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| RossJarvis:
Hennyway (as they say in Croydon!) I’d completed all the tenons on the front frame pieces and cut the lap-joint (“I say sir, how much for a gin and tonic!? When I wandered in here I was thinking it was like any other normal pub!”). I thought I’d fit the lap-joint first and then offer all the other tenons up to see if I’d got anywhere near with the marks for the mortices. First thing I noticed was that it wouldn’t fit together straight away, which I think is a good thing, apparently it’s harder to put wood back on with a chisel than take it off, so if anything I’d tried to cut “inside my lines” As I’m not particularly good at holding the saw “square or plumb” or following the line. I got out the chisel and pushed down, shaving the “sides” of the joint, particularly where I could see I was inside my marked line; I kept doing this to see if the joint would fit and tried to look at which “face?” of the joint was wider. Whilst doing this I somehow remembered some good advice wot a “proper chippie” had told me ages ago. Instead of offering the joint, open hole to open hole; I did each one at a time, offering the joint up to the “back” of the joint, i.e. the other side of the timber, where it was whole. With doing this I got the two to match up and they slid together as a firm sliding fit, but I did have to resort to the hitting stick to get it all the way in, but this was “tapping it” and not “bashing” it. The last time did this I think I offered the joints up face to face and ended up with somewhere to park my bicycle! As I said, it went together with a bit of force and I’m quite chuffed with how it turned out. No big gaps; That looks pretty square to me; And the front faces seem fairly level; Next up, putting the frame loosely together to check the joints against each other, before committing to more “butchery”; I’d put a wee bit of effort into levelling the frame, with some (ahem) off-cuts (okay, they’re going to be the side beams and braces, but let’s not worry about mere details here); The bottom “beam” and middle “post” were fairly square so I used these as my “reference”. I put the top “beam” across and the side posts, trying to match tenons to mortice marks, this was a bit tricky as I haven’t followed standard practice here. Normally (or at least when building a house or barn!) the posts have tenons at each and the beams mortices. As I have little legs underneath the bottom beam (floor plate?) the mortices are in the bottom of the posts. This means I’ll have to slide the top beam across when checking each joint. Once I’d sorted out where the bits went, I thought I’d just check the top beam for “square”; I’m not sure how clearly the electric Daguerreotype shows it, but you can probably see that there’s something not right here and it looks like the top beam is bowed. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have another brief intermission, the feature will restart presently, young gentlemen in the back row, if Gladys comes in here once more telling me what you are doing, we will have to remove you from the theatre!” I tried to use the square the other way round to check the beam too and then started to think the square wasn’t! So I went to check the square. An Engineer told me (“before he died, tiddy boom, tiddy boom, tiddy boom!”), that a quick way to check a square was this, Get a nice straight bit of desk or something, hold the stock of the square to the edge of it, firmly and mark a line up the “blade,rule, long-bendy-thingy; Flip it over and check to see if the blade-wotsit follows the line, If it does, it’s fine, if not it’s time for them “fettling” files, or if you have a fixed square, you’ll need what I think AndyT refers to as a “Birmingham screwdriver”. This square seemed okay for government work, so I went off back to the “workshop”. “Ladies and Gentlemen please regain your seats as the main feature is about to restart, YOU LOT IN THE BACK ROW GET OUT NOW OR I’LL HAVE THE ROZZERS ON YA!” Just going out for a walk with the apprentice and his aunty. I’ve just had a chat with the neighbour over the fence, so I’d better get on with the work soon and stop blathering with you. See you later, byeee. |
| RossJarvis:
Hello again peeps! It’s all gone a bit quiet out there, have I bored you all or have you all gone to work or else found something useful to do instead? Please just say hello now and again as it’s getting a bit lonely in the “workshop”. The only company I get is “the apprentice” and his aunty, and they don’t pop in much, and when they do they just end up shouting at the neighbours! I’ve come on a bit since I last blathered on so let’s see where we are then. Oh yes, tenons and lap-joint done. I think I laid the frame out again and this gave me the opportunity to check all the marks were lining up etc, I seem to find the more times I check, the more mistakes I find, I suppose that’s better than finding the mistakes after sharp thing hits wood! I’d had a bit of a problem trying to square the top beam about the top of the middle post, cos the beam was bowed and I found there was a bit of deformity in the post too. What I needed, thought I, was a big Austrian, so I popped out to the porch and found him hanging around in a corner behind several years worth of cobwebs. this