and the Grand Fir stringer on the right is 10.5" thick. I had meant to make them the same thickness at the mill, but that didn't work out, so I will have to reduce the thicker log at the ends to make the bridge level.

The first order of business was to move the stringer logs into position across the span. Since I was working solo, I used my Jeep's winch and a snatch block and the base of a nearby tree to drag the logs into place. Fortunately the ground was frozen in the early morning, so I was able to do all of this driving and dragging with very little impact.

After the stringer logs were in place, I raised the ends up using a large high-lift jack and put them on temporary supports made of timber framing scraps and 4x4s that I found in one of the PCEI toolsheds.

With the stringers in place and raised, I worked on leveling the cedar footings on each end of the span. The bridge needs to be longitudinally level but also level across its width.

I then reduced the ends of the thicker Grand Fir to 9.5" by using a circular saw, a chisel, and a mallet:

In order to prevent the logs from shifting and slipping off of the Cedar footings, I decided to peg the stringers to the footings. Here, you can see me using an auger to make a shallow peg hole in what will be the underside of the log. I purposely made the peg hole extra wide so that the 1" Locust peg would have some flexibility and make assembly a lot easier, since the log will have to contact the Cedar footer at exactly the right place.

During all of the activities, Mama Cat would come by and check out the progress:

Here you can see the shallow peg holes on what will be the underside of the stringers:

I drilled peg holes in the Cedar footing and put the 1" Locust pegs in:

I then flipped the stringers over, removed the temporary supports and teased the pegs holes on the underside of the stringers into position on top of the locust pegs.

Here are various pictures of the bridge so far:

The next (and final) step is to put 5' wide Cedar decking onto the bridge. That should go quickly and look fantastic.

Timbers have been graded!

2009-02-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

After Peter and I organized and labeled all of the PCEI Artist Studio timbers in the shop, we invited Tom Gorman from the University of Idaho to come and grade all of the timbers.

We brought along a CAD model of the PCEI Artist Studio. Tom referred to the model often to better understand the spans, positions, and uses of the various timbers:

The process of grading timbers is mainly about identifying defects in the wood. Tom was looking for large knots, bad cross-grain, severe grain runout, shake, rot, etc. He visually inspected all of the timbers and found absolutely nothing of significant concern.

It was actually great fun to have Tom come and inspect our wood. It was clear that he a lover of wood and PCEI and that he is at least as excited about this timber framing project as we are!

Now that our timber has been officially and successfully inspected, we can proceed with the fun and exciting part: layout and cutting joinery. Yay!

Cutting Elm Brace Blanks

2009-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

The PCEI Nature Center lost an Elm tree to Dutch Elm Disease back in late 2007. The city of Moscow asked PCEI to fell the tree and remove the bark in order to kill the Dutch elm beetle larvae and avoid infecting other Elm trees in the city. An AmeriCorps Watersheds technician, Isaak Strout, felled the tree.

In early January, 2008, Isaak and I milled the Elm log using a Sperber chainsaw mill on loan from Nils Peterson, a fellow timber framer. We milled the small log into three 10-foot long slabs. I moved these slabs to my shop to air dry for a year.

We are using these PCEI Elm slabs for the PCEI Artist Studio! We'll use them for the 3x8 knee braces in the frame.

This weekend, we cut out brace blanks from the rough slabs. The first step was to use a chalk line to mark our 8" wide blank:

Next, we used a 10 1/4" circular saw to cut out the blanks by following the chalk lines.

After each 10' rectangular blank is cut, we cut each in half. Each slab produced two 5' long brace blanks. We used a large beam planer and a large thickness planer to smooth out the blanks:

The final result of this effort was four excellent Elm brace blanks, all coming from a tree that grew for many years at the site of the PCEI Nature Center. When cut, sanded, and finished, these braces will be gorgeous:

I think we were all saddened by the death of this Elm tree, but happy that the tree will live on in the PCEI Artist Studio.

These braces have an interesting story behind them and they bestow a deeper sense of connection between the new Artist Studio and the PCEI Nature Center.

The shopwork begins with the curved beam.

