Good thing you have that awesome barn to work in! Rained yesterday, and they say tomorrow too, but today is nice! Gotta go mow now...
It's really difficult to take a picture of progress at this stage. I'm stealing 14' out of my 64' shop for living space vs building an attached "barn like" great room. That was our plans for years but after drawing it out and actually thinking about the size, scope and cost of that, not to mention my wife's builder (me) is getting slow and a mornings work now takes a day. I don't want to spend the next couple of years on it!
That OSB wall is the existing house/shop wall. Our little place was really fine for the 2 of us, but Mrs. hasn't had a bathtub for 16 years and we'll have a proper spare room for when the kids visit. This will double our house size to 2200 s/f (+/-), I've never really done the math.
Good job keep pics coming.. Your miss’es deserves a nice bath tub!! IME If you build they will fill it
Hey fuelrod your beams and posts look great! The mortise and tenon details are really nice. Love the big fry pans. When you are working on top of your beams, don't back into the steer horns! Could ruin your day.
My 5 week old Makita mortising machine has failed. It was a major tool "splurge" @ $62.50 a pound for the 44lb shipping weight! As luck will go I'm about 10 days out of the 30 that the seller gives for an exchange. This morning I dropped it off at a Makita service center, luckily it's under an hour away in NH. Again as luck goes, the service guy is away next week on vacation but we got the part ordered today and it looks like an hour job according to the makita parts drawing. That's a short shaft off of a gear reduction that drives the chain sprocket. Must have been poor metallurgy, you can see both sides. One in the nut and the other in the sprocket. it snapped cleanly. Besides standing up the last frame, I need this tool right away for the next assembly.
The timing definitely sucks, but I've never been let down by my makita tools. I have an abrasive wheel chopsaw that I bought new around 40 years ago and the 4x24" belt sander that I'm taking the rough off of these beams with is of the same vintage. Come to think of it most all of my chit is old!
Wow, you’re doing some nice work there, love it. I’ll second the Makita tools. When I built my rustic house I was a poor mason, knew nothing of tools, not much of carpentry, just wanted a log house since I was a kid. Used a Trendsline catalog to learn what tools did what and couldn’t afford most anyway. Anyway I bought a 1 hp Makita plunge router. Couldn’t afford logs either so I made all my own siding out of rough 7/8” cedar. Put a cove on it to mimic the flat log design. Something a shaper would be used for. Found one bit from Craftsmen that would create a shallow but wide cove with a1/4” shank. That little Makita did all the siding on my house, a job a shaper should have done. Never quit. Some years later I replaced the brushes and it’s still going. It’s not often I’m impressed by a tool but that little router still leaves an impression 33 years later. Keep the pics coming and good luck with your mortiser.
The next "assembly" (actually just the floor system) goes against this wall. I opened up some areas for electrical work. The finished wall will be shiplapped pine on that osb in-between the posts/beams. This was a tight fit. This carries more of the "live edge" floor joists spaced on 2'-4 1/2" centers. The new spare bedroom will be upstairs and will stop around the middle post. The actual floor is 2x8 t&g and serves as the finished ceiling from below. Right now we're planning on continuing the log joists to the front creating (with no floor) a sense of a ceiling or trellis at the floor height of 8'3". That'll leave the actual ceiling of the shop above at almost 17'.
Could always add a widows walk on top of that trellis just for giggles. Don’t want you to run out of work
I have a monster header that's over the 12x14' garage door on that front wall. It needs to go! That's where 3 windows are going. They need to be high enough to allow for a decent pitched porch roof. It's a "paralam" 5 1/2 x 18" header about 12'6" long and very high in the air! I was starting to work on removing the OHD first, but decided (what should have been obvious) that frontal access with my Gehl friend to do the heavy lifting would be very handy. My Gehl friend
