Timber Frame gazebo

[Den_Kompaniets]

Hello everyone! I would like to share a project that we built with my friend Konstantin in the summer. It's my first experience in timber framing, after digging through lots of books I finally felt that the time has come.

I'll post some pictures about the build in progress after this one. Any feedback or advice is much appreciated.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

We started with the rafters, so later we could fit the rest of the frame to the slope that we will get.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Morticed the rafters and cut tenons on the posts

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

The horizontal beam (I think it's called a stretcher) is it tension, so we decided to use steel fasteners.

 

[skipdiver]

Looking good Den. I like big carpentry like this.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

we layed out the braces in place on the assembled bent - it's better to scribe then to measure.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Here's the fit that we got

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

By the way, the timbers that we had to work with were planed but a bit out of square

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

First bent assembled, (well, not completely - we left the top braces for later) two more to do.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Layout of a mortice

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

After finishing the 3 bents and making sure everything fits, we disassembled everything and started to cut the perpendicular beams.
We also used allthreads in these connections.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

.. and 6 more braces to make, 12 mortices to cut

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

we couldn't resist the temptation to start raising the frame the same day it was ready.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Raising day. We lifted the timbers in place manually and, I must admit, it wasn't easy.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Tightening the nuts. We used wooden blocks held by clamps to place the beams on during the assembly - made assembly safer and easier

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

more raising

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

View from the top of a post

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Next came the rafters.

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Time to make some pegs - the oldschool way

 

[Den_Kompaniets]

Purlins are added...

..and then covered with planed boards. the eave is yet to be trimmed.