2009-01-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

Peter and I pulled out the large curved timber which is truly the piece de resistance of this frame. It is a 15' long piece of American elm (Ulmus americana) which I acquired in the Summer of 2008 from East City Park in Moscow. Specifically it came from an area just to the North of the stage in the park, from a tree dying of Dutch Elm Disease. This timber was a large, curved limb of the tree that was left behind by the arborist.

This curved timber is 15' long and about 11" tall and 9" thick. I milled it to a 9" thickness on the Woodmizer bandsaw mill.

I painted the end grain to slow down checking due to uneven drying. The pith (center) of the tree is nearly centered.

Our plan is to reduce the timber to a 10" height throughout, removing the rounded top and bottoms. Peter had the great idea of creating a large template curve by using a thin piece of wood attached to the timbers by screws and clamps at the extreme opposite ends and at the center. We used a 1/4" thick piece of Western Larch that I had intended to use from trim in my cabin. It easily bent into a fair curve. Using an electric Stihl chainsaw and using the larch template as a guide, we cut a series of kerfs on the top surface of the beam.

Using chisels and mallets, we knocked out the remaining wood between the kerf cuts. This is exactly how I make tenons, but this is on a far larger scale.

We smoothed out the surface using a chainsaw and a wide handheld electric beam planer. We got the top relatively squared and smoothed out.

Next, we flipped the timber over and repeated the same process to remove the rounded portion of the beam on the bottom.

This picture really shows off the natural curve in this beam:

We used the wide beam planer to clean things up and smooth the bottom surface.

We are both very happy with how this beam turned out. It is now nearly symmetrical, and we got a near-perfect 10" height on the beam. We need to do a little more milling on this beam to reduce its thickness down to 8", and we'll either drag this timber back out to the Woodmizer mill, or we will use an Alaskan chainsaw mill in my shop.

2009-01-25T12:32:00.000-08:00

I finished a new framing pony today. I needed a new pony, but I also wanted to try some new things with timber framing. I wanted to use hardwood (American elm from East City Park in Moscow) knee braces, cut decorative curves in the braces with a bandsaw, and use a different mortise/tenon style for the braces.

After cutting the tenons on my braces, the first order of business was to layout my brace curves. I used an excellent ruler that my dad gave me which is centered at 0", allowing you to quickly and accurately find centers.

Using a combination square, I marked the deepest point at the center of the curve.

Writing with a pencil on 3/16th" poplar stock that I got from the hardware store, I free-handed one half of the curve and then cut out the curve template with a jigsaw.

By building a template for only half the curve, it was trivial to get the curve to be completely symmetrical.

I bartered some cherry and American elm slabs with a local fine woodworker for time on his bandsaw. The results were nice, as you can see below.

Below, you can see as I start to fit the "timbers" and braces together.

I do not drawbore my joinery. Instead, I use ratched straps to pull the timbers together so tight that the wood starts to deform. Once this is done, I can then bore the peg holes and drive the pegs in. The pegs will forever keep the wood as tight as the ratchet straps did. In my opinion, this is nearly as good as drawboring.

I sanded everything and put a coat of Landark interior penetrating oil finish on everything. This is a 5-species framing pony: Ponderosa pine top, Douglas fir legs, Engelmann Spruce bases, American elm braces, and Locust pegs. With the exception of the pegs, all of this wood was donated by the Moscow community.

The joinery turned out pretty tight. Much better than my first set of framing ponies!

I routed a decorative 45 degree chamfer on pretty much all edges.

Mmm, wood. This American elm brace does a good job of showing off the color differences between the heartwood and sapwood.

The elm braces turned out better than I could have expected.

I've got timbers already cut to length for two more of these ponies. The braces for them are already finished.

The finished product.

Starting work in the shop...

2009-01-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

I spent some quality time cleaning and reorganizing my timber framing shop in order to start cutting joinery for the PCEI Artist's Studio Project.

Below, you can see a single stickered pile of timbers. This pile of timbers is the entire PCEI Artist's Studio frame! Rafters, posts, beams, sill plates, and top plates are all there!

