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mosey:
Ross,
This is jolly.
It is Scotsman, isn't it?
I once had a Scotsman (McKenzie) for a client. He never said anythin. And when he did, it was always the same..."it's too much".
And he never joked. And we are still friends.
I'm going to work on this some more. I will affect an accent. Which would you suggest?
I spent 2 nights on a ship in Southampton harbor one time with about 8 Cockney longshoremen. We had alot of fun. And alot of beer. I don't think I understood anythin. They joked alot.
Cheers
It is jerrrsey here. We have lots of trees and cattle.
Mosey :wave:
RossJarvis:
As I said earlier, following advice from the beloved; “Just because you act like a teenager, it still doesn’t mean you should look like one”. I thought I’d better pop into the “workshop” to fix me braces.
So far I’ve somehow managed to make a bundle of sticks into some semblance of a square shape. Any “engineers” amongst you will realise that a “space frame” is not particularly rigid and benefits a lot from “triangulated bracing", to increase “torsional rigidity”. Braces are also b****y handy to stop you being sent up before the beak for indecent exposure in my experience!
I didn’t do these on the course at Weald and Downland so these are a bit new to me in the mortice and tenon form. I did lap-joint (Hello officer, can you help me out, this gentleman is trying to charge me for leaving this pub. What do you mean what’s my name? I don’t see why you need my name, this man is obviously in the wrong. What do you mean you’ve met my sort before? I’ll have you know I’m a High Court Judge and you b****y well know that, as you were giving evidence in Smith v Regina last week, WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU”RE ARRESTING ME FOR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE TO AN OFFICER OF THE LAW!) braces, including a couple of dovetail ones in Mk 1. But I really want to do the other sort in this job. The braces will be fairly basic in form as the timber is straight. I’ll leave the curvey ones till later.
First thing, I loosely assembled the frame, face down, on some ceramic “levelling blocks”, which had lain dormant in the “workshop” for some time, one in each corner. Then I levelled the whole lot with pairs of wedges at each corner on the levelling blocks;
For some strange reason there’s a fair bit of “drop” across the floor, but there again I didn’t lay it (If I had we’d probably call it a staircase!). I used the “Short Israeli” for this as the “Big Austrian“ was in a strop. Plus, when I applied the “sash cramps”, it might cause problems having a six-footer lying about. As my cheapie “Carpet Warehouse” cramps are currently in someone else’s stables several miles away, along with my saw-stools, and tool box No 4, I had to improvise. This is probably more in keeping with the “classic style”. The garden twine was not up to the job so I had to use nylon and a few sticks;
This seemed to work well, pulling the joints tight(ish);
This is the “Short Israeli”;
I call him that ‘cos he’s shorter than the big Austrian…….and he comes from Israel, he’s pretty bright, modern and fairly well thought out, although the lines in his bubbles are a bit wonky. He also spends a lot of time leaning against walls with the Big Austrian. I’ve off-set him above the frame here ‘cos the sash-cramps were fouling the back face of the frame. I checked that these "offsets" were the same thickness to prevent(ish) errors. Then I eyed up across the timbers for “wind?”, or to check it was all flat as well as level;
Lastly I squared the frame with a "pointy stick";
This is a stick.........with a point carved on the end;
The one I am using is a bit flimsy for this size of job (and also happens to be the hardwood peg supply!). But the one I’d made from batten appears to have done a “runner” over night (never should have carved a spoon in the end of it, and I haven’t a clue where one of the dishes has gone either?). If you’re really posh, you carve a point on two sticks and bung ‘em together with a rubber band! To use one of these, you base the assumption that a “squared rectangle” is equal in distance, corner to corner (generally I agree with the Pythagorians here, but I have some sympathy for the pre-Socratics, ‘cos I’ve been to East Anglia and it’s obvious the Earth is flat there, and there’s nothing like an argument between the Greeks, particularly when a lot of retsina’s been taken), However, I digress (and the magistrate said I can’t do that unless my wife agrees).
Ahem, let’s start again. If you’ve got a square shape and want to check all the sides are “square” 90 degrees in each corner, you can check this by measuring diagonally, corner to corner. If this measurement is equal, then the shape is square. Stick the point of your stick into one corner and measure to the diagonal corner, then do the other two corners. If the measurement is the same, then the shape is square. If one measurement is longer than the other, then bash or tap the corner inwards where the length is longest. Keep doing this till the measurement is equal. This only works, if the distance from one side of the shape to the other in both axis is equal………….Oh hang geometry, if you don’t know what I’m talking about by now, you’re as lost as I am, let’s go and do the braces. I just measured the b****y thing to check that the corners were all the same distance apart.
