Green Oak Porch

[MikeG.]

As an experiment, I am going to post a small part of my on-going renovation project here: the porch.

Here is the front of the house, with the porch base almost ready:

Oops, looks like the lens needs a wipe.

Here is the porch, ready to assemble:

And here is what I am going to build:

First job was to bring the 2 inch blocks up level with the top of the bricks. I too the novel approach of laying them over-height, and trimming them off afterwards. It wasn't a complete success.

As always, start with the sole plate:

There is a little sloped rebate to the outside. A couple of passes of the circular saw, a clean up with a plane and scraper, and that was easy:

Best James May voice Now, look out for the schoolboy error. Lulled into a false sense of adequacy by the first rebate, on the outside to the plate, I went and ran one on the inside all the way to the end of the piece of wood, without stopping it. The little chamfer on the bottom right hand side of the following piccie:

It was my wife's fault. She called "lunch", and I thought I'd just squeeze the chamfer in before we all sat down...... I knew what I'd done straight away, which rather spoiled lunch. There was only one good solution, I thought: time to do a mitred bridle joint. I don't think I've done one before in oak framing, and it's in a pretty prominent position. What could possibly go wrong?

Note the other rebates in the above image, which shows the plate upside-down. The triangular rebate is simply somewhere for the mortar to go when this piece is bedded, such that if there is any shrinkage or movement there won't be a straight joint through under the plate. The small rectangular rebate is for some lead. more of that in a week or two.

Schoolboy error number two: I did the rebates prior to marking out for the mortises!! This meant I didn't have an edge to work to with my square and mortise gauge. How many years have I been doing this stuff? Oh, and I didn't mention that the wood wasn't straight:

Here are the mortises, and some big notes to myself so I don't make any more cock-ups:

The male side of the mitred bridle joint, with half a mortise:

Here's the other one, sitting in situ:

I knew this wasn't going to be easy:

Not perfect, but OK for the first one. I've got 8 to make, so I'll make a template:

 

[MikeG.]

A lot has happened since I last posted, including lots of family stuff, and another small back operation. So, it's been nearly a fortnight. There's plenty to get through, so let's recap. I'm making the porch frame in oak, and I had already made the sole plates:

...and done the foot of one of the posts:

There are 8 posts bearing on these pair of sole plates, so it was worthwhile making some templates. Plural, because the timber isn't straight or square, so each foot is slightly different. I made 3 generic templates, and adjusted one of them for each post foot:

Note the major rebate in the post. This is towards the outer face, and is an essential part of the design, although it will never be seen again:

All the posts had just the foot joint made, and were left over-length. There were rebates, and mortises for the window cill too, and with each rebate taking the best part of quarter of an hour, and of course the mortises taking a while, it took at least a couple of days to get the basics of all the studs done. I couldn't do the westernmost corner posts until I had completed the mitred bridle joint in the sole plate, so here is the process:

Fine tuning the joint:

Then completing the mortise, and having done all the rebating and shaping of the plate:

Obviously, there are two of these.

The eagle eyed will have seen that the mitre doesn't go neatly to the corner. This is an annoyance, and is due to being unhappy with the piece of timber supplied for the short sole plates, and buying some new stuff in its place.........but the new stuff coming up undersized. I decided to take the pain on the outside, and keep the inside neat.

The foot of the corner posts was a bit of a challenge. There wasn't any single cut I could make complete to full depth, so there was lots of careful chisel work:

Frankly, I was pretty proud of those two, although they'll never be seen again.

Next job was the eaves beam/ wall plate. Again, I had had to go off and buy a couple of new bits of timber as the crap I'd had delivered just wasn't good enough. Unfortunately, this meant ripping a 6"x 6" down into a 5" x 5-14", and the depth of cut of my saw is on 2-1/2". Lots of work followed. Anyhow, eventually I got to set out the plate by setting it alongside the sole plate:

Then I chopped out 4 of these:

Note my technique of trying to get the corners cut before doing the final 1 to 1.5mm slice down each face of the mortise. I have no idea if it's the recommended way, but it works for me.