The timber with the painted ends is the large, curved beam made from American Elm from East City Park here in Moscow.

Humidity in the shop is very high (91%) mainly due to: 1) poor ventilation 2) a leaking roof 3) these green timbers releasing their moisture. Fortunately, it is cold enough to prevent mold growth on the timbers. Just to be sure, I use a box fan to constantly circulate air around the stickered timbers. Even with the high ambient humidity, this helps the wood dry and stay mold free by alleviating stagnant air.

Pegs!

I like my pegs (treenails) a certain way. I do not like tapered pegs. They look bad, as you can see gaps in the peg and peg hole. Even when drawbored, they have a tendency to get pushed back out as the wood settles and shrinks. They are traditional, and have their place, but I don't like them.

Perfectly round dowels would look good, but they don't work. Pounding a 1" dowel into a 1" hole during raising day sounds miserable. The peg will invariably seize up, especially with variations in humidity and shrinking, etc.

I prefer octagonal 1" diameter hardwood pegs where the pointy edges of the octagon are approx 0.06"-0.08" wider than the .99" wide, flat surfaces of the octagon. The idea is that the sharp edges will dig into the sides of the peg hole but will not seize. The peg hole is completely filled, and the peg itself looks nice.

For previous projects, I bought precision-made white oak pegs from Grand Oaks Timber Framing in Tennessee. I've been very happy with these. However, I found a source of octagonal pegs, exactly how I like them, from Cabin Creek Timber Frames in North Carolina. They sell Octagonal pegs in either Walnut or Locust. I bought 100 Locust pegs from them and I'm really pleased.

The locust pegs are in the box. The white oak pegs are in the bucket.

Locust on the left, white oak on the right:

Locust on the top, white oak on the bottom. Tapering an end with a sander helps drive the peg (and looks good). I like how the locust pegs are tapered on both ends, allowing the timber framer to decide which side to drive in first.

We'll use these beautiful locust pegs for the PCEI Artist's Studio.

Chainsaw milling the curved beam...

2008-12-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

After we deposited the huge American Elm (Ulmus americana) at the PCEI Nature Center, we got to work cutting it into a manageable size. Peter used a chainsaw and cut some irregular chunks off the larger diameter end to make the log more cylindrical. This made the log easier to rotate and apply a chainsaw mill.

We spent some quality time determining the optimal depths and orientation to cut our slabs. We opted to cut ~9" slabs on either side of the pith.

We borrowed a Sperber chainsaw mill from local timber framer Nils Peterson. To guide the chainsaw mill's first cut, we placed an extension ladder on top of the log. The rollers on the chainsaw mill slide across the smooth surface of the chainsaw mill. We placed spacers under the extension ladder to compensate for the taper in the log and keep the cut relatively level with the height of the pith.

Each pass of the chainsaw mill takes about 20-30 minutes. It is definitely slow going, but sometimes a chainsaw mill is the only way to cut massive, inconvenient, remote, or curved timbers. (Thanks Nils!)

After cutting our slabs, we found that there were two veins of rotting wood inside the tree. These defects were located on opposite sides of the slab, and will make laying out and carving the curved beam more difficult and perhaps impossible.

We left discouraged, but not defeated.

Days later, Jacob Dolence, an Americorp volunteer from PCEI's Environmental Education program, helped me mill the second 9" slab from the log using the chainsaw mill.

I moved the more defective slab to my mill, and the least defective slab to my workshop.

Time to layout and perhaps carve the slab into the curved beam that we want. My fingers are crossed!

East City Park Elm

2008-12-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

Sadly, many American Elm trees around Moscow are infected with Dutch Elm disease.

We arranged with Roger Blanchard, The Moscow city arborist, to take all of the usable wood from a century-old American Elm tree. This tree was first girdled, and then felled, because it was found to be infected with Dutch Elm disease. The tree was felled by Lacey K tree service. We agreed to move the wood outside of Moscow and/or to remove all of the bark to kill the beetle larvae which carries Dutch Elm disease.

