My octagonal timber framed "glassebo" project

A few years ago, I looked at my accumulation of stuff, and decided to see if I couldn't repurpose 7 46" x 76" tempered glass panes and a salvaged 12' aluminum truss framed Paraclipse satellite dish into a gazebo. I did a lot of measuring, thinking, drawing and, testing and decided to do it.

( I call it a "glassebo" because, technically, a gazebo has open or screened sides, while these sides, minus the door, will be glass. A more appropriate term would be a "belvedere (a structure (such as a cupola or a summerhouse) designed to command a view) since it will sit on our back hill with a view of south San Luis Obispo out to the Edna Valley wine region.)

A couple of years ago, I started on it. I fished out all of the dish parts and assembled it, and started on the base and posts, all made from 6x6es. The base side joints are mitered half laps, through mortised, and then pinned with a 2" square tenon on the bottom of each post. Back then, I was really struggling with the whole mortise thing.

Shortly thereafter, my wife and I got axle-wrapped in elder care of our parents and the project got shelved.

The recess hasn't been all bad. in the interim, I refined my woodworking skills on the antique phone, the Tribute table, a tray, and the workbench built around the old vise. And, I had a lot of time to read woodworking books and realize what I was doing wrong with the mortises.

Everything...

Wrong thing 1: Wrong chisels. I ordered a couple of Robert Sorby 2" timber framing chisels and do they make a difference.

Wrong thing 2: Trying to work on them at ground level. I'm glad I built the new bench. It's sturdy enough to hold 2 of the 6x6 base timbers joined together.

Wrong thing 3: trying to mark and cut the mortises for 2 mating timbers one at a time. Now I put the 2 of them up on the bench, mate the half lap joints and check the miter, clamp them and then screw the joint together with 2- 3 1/2" screws for the mortising.

Wrong thing 4: Impatience... Not much else to say about that. Now I'm enjoying taking my time and doing it right.

A couple of weeks ago I started working on it again.

I dollied my floor drill press out to the bench. With the table lowered, the drill head fits over the bench. So, I check and shim the timbers for level, move the press into position, check it for plumb and shim it. Then I drill the marked mortise location as deep as I can with a 2" Forstner bit and an extension, and then finish it off with the bit in a 1/2" hand drill. That way, the hole goes through both halves of the lap joint in just the right spot.

Then, it's chisel and chip with the framing chisels and my late grandfather's elm stone cutting maul.

I also cut a precise 12" long 2" square tenon template on the table saw to proof the mortises as I cut them.

A few days ago I finished the initial mortise chopping, and today I finished the last of the post tenons. This is the first time it's been all this far together, with all eight posts up.



One problem I just noticed this afternoon, checking the assembly. The 4 minor diameters (across the centers of the base beams) differ by one whole inch, and some of the lap joints aren't fully closed. I guess I need to take the posts out, square up the base (can you square an octagon?) screw the joints together, and then adjust the mortises accordingly. For scale, those posts are 8' 6x6es, and the minor diameter is about 10' 8".

If anyone is interested, I can add more pictures of what's already done: the assembled dish for the roof, the wooden cupola, my hand made copper weather vane for the cupola, etc.

And I'm making lots of kindling from 6x6 and 4x6 leftovers.

 

Umm.. nope, I'm just here for the popcorn.

Hellz yeah, more pics, more story.

Sounds like you've learned a lot through this project.

Can't wait to see it all come together.

 

Here is the assembled, inverted dish a few years ago, with me load testing it to see if I thought it would be strong enough. It didn't even wiggle with me on it.



The mostly assembled cupola for the top... This will help with ventilation. Since I took this photo, I scored some louvered doors or shutters at Restore to use instead of the Home Depot gable vents. They will look more authentic, I think.



One long-term desire I've had is for a weather vane with a shaft extending through the roof and an indicator inside the room under the ceiling. So, for this project, I made one out of copper pipe and steel ball bearings, and hammered some sheet copper cups, oak leaves and a couple of figures for the tail, letters for the ordinals, and an acorn for the point.

Here it is with half Christmas ball cups on it for testing:



You can see the more complete version in action in this YouTube video:



except I didn't record the lower shaft and indicator. The green patina was made with brushed on Miracle-Gro,

 

Nice!!

 

awaiting more pics on your projects. it is fascinating.

 

Tell you what, Woodwidow, rather that post everything from the beginning here, here's a link to a weather forum I'm a co-admin of, with everything on the glassebo from 2103 (wow, 5 years already!) until now. Lots of pictures and stuff. You don't have to join to read, and you can post your comments back over here.

Login

That link says Login, but it will take you straight to the thread.

Chris

 

Nope. Straight to "login", it says the topic requested is off limits.
Nice work on the gazebo!

 

Well, rats. Lemme check that out...

 

Huh, I didn't have any problems with pulling up the thread.

Good work SLOweather

 

The link worked for me and I was able to access all the video as well. Nice project. Personally I prefer copper to be copper colour and not the patina but it does look nice the way you did it.

When my brother redid his farm house (picked it up and rotated 90 degrees), he used copper for all the shake and shingle finishing and the railings on his porch. It has weathered very nicely.

 

I checked WxForum and the Guests box on the Chit Chat board wasn't checked. As you can see, it's fixed now.

 

Yup, works more gooder now.
Very impressive work here SLO!

 

I made progress in the last week or 2.

The tenons at the tops of the posts are all cut:




The top eight 4x6 beams are all cut and the half laps done:



And the octagon closes nicely:



So now it's on to marking, drilling, and chopping the top mortises.

I have an 18 gallon shop vac connected to the dust outlet on the radial arm saw I use to cut the kerfs for all the tenons and half laps. The other day was trash day, and I decided I should probably check the vac and see if it needed dumping.

Duh. That's ALL sawdust...



And, I have a half of a trash can full of kindling cookies from all of the mortises and tenons from this round of cutting...

 

Nope. Plain ol' Doug fir...

 

I will admit to a little diversion of thought for about a month recently regarding the design of the gazebo

Back when I was in early junior high, my dad and I built a polehouse. None of the trees on our property back in Moline were suitable for a treehouse, so Dad got 4 used utility poles from the local electric company to build it on. It also acted as a shade over the patio. (I have NO idea how the 2 of us managed to set the first post by ourselves.)



I was using a ladder and then a chain ladder to get up into it. The chain ladder was made of old snow chains with EMT pieces slipped over the cross chains for rungs.

My grandfather (Dad's father in law) decided that we needed a better, safer access, and designed and made the spiral staircase you see in the picture.



It's all made of individual pieces of 2x lumber except for the top piece of each riser which is 1x to get the rise correct and fit the stairs into the existing vertical space. He brought all of the pieces up in the trunk of his car from Missouri, along with a scale model to show how it went together. All of it is strung together on a half inch steel pipe up the center, and the treads and riser pieces through bolted at the outside. Then we added EMT flattened, bent and drilled at each end to form a cage around it. One end of each pipe was bolted under a riser, and the top bolted to the underside of the floor.

Anyway, I decided I wanted to recreate that staircase and was looking for a reason to do so. The first thing that came to mind was to make the gazebo 2 stories and run the spiral staircase up the middle. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and figuring out how to do 14 or 16 foot posts instead of 8 footers, and how to do timber frame joints for the second floor. I was even going to cantilever a deck out from the top floor.

Then I started moving the existing materials around and came to my senses. I can barely handle an 8 foot post by myself. Doubling the length of the 8 of them seemed like a sure way to hurt myself, so I abandoned the 2 story idea.

But I still want to do that staircase sometime...