In a bit of excitement to see what the porch was going to look like, I decided to build this wall vertically. It wasn't a great idea. You start by doing the outer two posts, and sitting the plate on the top, then offering up the inner posts and marking them to length before taking the plate off again, fitting the intermediate posts, and then putting the plate back in. Gravity isn't your friend with this stuff:

Finally, for today, the wall in place, but without any window cills:

With rain forecast, all that was then dismantled and taken inside, because rain stains green oak horribly.

 

[MikeG.]

Here's a view through the cill mortises, as a clue to what's next on the agenda:

The cills have 3 rebates, which are a real pain to do on this scale. The top two are to create an upstand to keep water out if anything leaks under the glazing (eventually there will be a leaded light on the outside, and a double glazed unit on the inside, for security), and they're done using the circular saw. The underside is for the render carrier board, and is done with a router:

Then, I found a flat area and set up the frame properly this time: flat. I had to adjust the top of the middle two posts, using a Stanley knife and a chisel to shave the shoulders. Once the frame was set up, I cut the tenon on one end of the appropriate length of cill, then propping it as near horizontal as possible whilst still engaging the shoulder, I marked out for the should at the other end:

Repeat a couple of times, but don't fit them yet:

Whilst the frame is like this it is the ideal opportunity to drill for the pegs. Now, I have decided on a variation on the usual here. I have just seen another job where one of the pegs leaks water through to the inside, so I am going to try something I have never actually seen: blind pegs. In other words, pegs which don't penetrate all the way through the plate to the outside. This means stopping the hole below the surface of the timber. This one-handed photo doesn't help matters, but I set the depth stop so that the point of the spade bit finished 3 or 4mm below the surface:

Then I took the frame apart (using a big rubber hammer, and when that wasn't enough, a sledge hammer and big block of scrap wood), offered the cills in, and put it all back together again. I had to slightly adjust one of the post mortises:

The corner mortise had to allow for the one at right angles:

It all went rather well, so I marked up a couple of faces which needed reducing, then went around marking the pegs locations on the mortises, using the point of the spade bit:

Here is the principle of draw-bore pegging again, for those who haven't seen it before:

The hole is drilled out of line with the marked centre of the hole, so that the peg forces the mortise in hard against its shoulders, locking the joint extremely tightly. I can't overdo that here, with blind pegs, because I don't have enough length to put a serious taper on the end of the oak peg.

Whilst this lot was together I thought of a minor improvement to my original plan. I took the frame apart, and ran a quick rebate around the window openings so that I can use a floating tongue for the planted-on bits which will located the windows. Thus, when the oak shrinks or moves there won't be a direct route through for air and moisture:

Right, that's one side of the porch done for now. I stacked it all inside whilst I tackled the other side wall. The posts had had their bottom tenons done, and the sole plate was finished previously, so next came the head plate (eaves beam/ wall plate............there are lots of names for this part of the wall!). Carefully selecting the location for the cuts to avoid having an exposed knot at the ends, I cut the piece to length, and lined it up with the sole plate (they're different lengths, for a number of reasons). After transferring the mortise locations with a roofing square and carefully noting the orientation of the beam, I marked up with a mortise gauge and Stanley knife, then went into mass production mode:

I cut a tenon on the end two posts, assembled them and the plates to form a picture frame arrangement, then laid the over-long middle posts in place to mark up the shoulders:

Before cutting the final tenons, and checking them for fit. One is a bit tight, so I marked it up, and adjusting that will be my first job today:

Right, we're now up to date. Time for breakfast, then out with the tools!

 

[MikeG.]

