30-11-2011, 06:20 PM
Hello Col, yep, it's satisfying work, the large Maffell circular is a joy to use there can't be more than half a dozen or so teeth on it so it looks more scarey than it actually is, it is very high torque soft start, it does not bite at all, I could not believe how good it was to use, Makita do a smaller version which I have used, that is also nice to use, some times a beam (as sourced) would need an inch or two taken off its dimension, normally we use the Logosol to do it but if stuck for time we would use the Maffel it will do a 6" cut no problem so a ripping cut from both sides of the beam (fenced) and then a quick passover with the beam planer and all done. Cross cutting 6 x 6 ridge beams or purlins was done with one pass.
All the joint holes are offset to pull in tight when pegged, we used only hand cleaved and drawn oak pegs, from a bloke in Romania of all places.
The largest oak A frames we did were for a Doctors house on the Island they were for an 8 meter span,
the architect had specified a curved tie beam, a difficult one... we had some large bent oak cants sent over from France they were of the right curvature, we compassed some hardboard pattens to lay on the oak then sawed it with a chainsaw to about 4 mm of the lines and finished the rest of with the curved Makita planer, the legs of the truss were also designed to have oak "corbells" jointed into them where they met the walls, we never did fully understand how they worked something to do with equal and oppositite thrust/loading they weren't corbells in the normall sense as they were not cut into the wall with the legs sat on them, one face ran up against the wall and the other ran up the leg, the inside face facing the room was to be a fancy S shape these "corbells" were cut from 3 ft x 2 ft x 9" oak blanks and were a pain to do.
Because of the large span and stresses involved (several tonnes of slates) we were not allowed to use oak pegs for jointing on this job, we had to use 25 mm phosphor bronze alloy bar which was a pain as we had to chammfer each one to start the offset draw on the joints, each finished truss was craned up on to the walls.
Green oak or any green timber is heavy due to its moisture content, if you know the woodland it is coming from and have plenty of notice you can ringbark the tree at stump and let it drain out, felling it at a later date, I do this with my firewood, I try and ringbark in advance and leave them standing for a year or sometimes two, when they are felled they are much lighter to skid out.
The crack with moving the big stuff is to think like an Egyptian, balance, fulcrum lever counterweight rollers and gravity. two or even one man can move some pretty big stuff this way. I have a couple of full size Peavy's(log turners) for logs, you can roll and move a 24 ft stick 2 ft diameter single handed with them, I use hand fimber rongues for dragging small stuff
Cheers for now.
Lawrence.
All the joint holes are offset to pull in tight when pegged, we used only hand cleaved and drawn oak pegs, from a bloke in Romania of all places.
The largest oak A frames we did were for a Doctors house on the Island they were for an 8 meter span,
the architect had specified a curved tie beam, a difficult one... we had some large bent oak cants sent over from France they were of the right curvature, we compassed some hardboard pattens to lay on the oak then sawed it with a chainsaw to about 4 mm of the lines and finished the rest of with the curved Makita planer, the legs of the truss were also designed to have oak "corbells" jointed into them where they met the walls, we never did fully understand how they worked something to do with equal and oppositite thrust/loading they weren't corbells in the normall sense as they were not cut into the wall with the legs sat on them, one face ran up against the wall and the other ran up the leg, the inside face facing the room was to be a fancy S shape these "corbells" were cut from 3 ft x 2 ft x 9" oak blanks and were a pain to do.
Because of the large span and stresses involved (several tonnes of slates) we were not allowed to use oak pegs for jointing on this job, we had to use 25 mm phosphor bronze alloy bar which was a pain as we had to chammfer each one to start the offset draw on the joints, each finished truss was craned up on to the walls.
Green oak or any green timber is heavy due to its moisture content, if you know the woodland it is coming from and have plenty of notice you can ringbark the tree at stump and let it drain out, felling it at a later date, I do this with my firewood, I try and ringbark in advance and leave them standing for a year or sometimes two, when they are felled they are much lighter to skid out.
The crack with moving the big stuff is to think like an Egyptian, balance, fulcrum lever counterweight rollers and gravity. two or even one man can move some pretty big stuff this way. I have a couple of full size Peavy's(log turners) for logs, you can roll and move a 24 ft stick 2 ft diameter single handed with them, I use hand fimber rongues for dragging small stuff
Cheers for now.
Lawrence.
