The Front Frame

It has rained most days this week and so I was only able to work on  Friday and Saturday when I managed to cut the mortices in both the wall and sole plates. The joints have been cleaned up and  all of the wall posts fit. The next job will be to make four "tie beam supports" that will enable the principle rafters to be fitted to the wall plates. See diagram. The design was simplified to have just one long, rather than two short, tenons as this makes it easier to get a good fit with the mortice.

Tie beam support

Sole plate corner square and pegged

Fortunately it was possible to make these in the garage as the weather continued to be wet, cold and miserable through a second week. However, by 21.05.12 I was ready to temporarily assemble the front frame. 


The first job was to square the base and peg all four corners, as once the front braces are fitted it will be very difficult to alter the position of the sole plates. 




All the wall posts were located in the sole plate and and the wall plate hoisted on to the tenons on  top of the wall posts.

Locating a wall post in the sole plate

Hoisting the wall plate

Using pulleys to lift the wall plate into position

Front frame in position