Today's task was to make all the remaining window cills. As I said yesterday, the profile is laborious to make, with 4 circular saw cuts, and numerous passes of the router to achieve the desired shape. I won't bore you too many photos of me planing and sanding wood, or pushing a circular saw along against a fence, but I thought you might like to see my solution to handling small lumps of wood:

Yep.........a Black & Decker Workmate! It can sit in my workshop unused for 5 years at a time, but every now and then it is invaluable. It's a little nostalgic for me, because my first ever woodworking was done nearly 40 years ago on this very Workmate (in my spare room in a maisonette).

Anyway, this is the shape I was making:

That's upside down, as I'm sure you realised. This old thing had a lot of work:

As per the other side, I next cut a tenon on the end of each length of cill, before assembling the frame, offering the cilsl up, and marking the un-made shoulders. I then cut the tenons. I may have said previously that I prefer chiselling tenons to sawing them, so long as the timber is suitable. I make a test cut a long way away from the line to find out if it is going to work or not. This one definitely wasn't going to work with a chisel, so I ended up sawing it:

The check for fit:

Put together, square up, and mark up anything that needs altering, plus mark up the peg holes in the tenons:

Finally, pop it all apart again, drill the tenon holes, clean up pencil marks and the occasional footprint, then stack away inside. That. ladies and gentleman, is a full day of work in the world of oak framing.

Tomorrow I start on the front elevation. It won't be straight-forward.

 

[MikeG.]

Today was half a day, due to some work, and coming up with a last minute detail which needed a bit of thought. More of that later. I started by picking 3 more pieces of 5x5 off the pile and cleaning them up:

I picked the best 2 of those, but one of them is quite a way off straight:

Character! Actually, I really don't mind at all. I'm much more concerned about not having sapwood showing externally. After a lot of faffing about with floor height, plate location, and the relationship between mortises, I managed to get a fair amount of one door post done:

So, I have a little teaser for you. What is going on here, with two mortises just a few inches apart on the side of the door post? This is my last minute change.

 

[MikeG.]

I had a day off yesterday, feeling rather unwell. Happily restored today, I finished making the doorposts. There is a degree of complexity about them, with the biggest problem retaining a sense of orientation. Am I making this hole in the right face? Anyway, even on checking carefully afterwards I haven't yet found a cock-up:

In turn those faces are 1/ within the wall, with mortises for sole plate, window cill and head, and letter box

2/ facing the door, with a slot/ mortise for the spandrels. The slots vary in depth because of the presence of other mortises on other faces.

3/ facing out, with mortises for the canopy roof plates and gallows bracket.

I then cut the cills to length, and put a tenon on one end. As per usual, I'll lay out the entire (front) frame before offering up the cills to have their other tenon marked up and cut. The last thing I have a photo of is the cill of the letterbox. Anyone hazard a guess as to the purpose of the holes? Along with what's on view there is a rebate on the underside:

I also cleaned up 3 more pieces of 5x5, and chose 2 from which to form the tie beam and the front window heads.

I'm not the only one busy making stuff around here. My wife has part taken-over the dining room so that she can make our daughter's wedding dress. I have to shift off-cuts of chiffon and lace, and acres of tissue paper, before I can get at the stored porch timbers:

Tomorrow I should finish all the front frame pieces, and do a dry assembly flat on the ground. Hopefully, I should be erecting the whole thing on Friday or Saturday.

 

[MikeG.]

I had enough bits and pieces made this morning to start putting the front frame together on the ground. Because of my blind pegs, I have to have the reference face (which is the outside) down, away from me where I can't get to it. This causes some issues, but so long as I can get my mortise gauge in position, which with the frame lifted well off the ground I can, they're not insurmountable issues. Here is the initial set up. It took an absolute age to get everything square and parallel, using a straight edge as my only reference:

Note the cills located hard up against one should so that I can mark the other (from the underside). The far door post is a mile out of straight, and also well out of square. All those joints have been an absolute pig to get right. If that post had been straight I would have started erecting the frame today. Anyway, here is progress:

Note the King post, to the left of the image, doesn't yet have a tenon, but I thought 7.15 was a fair time to finish for the day. The forecast is OK, and I couldn't face an hour putting this lot back together again tomorrow, so instead of packing it all away I covered it in situ. This is when you are grateful for having saved the roof off the demolished garden shed:

PS.......... Here's one for Paul, showing me adjusting the shoulders of a tenon with a 1-1/2" chisel, and the shaving that came off the end-grain in one piece. If I'd have thought about it, I'd have made one the full width:

 

[MikeG.]