The butt end of the tree was massive, and we estimated its weight at close to 8,000 lbs. Far too large for my trailer, we borrowed the 5,000-lbs capacity trailer from PCEI. We hired a hydraulic self-loading rock-moving truck to lift the log onto the trailer. The weight of the log was enough to lift the back of the trailer and the back of my Jeep completely off the ground as it was being loaded.

The log and the weight were clearly too much to safely transport to my sawmill. Instead, we moved the log to the nearby PCEI campus. It took three 4x4 trucks to pull the log off of the trailer and onto the ground:

The hope is to mill and chainsaw carve this giant log into the special curved timber on the front of the PCEI Artist's studio...

Milling, Milling, Milling...

2008-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

This late fall, Peter and I have been hard at work milling the timbers for the studio. We wanted to mill everything before snow prevented easy access to the mill site.

This work is moderately rewarding: It takes a long time to move logs onto the mill and into the correct position. However, the payoff happens when one gets to open up a log and look inside for the first time. Even after milling dozen of timbers, I get a kick out of seeing a near-perfectly square timber take shape out of a curved, knobby, muddy, bark-covered log. The better the wood quality, the more fun it is. Large, clear, straight logs with no obvious pitch pockets are the best. As far as preferred species, Western Larch and American Elm are particularly rewarding, as well as the rare high-quality Douglas Fir log. Clear Ponderosa and Lodgepole Pine is nice too. Heck, its all good.

Lacking large machinery for moving logs around we often have to rely on levers and cant hooks (aka peaveys) to move logs into position. Here is Peter, standing atop our log deck, rolling a large log off the deck all the way down to the sawmill:

Peter is more cavalier about standing on top of an unstable log deck than I am. :-)

Rolling a log up onto the mill can be challenging. I bought optional spring-loaded ramps which make this a lot easier. The log "rachets" up the ramps. Even working alone, I can move a very heavy log into position on the mill with the aid of a cant hook.

Here, Peter is operating the sawmill, finishing the top cut which will finalize this large timber. Each ripping cut takes a matter of seconds. Most sawing time is spent setting up cuts to make things square. Carefully planning out how to get the most out of each log and then moving things carefully into position really pays off and reduces waste.

The sawmill sounds like a large, loud lawn mower engine. Hearing protection is a great idea.

Here, you can see the back of the bandsaw blade as it makes a cut into the log.

The bandsaw is lubricated with water. You can see that here:

Here I am, finishing a cut on a massive Ponderosa Pine log.

This pine log turned into a huge 13"x14" timber. It had enough defects (knots) to prevent its use as a beam, although it might make an excellent post or it could be cut into 1"x12" boards and used as board and batten siding. A lot of barns around the Palouse use pine board and batten siding. I've seen original, 100 year old pine siding in good shape on some of these barns.

Below, I am milling a large dead-standing Western Larch log. This timber will be one of the three large top plates on the studio. It will be partially responsible for supporting the weight of the heavy living roof. I've always found that Larch seems to check more severely than most other native softwoods. The fact that it was harvested as dead-standing means that it is drier and more stable (i.e. seasoned) than most of our other green logs. It is critical that top plates don't warp too much.

We've finished almost all of the milling for this project, although finding/carving the large curved beam on the front of the studio is proving challenging...

Logs Delivered to the Mill...

2008-11-05T16:54:00.000-08:00

Ideally, we wanted to build this Artist's Studio exclusively using logs donated by community members who had trees that died from disease, wind storms, etc. Many of the studio's posts and beams will come from logs exactly like this. This kind of wood connects the community to the building and each piece of wood in the timber frame tells a story and expresses a sense of place.

However, we realized that we needed additional logs for this project if we intended to finish the frame by the Spring. We bought one truckload of regionally harvested logs from a local, independent logging trucker.

Joe Murray from Potlatch delivered a load of logs to our mill with very little effort, using his self-loading logging truck.

Most of the logs are green Douglas Fir and Western Larch. There is some pine and grand fir thrown in as well. Peter and I hand-picked several of the Larch and Fir logs with certain beams in mind. I had Joe drop these hand-picked logs closest to the Woodmizer.