I had made up the length of the braces off the top of my head, when doing the plans earlier. These were based on the Mk 1 model, which seemed to work and I had made ‘cos they looked right. Someone who knows what they’re doing can say if there’s an ideal length for these. I tried to cut these timbers so that there were no knots at the ends as these would make the tenons very weak.
I’d made these about 20 inches long, so stuck ‘em in each top corner, using the “American Carpenter’s Square”, (I call it that ‘cos it was called a carpenter’s square.....and came from America!) to set them at a 45 degree angle;
I wanted to use as much of them as I could, but the most important thing was moving them up and down a bit to ensure that the mortices weren’t going to have knots in either. Once happy with the positions, I checked that they were the same distance from each corner, to be equal. Then I marked their positions on the rear side of the beam and uprights;
And cramped them up;
Having a slightly dry throat after a hard day in the “workshop”, I had a couple of glugs of cider (doesn’t it show). And I think it’s time for bed, so Nighty Night and I’ll see you in the morning.
RossJarvis:
--- Quote from: mosey on August 24, 2013, 05:17:08 PM ---Ross,
This is jolly.
It is Scotsman, isn't it?
I once had a Scotsman (McKenzie) for a client. He never said anythin. And when he did, it was always the same..."it's too much".
And he never joked. And we are still friends.
I'm going to work on this some more. I will affect an accent. Which would you suggest?
I spent 2 nights on a ship in Southampton harbor one time with about 8 Cockney longshoremen. We had alot of fun. And alot of beer. I don't think I understood anythin. They joked alot.
Cheers
It is jerrrsey here. We have lots of trees and cattle.
Mosey :wave:
--- End quote ---
Hiyay Mosey :wave: It's great chatting.
Well, some people say the man is Scots and the drink is Scotch, but in some places the man is Scotch too (in the West End of Glasgow the Scots men are half Scotch, but that's another story and probably going to get me into a lot of trouble!). In modern common parlance they're Scots. In Orkney they're Orcadian and not Scotch or Scots. The people used to be called Scotch as well as Scots, but it's gone out of fashion a long while now.
The McKenzies are from the same place as my mother's family! The Scots can actually be some of the most generous people you can meet, but often with their time and energy. Traditionally they were all "skint" so had nothing to give anyone, particularly the English! Is your friend called Kenneth by any chance?
I think it better to speak Jerrrsey (whether New or Noo), but if you can do Noo Yoik, that might be better (I've probably got that pronunciation wrong). Though Noo Joisey, or Jawsey, might be better still, that'd confuse us!
I work in Portsmouth, (Well Cosham really, remember 100 miles is a very long distance here), which is about 20 miles from Southampton. In effect that's another country, even if they're both in the same county! There's been a state of Cold War between the two for several centuries which gets hot at least once a year when The Saints play Pompey. :hammer:
It would be great to see you when you're here.
G*d Bless, I've gotta go to bed.
RossJarvis:
In my last post I’d got to the bit where the braces were cramped to the corners, (we could always start an argument now about whether I’d clamped ‘em or cramped ‘em, that’s why I think it’s easier to put a brick on top instead! I started with a pair of “handy clamps”, but I’m not sure now).
I’m noticing that the timber’s started moving about a bit now and it’s got me scratching my head a lot, as to how to cut the joints to minimise the gaps. As it’s a pegged job I can’t use the “cascamite-and-sawdust-inlay system”. Speaking of which, here’s a job I did a few years back, where I think the inlay shows the hand-cut dove-tails to fine advantage!;
I’m sure there’d be a proper way of doing this framing lark, but as you’re probably aware by now, I’m making this up as I go along! (The labourer down the wood-yard is the only person to notice this, but as his timber selection method is “Now then, I fink them bits at the top of the pile are wot he really wants”, I’m not sure I’d trust his wisdom completely. However, I suppose if I were hefting wood around all day myself, I couldn’t fault his logic. I’ll have to ask him if he’s an Aristotelian or a Boolean next time I’m down there!)
Enough digression (I told you love, it’s my gress not yours!).