Lot's to get through. It's been a busy day.

Firstly, let's catch up on the day before, where I finished as much as i could of the front frame on the ground:

I then took it all apart, doing the final drilling of peg holes, cleaning up, and minor adjustments. Time to tackle the sole plate. Firstly, I did the final adjustment of the corners and fixed them together with stainless steel screws. Then I flipped them over, to do some lead work on the underside. I rolled out some 6 inch Code 3 lead sheet and cut it along its length, then cut a couple of mitres, and folded an edge over:

Next, I nailed these with aluminium roofing nails into the groove on the underside of the sole plates:

That second photo also shows the hold-down straps screwed in place. After cleaning up the brickwork a bit on top of the plinth, I bedded some damp course on a slurry of mortar, before laying a proper bed of mortar on top, with gaps for some cross bearers to prevent the plate squeezing out the entire thickness of the mortar:

I then flipped the sole plate over, got it properly positioned and level, and then pointed up the mortar. My first mix was too sloppy, so it has made rather a mess of my brickwork where it squeezed out. Anyway, the sole plates were in position by close of play, giving the mortar plenty of time to set before I started work on the superstructure:

Here is a close up of the lead detail:

Obviously, I'll be dressing the lead down properly over the plinth brick. The idea is that water won't have a path through under the sole plate, even if the oak shrinks and moves and leaves a gap. I covered up well for the night.

Right, the big day has arrived. Today the frame goes up. The first problem I had was how to insert the Savolit boarding and the window cills whilst retaining control of the posts. I came up with a temporary framework against which I could lean everything:

After screwing the sole plate straps to the plinth, it was time to start on the frame. Here's how it goes:

Post, cill, and Savolit boarding in position. The post isn't in its mortise, because the cill tenon wouldn't be able to fit into the next post if it was. So, I stood the post bottom tenon as near the mortise as I dared:

Once I had every post, cill, and render board in place, I simply went along the line and tapped the feet until the tenon dropped into the mortise:

The render board (brand-name Savolit Plus) is a wood fibre board. It is made of shredded wood waste, held together with a cement-based binder. It is fully breathable, fairly light, durable, and easy to work with normal tools. You then render directly to it, and is what I will be covering the entirety of the outside of the cottage with shortly in preparation for lime rendering. Here is a close up:

It was the texture of Shredded wheat, but the strength of Weetabix (Weetbix for South Africans ) It is held in rebate in the posts and cills, and has an upstand behind it at the sole plate. I'm leaving it loose at the moment, but will fix it in place in due course.

Then on to the other side:

Next job was to get the eaves beams in place. I started with a couple of bearers:

Then popped the beams near their final position:

With some carefully sized spacers I could lift the beams over their tenons, locate them carefully, then remove the spacers:

It's barely morning tea break, and I'm flying! I popped up the right hand door post, with its cill and Savolit board:

Then the left hand one:

This was the start of a period of prolonged aggravation, as nothing quite fitted and the cills were sloping. Those posts came on and off half a dozen times each, at least, until finally everything was relatively true. Ah, well, not quite. Remember that the letter box was a last minute change of mind? Well, I'd already made the corner post, and with it, the rebate to take the Savolit board up to the underside of the window cill. This was no longer need to full height, leaving this nasty little detail at the end of the letter box cill:

Door post off, again, cills out, again, and then trips back and forward to the workshop until the little insert (in seasoned oak) fitted very snuggly:

So, things could now get on. Well, if people hadn't kept dropping in for a chat, they could. I had one chap stop and ask if I could make a porch like this for him. He might have to wait a year or two....... Someone else stopped by and asked if I could design a house for him, and another client dropped in for a chat about their job, so I lost a little time in the middle of the day. Anyway..........