After having spent some considerable time wrestling logs with come-alongs and winches and peaveys, it was eye opening to watch Joe effortlessly and quickly pick up and move heavy logs as though they were nearly weightless sticks.

The final log deck is over 3,000 board feet of good quality sawlogs.

Most of the logs are 16', but some are closer to 31' in length.

We'll begin milling these gorgeous logs into posts and beams in earnest before conditions prevent good access to the mill.

Winterizing the Job Site!

2008-11-05T16:31:00.000-08:00

I rented the Dingo again and moved dirt around to prep the job site for the Palouse wet season. This process involved pushing soil downhill to form a natural grade that fits the hillside. The goal is to allow water to flow naturally downhill without collecting around the foundation. After moving dirt en masse wirth the Dingo, I raked and raked to smooth out the ground.

I think it turned out pretty well.

Tracy Brown from the Watersheds Program seeded the jobsite with grasses and other natural flora. This helps suppress both soil erosion and the inevitable weeds that crop up whenever soil is disturbed.

Tom Lamar then spread straw around the job site to further protect the soil from erosion. This also helps keep birds from eating all of the newly spread grass seed...

Tom also placed buckets with stones over each pier to protect the exposed angle iron from direct moisture until the building itself serves this function.

Not sure what the upended picnic table is all about, but I suppose one could picnic up there in the snow... :-)

Yay! The job site is now prepared for the inevitably wet winter and spring.

On to milling and then finally to timber framing!

2008-10-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Before pouring concrete, we needed to clean out the holes. The base of many of the foundation holes needed to be shifted at least an inch or two. This was hard work, since it was 90 degrees outside, we had to break through more of that Palouse clay with our shovels, and the holes were not quite wide enough to lean down to remove dirt.

We did find about a dozen of these beautiful salamanders trapped at the bottoms of our holes after only one night. The must have fallen in accidentally and were unable to climb back out. Here you can see me holding one of the little guys...

The children loved the holes, too. We made sure to remove them before pouring concrete... :-)

We added 6" of compacted 3/4 minus gravel to the bottom of each hole.

After measuring and re-measuring and re-measuring, we positioned the footers and sonotubes in their correct relative position and then we backfilled our holes. Of course it felt a little frustrating to fill in the holes that we painstakingly cleared out...

The concrete is reinforced with rebar. We have a grid of rebar inside of the bigfoot footers, raised above the gravel layer by pieces of brick. We have 4 pieces of vertical rebar lashed to a brick and to each other with wire.

Peter developed a simple way of building the rebar mesh using a brick and some wire:

Peter and I mixed 30 bags of concrete with water by hand using a tarp. You place an 80-lbs bag of pre-mix concrete on the tarp, add water, and jostle back and forth like a mixer. When the concrete is mixed in the tarp, then you use the tarp to pour the wet concrete into the sonotubes.

Before pouring all of the concrete, we positioned our angle-iron into the sonotube. The angle iron has a piece of rebar sticking through its base, which will serve as an anchor, helping to resist uplift of the angle iron out of the concrete.

Ultimately, we will weld a custom horizontal plate to this angle iron. This custom plate will attach to the timber sill plate of the artist's studio.

We used some hand-made forms to hold the angle iron in place while the concrete dries. Here, you can see all six finished piers starting to dry.

The pier foundation turned out great!

I think both Peter and I were excited to be done with this phase of the project. Now, we must focus on acquiring logs, milling them, and preparing to cut the joinery this winter.

2008-10-18T16:38:00.000-07:00

Since the Dingo was not able to bore through the tough Palouse clay, we rented a Bobcat with a 24" auger bit. The Bobcat weights 4 times more than the Dingo, and this extra weight allowed us to ultimately push through the clay and excavate our holes for our pier foundation.

Our 10x14 footprint is small enough that navigating the Bobcat between the holes was a challenge.

Using the auger on the Bobcat was so simple and easy, that we ultimately dug our holes deeper than 50", when we only needed to go around 30". The extra depth will only serve to make a stronger, more stable foundation.

If you look closely at the following picture, you will see some local wildlife hanging out in the holes.