Having marked the rear of the frames for the positions of where the braces would be, I used the square to mark down onto the “inside” of post and beam, for the end of the mortices. I tried to mark under the braces for the “shoulders” of the tenons, but this was tricky as it’s all so close to the floor and tried to square up the sides of the braces. I don’t think using the square was ideal here, I would suppose using a chalked plumb line would be better, particularly if the timbers were bigger. I’m having difficulty remembering which bits should be “scribed” and which bits would be “plumb(ed)”. Anyway, it’ll all come out in the wash, I’m hoping a little bit of wooden “shim” and a swipe with a plane will cover up some of the bigger mistakes. (I’ll park a chair in front of the biggest mistakes!).
I then compared one brace to the other, to see if they were similar enough to be right. Doing this helped me notice the slight “mistake”, that when setting them out, I’d measured down from the top of the frame for one brace and the inside of the frame for the other!!! Luckily as I hadn’t applied the saw, I could fix that with a rubber and a new scribble, luckily I had a rubber in the tool box (strangely enough my big brother always carried his in his wallet, he says if you put it there you wouldn’t make mistakes! I really should’ve listened to his advice when I was younger!). This is comparing the two braces after I’d re-scribbled;
You might notice that there’s about ½ inch difference between the two. This could be down to the irregularities in the wood, or probably I’ve just cacked up again. As it is, they’re nearly six foot apart so who’s going to notice? It’ll only be ¼” when they’re in place anyway.
Nextly; Cutting the tenons. Due to the angle of the brace, I found there was a lot of wood to rip through, but I only needed to come in from one side as the shoulders were at 45%. Here I found the sawing was getting hard, possibly because the “grain” was curling the wood in, but I dare say that I might not have a good technique yet!; Anyway, I had a bright idea, so I popped in, found the wife’s best candle and rubbed it all over the blade;
This seemed to do the trick as the sawing got easier. You’ll probably need to use the missus’ best candle as I’m sure the wax’ll be better! She won’t mind surely? I think, if your blade is straight and you know what you’re doing you won’t need the wax. Plus, if you’re going to be gluing the tenons, the wax would cause a lot of problems. Luckily, I’m going to be using pegs, and the wax’ll help waterproof the joint!!!
Et Veolia (as the Bin-men say in France); two part-finished braces;
I used to think you’d cut the mortices into the posts at 45 degrees for braces, but apparently not, it’s probably too fiddly and not necessary, plus I think you’d never get the thing together during assembly. I’m hoping I’ve got this next bit right. I marked the tenon, back 45 degrees on the longest edge of the brace;
….and chopped the end off (too late to go back now!). This should mean that the tenon will slide in square to the face of the beam/post. Then I laid them out on the posts with the "LI" just to see what other mistakes I’d made;
So far so good, but looking at the twist I’d cut in the Tenons!!! You’d think I was a “prop-maker” for Sopwiths. Never mind, a sharp chisel and wooden-shim’ll sort that out.
If you chop the mortice full depth along its length, there’ll be a big gap inside the mortice when the joint’s done up, so if you’re handy with a chisel I’m sure you could cut one end of the mortice at 45 degrees. Personally I think Father O’Reilly might need somewhere to hide his Bushmills when his mates pop round and he might need somewhere for his mates if the “roundheads” come round, so I’ve left some big “holes”! I might try something different on the back frame.
Next I BRRR-GRAUNCH-WHIRRED the mortices, shaved their edges, popped the braces in the holes, marked the depth of the tenons, sawed a bit more kindling off and “Hey Presto” (I think Presto became Safeway actually!);
Job Done!! I’ll not make you jealous by showing you close-ups of the braces and how flush they are to the front face……still, nothing that a quick wipe across with a plane won’t settle!!!
See you later, I’ve been blathering on when I should be drilling some holes for the pegs today!!!
Oh look! The apprentice has popped round for a hob-nob or two; look at him, lying down on the job, as usual;
This is when I’d just told him “look Sonny, none of your cheek! I’ve forgotten more about carpentry than you’ll ever know”. “Izzat so gran’dad I wish you’d remembered some of it when you was tryin’ to teach me!!!” he said back. I don’t know, the Yoof of today eh!!
We were never like that, were we?
mosey:
When I cut my dovetails too wide, I slip a little sliver of veneer in there. Nobody knows the truth.
Mosey :lol:
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