I popped the door head in place:

The little pieces above the front windows, sitting on the side eaves beams look easy, but they took an hour each, with the door head and posts coming on and off another half dozen times each:

You'll note the big prop nudging the whole porch slightly to the right to get it upright. Finally, I put a temporary support on the house wall, prepared the end, and the mortise, in the ridge beam, and lifted it into place. This wasn't a huge lift, but it was at height, so preparations were very careful:

Finally for the day I cleared everything away, and enjoyed 5 minutes contemplating building a roof tomorrow:

 

[MikeG.]

Next on the list was the roof. These were the easy part:

I had thought long and hard about how to make the oak rafters at the front elevation. They were a real complication, because you need the ridge in place to mark out its location on the rafters, but the ridge stops you getting the rafters in place to mark anything out. So, I decided to make the softwood rafters, and use a pair of those to capture the position of the ridge beam:

Having got the birdsmouth over the ridge beam sorted, and the feet cut, I then offered the rafters up into position to mark for the joints with the tie/ door head, and the little window heads. There is a big bridle joint at the top, and I made this next:

That one joint was nearly half a days work, and, frankly, it was a little too loose. I also chopped out the mortises for the connection to the tie beam/ door head.

The joint on the end of that tie beam looks a bit odd because it is joining a 5x5 piece to a 4 inch wide rafter:

It went together absolutely beautifully. I couldn't have hoped for better:

Finally, the little window heads which retain the rafter feet needed their joint doing:

At this stage, the porch had gone backwards from where we were a couple of days ago:

Time to start putting it all together again.Window heads on, tie beam on, and a pair of rafters fixed securely to the house. Before doing the latter I had trued everything up and got the walls exactly where I wanted them (they still flapped about a bit at that end):

I put in another temporary ridge support beam, whilst I come up with something nice in oak. Then the ridge went in:

Finally, I could offer up the oak rafters, and located the Savolit infill panels:

The only way the rafters could move was horizontal, because of the tenon on the tie beam. I had to wax all the bearing surfaces and all the joints, and get my biggest sledge hammer. It took some messing around, and lots of loud hammering, but everything dropped into place beautifully. I captured all the pieces top and bottom with stainless steel screws, with pegs to follow in the next day or two:

Finally, I was able to nail up the softwood rafters:

There's a reason for the odd spacing, which you'll see tomorrow. You'll also hopefully see oak sprockets, and membrane and battens, giving us a watertight roof.

 

[MikeG.]

Sprockets!

I had ordered timber especially for the sprockets, but with so many off-cuts lying around, I thought I would use those instead. Starting by measuring the off-cuts, I then moved on to the sprocket design, making them fit to what I had. It meant making them a couple of inches shorter (up the roof) than I might have done otherwise, but still, I was happy with the shape. I made a quick MDF template, and started marking out:

The into the workshop, where I cut them out mainly on the bandsaw, then cleaned everything up on the planer, and with my pneumatic drum sander, finishing off the edges with a spokeshave:

Then I screwed them onto the roof:

Before slipping in the eaves closer pieces, and screwing on the (softwood) tilting fillet:

With rain threatening, I rushed the membrane on, and started battening:

I eventually got both sides done, and spent the rest of the evening making 40-odd pegs from the old floorboards I took up a few weeks ago when I did the stairwell. I didn't even get a third done, although they're all roughed out, and the centres found.

 

[MikeG.]