is the big Austrian here; I call him the big Austrian (TBA) because…well, he’s over six foot tall and from Austria. (He’s also fairly well built, spends most of his time leaning against walls and seems pretty quiet and miserable, but I don’t mention that to his face!) I squared off TBA at the middle post; …and then lined everything up. I could now check the mortices against the end of the tenons and see whether I needed to adjust owt. This one seems okay, so I marked it with a tick (just need to remember what that means when cutting!); I then started making chips and dust with the morticer as mentioned somewhere earlier, resulting in; Just like wot a proper chippie might do with an auger and chisel, only rougher and about twice as slow, I might get quicker with practice! I’m making the mortices three “chisels” long, cos the chisel is about a third of a timber-width square and I think there’s generally a “rule of thirds” or something when doing mortice and tenons, well it makes sense to me! The mortices at the end of the beam are two “chisels” long, as the end of the beam is going to be flush with the side of the post. I don’t want the end or “sides,edges?” of the tenons showing so all these mortices are “blind?” is that the word?, well they don’t go through the whole timber anyway. This doesn’t leave much “end grain” in the beam, but I’m hoping that won’t be a problem. Brrrr, Graunch, Whizz, not many minutes later, all the mortices are done. Next step, fitting the tenons into the holes, or is it fitting the holes around the tenons? For this I was going to use two chisels, bevel edge ones. Here’s one I’d prepared earlier; …and one I hadn’t; This is me realising the thinner one probably wasn’t up to todays job!; The second one is essentially as it came when new (these had had the “secondary bevel” cut at the factory, possibly with a mill file!!), apart from where I’d been bashing some wood with a nail in it or something, I think that was when I was “easing” the old back door frame out a couple of years back. You can also see how well I keep my tools from this shot!! (okay, I admit it, it was a bit shinier when I got it. It was also lacquered, but I came up with some good reason to strip that off. B******d if I can remember what that reason was now, I even stripped off the numbers wot told me how wide they were! It had better be a b****y good reason is all I can say now! And this is it after a couple of swipes across a sharpening stone (or two!); I think the glint of sunlight off the “fettled” bit means it’s approaching “sharp enough” Here’s a shot in the shade showing it’s not quite as “sharpened” as it could be; Next step was fitting the mortices to the tenons. Both chisels were reasonably sharp so only needed a firm push to shave the sides of the hole. I didn’t need to do much wiggling and took a little bit off at a time. As the auger in the morticer chisel was a bit proud of the edges of the chisel it had left ridges down the holes, so I only really needed to shave these plus a bit extra on some, depending on how badly I’d butchered the tenon. I felt it better to shave the holes than the tenon as there was more wood in the mortice lump of wood than in the tenon, though someone who knows what they’re doing may wish to chip in here with better advice. Most of the mortices were “long?” enough to not need the “ends” shaved, which was lucky, as the thin/narrow? Chisel was a very tight squeeze in the hole. (eight Swedish chisels, all in metric! All exactly the wrong size for any proper work!!!). I’m making a rustic store, so I’m letting most of the tenons go full width of the timber. If I was more concerned with neatness, I might make the holes (mortices) less long/wide? And shave a tad off the “edges?” of the tenons. I think this might make the joint look a bit better. “Oh! You’re here then!!” This is the “apprentice” again; He’d taken me for a walk round the park earlier, found one of his balls he’d lost in the fight yesterday and was most pleased to have a pair again! And then, like most apprentices, mooched off when he was needed and couldn’t be found (I’m sure any trades-people here know exactly what I’m talking about!). This photo was approaching lunch-time and he’d come to the workshop looking for some Hobnobs. I’d just asked him to clamp summat up with the handy clamp, he looked down at it, then up at me and said “Wot! Me! With my thumbs, you know I aint gonna be doin’ that!!” I think it’s time to rest my eyes again, I’ll be back a little later, remember to say hello if you’re still interested. |
| PeterE:
Oh yes I am still interested! It will be a well built log store that one. Not many nails or screws needed and still I think it will be well sturdy enough for use. /Peter |
| RossJarvis:
--- Quote from: PeterE on August 23, 2013, 12:16:19 PM ---Oh yes I am still interested! It will be a well built log store that one. Not many nails or screws needed and still I think it will be well sturdy enough for use. /Peter --- End quote --- Thankyou Peter :thumbup: |
| waggle:
Can't speak for anyone else, but I think you have a great writing style and a good subject. Butchering the brown stuff has always been a black art to me, you are making it fun to learn. I will be watching avidly. Tony BTW. Great work so far! |
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