My octagonal timber framed "glassebo" project

That is a really cool treehouse. My brother used to climb the big spruce trees behind our house so our grandfather made him a rope and dowel ladder to gain access to the lower branches. Unfortunately it was a little short but I was quite intrigued by how he made it.

 

More progress. Yesterday I marked the top mortises and chiseled out an eighth of an inch or so. Then I temporarily screwed each top beam miter joint together and drilled them out using the started pocket as a guide. I used my Rube Goldbergian setup of lowering the drill press table and putting the drill press over the workbench, and then plumbing and leveling everything.


Today, I chiseled mortises and sized tenons and got 3 top beams up to finally see what it's really going to look like..




So this shows some of the constant thinking and adjusting that I do on this project.

The sill beams are "shingled" in layout. That is, each beam's joints overlap the one on the left, and is overlapped by the one on the right. This was because I cut the laps on the radial arm saw, and it wouldn't cut left end laps on a 6x6 due to the design of the machine. This isn't a big deal because the base is assembled first and then the joints are pinned by the post tenons.

OTOH, the top beams are cut with either 2 top laps or 2 bottom laps. Originally, I was going to shingle them like the base, but realized that they would have to go on skewed because of the shingling (which, if the joints were tight, wouldn't work), or I would have to assemble the octagon on the ground and try to lift it into place in one piece.

Luckily, I managed to configure the radial arm saw to do left hand laps with a quarter inch to spare.

And, when assembling the top, I have to install one bottom lap beam, skip a bay, install another bottom, and then join them with a top.

 

Now I have a better idea of the size this is going to be.

 

Here are some stats. The dish roof is about 12' 4" diameter at the eave. The posts are ~8' tall from the bottom of the bottom tenon to the top of the top tenon. The sides are about 5' from post center to post center. The glass is 46" x 76". The major diameter of the octagon structure, outside angle apex to opposite outside apex is about 11' 10" I think. The interior major diameter is about 10' 6". It has an area inside of a little over 80 square feet. (Minor diameters are from the center of a side to the center of the opposite side.)

It's really serendipity that the salvaged satellite dish, the glass panes from an old project, and size of the 6x6 posts all fit together so well.

 

Woo hoo! I just got all 8 top beams in place. Now that I'm getting pretty good at 2" square mortises, it's nice to be done with them.





Now, I think it's time to take a lot of measurements, and study it, to make sure it's all the same diameter, level, the posts are plumb, and the openings the same size...

 

I haven't given up on the gazebo.

I've been thinking about the digging, forming, and laying the concrete foundation, and clearing a space in the back of the house for it. Part of that is making kindling and firewood from the remains of a Monterey cypress that fell a couple of years ago, and that I've been dragging up the hill and stashing in the yard.

In the interim, I've been cleaning, sorting, and tossing out 25 years accumulation of stuff, and storing t6he remainder and files and stuff in our new Tuff Shed barn. Also been refurbishing a lot of my inherited tools. Sunday, I converted a >100 year old saw handle to an open tote for a >100 year old wooden jack plane I got from my grandfather. It was missing the handle, or tote.

Here it is with the new old tote, sanded, and some boiled linseed oil wiped on.

 

A while back, someone pointed out to me that a classic gazebo was either open sided, or perhaps screened against insects, and that what I'm building with glass walls and a door is not then, strictly a gazebo.

Shortly there after, in an old Reader's Digest "It Pays To Increase Your Word Power" was this sidebar:



So, since this structure will be placed on the hill overlooking the Edna Valley wine country, Prefumo canyon, and the Irish Hills, I've decided that I'm really building a belvedere.

180 degree panorama from the gazebo site.


But, if I tell people I'm building a belvedere, they think I'm restoring a Plymouth:



I just couldn't figure out how to construct an M. C. Escher style belvedere...



So I guess I'll keep calling it a gazebo...

 

Goin' mobile, with apologies to The Who.

Today we are picking up a new to us motorhome. Last December we gave our 1988 31' Suncruiser to a homeless vet and his family, and we are getting the wanderlust again.

The problem is, I had appropriated the RV parking spot for the gazebo and that big workbench, so I had to move them. I thought about taking the frame apart and either stacking the timbers or rebuilding it on another part of the driveway. But that would have been a lot of work, involving multiple trips up and down the scaffold, trying to pull the posts out of the mortises, etc.

So, after some thought, I went to Harbor Freight and got a total of 8 mover's dollies on sale for $8 each. I slipped one under each post, and pushed the whole assembled frame where I wanted it.


It was really easy.

The funniest thing about this is that the cashier at HF tried to sell me an extended warranty on $8 dollies...

 

Very nice of you to do that.


Thank you.

 

I see that it has been almost 4 years since I updated the Belvedere project. The good new is that it was completed 2 years ago. The not so good news is that I never got to enjoy it. I left it behind in California when I moved home to Illinois post divorce. (more on that in a more appropriate area...)

So, here it is, with the cupola. But I brought the copper weather vane I made with me to Illinois. I paid some contractors to finish it while they were repairing the house. It's not quite the way I would have done it, but that's OK.

The Belvedere emblem is from Ebay from a 59 Plymouth.

 

It turned out quite nice. Sorry about the divorce part though and not being able to enjoy it at all. I am glad you kept the weather vane.

 

I went back over the thread and the only thing showing is the video of the weather vane. The same thing happened when I clicked the link to the other site. All the pictures are gone. Thank you though for the updated pictures.