I've had to draw for 2 or 3 days, and just got back into things yesterday afternoon. Wanting to carry on with oak work, I thought I'd tackle to little canopy of the porch door. I didn't start with the brace, despite what the photos suggest, but made the simple beam, with a tenon on the end and a mortise. You'll see a piccie in a minute, but first, this is me setting out the curve for the brace:

It's only just over 2" thick, so I was able to persuade my bandsaw to co-operate to cut out the curve:

The back curve was just set off the front with a mortise gauge, and cut on the bandsaw, then it was just a bit of hand-sawing and chiseling, and the braces was done. Here it is sitting next to the 4x4 beam:

Note that I let the end of the brace into the timber. I hate to see light through a join, and these timbers will shrink. Here is the letting in on the door post, for the bottom end of the brace:

Ready to be fitted:

These are purposefully tight joints, and it took a lot of whacking to get the brackets fully in place and seated on their shoulders:

Finally, I started the front rafters:

 

[MikeG.]

A quick re-cap. I made a pair of rafters, and did a bridle joint at the top:

The next job was to make the tie beam (if you can use the word beam for something which is only 900mm long). I tend not to make these straight:

Look at those peculiar tenons! Why would anyone make them at that sort of angle? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One, is that it makes the mortise easier, being orthodox, with right angles everywhere. The second will reveal itself as we go on:

There's your clue. These things will be a bit of decoration, and as they are tenoned into the rafters, the tenons (and mortises, obviously) have to be parallel to any others fixing to the same piece of timber, otherwise assembly is impossible:

Once the joints had been made on those funny little bits of timber I swung an arc from the point at which the rafter met the tie, and cut them to the curve. The mortises, BTW, were a pain in the neck to do being 3" deep but only just over an inch x 1-1/2". It's hard to work in the bottom when you can get no angle on the chisel.

Before packing up for the day I took a pattern from the rafters so as to be able to make the other 2 pairs, and then popped the truss up in place to see what it looked like:

It was a short day today, with a late start, then, as this build is considered performance art by most of the locals, endless conversations with passers-by. Most cyclists shout something encouraging as they go by, and a number stop for a chat. Cars do to, often with complete strangers curious as to what I am up to. One guy who stopped asked some knowledgeable questions, and then said he was a carpenter. He asked about the corner joints of the sole plate, and when I said it was a mitred bridle, he said that he'd never made one of those in his life. I imagine the carpenters who built this house originally would have made dozens before they'd finished their apprenticeships.

I can blame the most stupid cock-up in the most glaringly obvious place on the whole porch, on one such passer-by. I was listening to what he was saying as I was marking out peg hole, so wasn't really concentrating. I meant to have a vertical pair of pegs in the bridle joint at the top to the front rafter pair, but mis-read which piece was which, and ended up with them near horizontal. The "near" word is critical, too. They aren't horizontal, because the rafters aren't at 90 degrees, so they will either stay as a permanent reminder that I am a blundering incompetent buffoon, or I'll conjure up some piece of decorative something to plant over the top and hide them.

 

[MikeG.]

That brings thing up to date. Today I finish the canopy roof, make 4 dozen pegs, and maybe get a few tiles up on the roof.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Besides the work, Mike, you deserve a medal for having the patience to post it. =D> =D>

 

[MikeG.]

Well, this is copied across from another forum, so it didn't take a lot of work. Part of my reason for posting in the first place is that my family is spread all over Europe, and this is a good way of them staying in touch with what I am up to on the house.

 

[Racers]

Wow!, cracking work.

Pete

 

[Leon1984]

Love to see how these things are made, looks amazing. Must be very satisfying to see the whole place come together.

Are you living in the house whilst doing all this work? Do you have a before pic of the whole place?

 

[MikeG.]

Here's what the house looked like before I started work on it, 3 years ago. I reckon it would have collapsed within 10 years:

 

[n0legs]

Why is posting this here an "experiment"?

 

[MikeG.]

Why is posting this here an "experiment"?

Because it didn't always go smoothly last time.