A new balcony and canopy for the main entrance

Pekka Huhta — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:26:55 +0000

We moved in to an old timber framed house six years ago and I have been renovating it since. This year I got the last bits finished on the outside, now there is still only some interior work left.

Last things to be done were the front door and the balcony. The "before" image has been taken on the first winter after moving in and the "after" one just a few weeks ago.

The house has been built from recycled timber in 1919. It has been very common over here to move and modify timber houses: the house is just taken off from one end of a bigger building, all the floor boards, windows and doors have been taken from the old building.

I have old pine beams that have been roof beams of the original building. there are several of them in the house, and a sauna building was also made from the same beams. When the sauna was demolished, I saved the beams for repairs in the house. So, most of the parts of the balcony were also cut from the old, 7x7" beams.

I made mock-ups for the ends of the beams and handrail posts. The beams were so heavy that it was much easier to fit the ends of the beams to the wall with the mock-up. I climbed up the wall with the mock-up, made all modifications needed to fit the beams to the holes on the wall and then copied the modifications to the actual beams.

I made bevels to both the beams and the supporting diagonals (rafters, maybe?) both for looks and also for letting the rainwater pour out to the sides of the diagonals, instead of directing the water to the joint between diagonal and the wall

After the beams were completed, I used a rope and tackle to lift them to place one by one just to check the fit. At the same time I tried to search the best angle for the diagonals (the joints were not yet cut at this stage).

The diagonals on both the balcony and the canopy were fitted with a mortice and tenon. First the tenons:

...and then the mortices. I know most people do it the other way round, but I usually make the tenon first and just use it to mark the mortice. The bigger mortices were cut with a pigsticker, the smaller ones for the canopy with japanese chisels.

While discussing the mortices, I'm jumping to the handrails of the balcony: there were about 40 mortices in the handrails. The handrails were joined to the wall wih pocket hole screws. I don't have a jig for those, but it's just as easy with a block of wood clamped to the handrail.

Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the assembly. I had all the parts painted before assembly, so I only have to touch up the paintwork afterwards.

The handrails have a drawbored m&t joint to the corner posts. Also the horizontal battens are morticed to the corner posts.

The beams extend about 15 cm through the wall. They are secured with hot dip galvanized angle irons.

One of the most important things is a bitumen felt collar that's nailed both to the wall and the beams. This prevents any water seeping in the wall.

The diagonals were just bolted to the wall. As the house is timber framed, two 12x180 mm wood screws per diagonal is more than enough to hold them together.

As you can see on the pics, I still have to touch up the paint on the balcony next year. I use only traditional paints on all my work, so these were primed with a primer mixed from zinc oxide and boiled linseed oil, followed by two coats of traditional linseed oil paint. I do mix the primer myself, but mainly use ready-made paints for surface paintings. I only buy white paint and mix the colours myself.

The canopy was made as a pair for the balcony, I tried to keep the same visual idea on that as well. In addition to the mortice and tenon, there was also a dovetail joint on the upper corner and a lap joint on the upper end of the diagonal.

The finished frames were glued together:

The canopy was so small that I did not want a separate gutter for it. I made an integrated gutter instead. I don't have a clue of the english therminology for that kind of a gutter, but those are pretty common in Finnish houses. The roofing is just red bitumen felt

Now all the exterior work is done for this year - they promised the first snowfall for today

I'm also trying to use these as a good excuse for skipping this year's competition. I had good intentions to get that finished during the summer, but these things always take much more time than expected...

Pekka

Hand-planed moldings

Pekka Huhta — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:50:59 +0000

My house is built 1919 from recycled components, apparently taken from a bigger house somewhere. For my bathroom project I decided to add a few new profiles in addition to the vast amount of old recycled moldings I have scattered all over the house. Just for the fun of doing it, and perhaps to prove my dear wife that there really is a point in collecting all of those planes.

It is pretty difficult to get good enough timber anywhere, but I had some old roof beams available (you’ll see some more on the background). Cutting the planks with a chainsaw only proved to be too slow, so I run two cuts with a circular saw on both sides of the log and did the rest with the chainsaw. Apparently the chainsaw mills are better for green wood; this stuff was too hard for a 2000W Makita.

First I made one practice piece but wasn’t happy with it. It also involved repairing a molding plane. Time and effort was lost, but it’s better to try on a small scale. Practicing is also good for finding out the proper tools: it took 14 individual planes for the first try and only 7 for the final product.

The second try was better.

A plow plane was used to reach the profile...

...and a wooden scrub to remove the excess.

A few passes more and we are close.

The curve comes with an appropriate round. I noted that although the form was OK for this plane, it was easy to smooth planing marks out with one number smaller round.

Instead of the original triple bead or reed I ended up with a double bead planed with a #45 combi.

The bottom of the molding was finished with a very small round and chamfered.

The finished test piece and the profile copied to the end of the first ”production model”. I cut a sample for the final molding in the middle of the test piece. About a foot from the end of the molding is always a bit different no matter how hard you try.

The first actual molding. I’m glad that I have two woodburning stoves in the house, I would be in trouble with all those shavings.

For mass production I used a circular saw, thought that I had enough practice with the plow already.

As my workshop is only about 8 feet across, I had to move outside for the longer pieces. I screwed a 6” beam to my build stands and screwed the moldings to that. As the ends of the moldings are more or less useless anyway, a few screw holes don’t matter and it’s much faster than fussing with clamps.

The round went up very nicely and the final molding was just as pretty as the previous, although I had my doubts that it might look a bit different because of the change from plow plane to circular saw.

There are only a few tricks in it. First is always stock selection. If there are any knots on the stock it can be tolerated, but avoid any knots near the ends. The ends are slightly different anyway, but knots make it ultimately worse.

Another thing is to get the grain direction as tangential to the molding as possible. If the growth rings are parallel to the surface, you’ll get tearouts much more easily.

And then there is the dance. You’ll have to get your steps right in order to get the molding constant: you start from the farthest end of the molding. The force for planing comes from your feet as always, but you’ll have to take a small step back after each stroke. You can see the result from the picture below: there is a shaving sticking out on very uniform steps (except one that was cut off. On your way back to the farthest end you can take longer, thinner cuts to smooth the marks. It really feels like a dance after you’ve done it a couple of hours.

While I was at it, I did the moldings between the wall and the floor (another word that I don’t remember). Only an easy job with a #55.

Here they are: the pile looks ridiculously small

The whole process was strangely satisfying. Knowing that there aren’t that many people who would do the same, getting an idea of how it was done. And the rhythm of planing was almost hypnotizing, I bet there was some Zen involved in it.

Pekka

Sihistin - Timber frame houses

A new balcony and canopy for the main entrance

Hand-planed moldings