All six pier holes were close to their ideal location. However, some work was necessary to clean out the holes and make sure we could position our bigfoot footers and sonotubes correctly.

After that, its time to prepare to pour the concrete...

Excavation Day!

2008-09-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

We had a great turnout of volunteers for the Artist Studio excavation project!

Students from both the University of Idaho and Washington State University, PCEI members and staff, and friends and family all turned out to move some dirt. We had about 20 pairs of helpful hands.

A lot of the excavation was done with hand tools: shovels and wheel barrows!

A great day for friends to get together and do some cool work on a hot day!

It was such a hot and dry day that this hastily erected shade shelter turned out to be crucial!

We cut back into the hill. Our deepest dig was 24" below grade. We used GeoWeb material to provide slope stabilization and essentially create a simple earthen retaining wall.

We also used a rented diesel Dingo for our auger and scoop. The dingo was not very helpful unless the ground was softened up with shovels by the volunteers. But once the ground was softened up, the dingo could efficiently push dirt around.

The post holes for the footers and sonotubes turned out to be our only problem. The ground was just too hard.

The hard Palouse clay was a big problem for our little dingo with the 30" auger. Digging with this auger bit was rough going. We ended up largely polishing the clay instead of digging through it.

The next steps are to complete the footer holes using a larger (heavier) machine and a smaller auger bit. After that, we'll setup the footers and sonotubes and rebar and prepare for the concrete pour!!

Milling The Posts and Beams!

2008-09-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

We submitted our building plans and permit application to the City of Moscow, and we anxiously await their verdict. Our pre-permit meeting went well, and we are not anticipating any problems.

While we await the building permit, we've decided to proceed on two fronts: preparing the job site and milling the timbers.

All of the logs going into the studio come from local sources. Many logs come from homeowners, community members, and parks inside or around Moscow that lost trees to wind storms, disease, or other causes. An important part of any good urban forestry practice is the recycling of trees that would otherwise end up as firewood or dumped in a landfill.

Below are pictures of a 90 year-old Douglas Fir log donated by Steffen and Nicole Werner of Moscow. This fir tree was felled in the Spring of 2007 to make room for home renovation. Here it is being milled into an 8x8 post.

Each side is milled separately with care to produce square corners. The log is manually rotated 90 degrees for each cut. Moving the log into position for accurate cuts is the most time consuming part of the milling process.

After lopping off the irregular ends with a chainsaw, we have a strong and beautiful post timber!

At this point, I've milled three posts and one beam. The posts are entirely mixed-species: Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, and Engelmann Spruce. The large curved beam on the front of the studio was milled from an American Elm harvested from East City Park after the city removed it (it was dying of Dutch Elm Disease).

Every piece of wood comes from the Moscow community and therefore has a story and shares a common history with all of us.

Kicking off the PCEI Writer's Studio Project

2008-07-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute (PCEI) is kicking off a project to construct a small Writer's Studio, integrated in their Nature Center in Moscow, Idaho. This blog will record the progress of the project.

Designed by Nora Creek Timber Frames, the Writer's Studio will be a small 10'x14' Timber Framed structure situated on a South-facing hill overlooking the Nature Center with views of the PCEI pond and plant nursery, downtown Moscow and the University of Idaho campus.

The building will be built using traditional timber-framing techniques using large sustainably-harvested local timbers. The building will support a live, green roof. The current plans are to infill between the timbers using a combination of cordwood construction and stick-framed/stucco infill.

The Writer's Studio will provide space for either one or several people. It is detached from the other buildings on the PCEI campus and will be a place for quiet reflection and writing. It can serve as an alternative work space, gathering space, or even as a small meeting area for several people.

The Writer's Studio will provide many opportunities for community involvement and education. We plan to schedule several small community/volunteer events such as an old-fashioned barn raising of the timber frame as well as events centering on alternative building techniques such as cordwood infill and building a green roof.

PCEI is currently working on acquiring a building permit from the city. Once that has been acquired, work will begin immediately on the foundation and the custom milling of the timbers.

Please stay tuned for more information and news surrounding the PCEI Writer's Studio project!