Here we go again with some curves

[ScottyT]

 

[foxbat]

my brain is hurting just reading!

 

[ScottyT]

Back onto finishing the roof now, it has 1-1/4” battens cut in around the rafters, all the way around in 4 tiers.
The common rafters received a 3/4 mortice knocked out with a twin flute 19mm router bit and then squared up by hand. All marked off of the jig.

My centre square makes sure things are the way they need to be
Once the commons were morticed out it was onto tenoning the battens on one end. The battens will be butted into the hips and screws and plugged, although it is possible to tenon on a compound angle, it is both very time consuming and would make assembly nearly impossible.

I set my chopsaw up for the compound angle (that means one cut with two angles on it for those who aren’t sure) and set about fitting the battens one at a time on a temporary fit, just tacking them on with a pin for now. On site they will be screws up tight.

The angle is looking good, nice and tight. This is where being square and centre on the entire Job really pays off, as once I have found the sweet spot i just crack off 4 one way, 4 the other and they all fit a treat. I set two chop saws to both hands.
The angle changes every time you step down, so it’s just a case of resetting and moving on.

And there’s the roof looking pretty good. The donkey work is now done, it’s time for a disassembly and a sand up, crack the arris’s off of all edges and get some stop chamfers on the underside of all the rafters

 

[ScottyT]

my brain is hurting just reading!

It may look complicated and pretty involved foxbat, but when it’s broken down into small operations it’s not too much trouble.

 

[baldkev]

Fantastic. You must be very happy with it

 

[ScottyT]

Fantastic. You must be very happy with it

The production side of it went well, However……….. I went to site to fit it and it became apparent we had a problem!
Only 4 concrete pads were in place, around a fully finished slabbed area.
The structure has 12 posts, and I was told I would be fixing to a concrete base, ready for slabbing when we had finished. Not good.
The entire thing sits on S/S threaded bar (M24) with two plates, one to ChemFix into the concrete, and the other is fixed to the underside of the posts! The contractor mixed up the drawings, and I ended up making something with 8 more posts, and looking a lot different. We have had to have the drawing I made it to signed off before we start any work on the site fix, and now it’s going to be fun and games positioning the threaded bar exactly for the 12 posts as it’s all on different levels.
Still, I quite enjoy the challenge of this so I have thought through how I’ll go about getting the correct positions and it should work, 3,4,5 and string will prevail. I’ll post some pictures up when it’s up and finished.
It’s all fun and games!

 

[TRITON]

Is there going to be something to infill in the whatever they're called straight bits between the curved bits ?. Like plaster or glass or wood ?.

Overall it looks fab, i like that non matching bit of wood

 

[ScottyT]

Is there going to be something to infill in the whatever they're called straight bits between the curved bits ?. Like plaster or glass or wood ?.

Overall it looks fab, i like that non matching bit of wood

Nope. No infills on the roof, it’s just a folly in someone’s garden.

 

[rogxwhit]

Love your documentation of thought processes / work in progress. Makes me feel at home, but it's a luxury to see it when you're doing all the work! Good pics. Keep at it!

 

[foxbat]

Nope. No infills on the roof, it’s just a folly in someone’s garden.

That's brilliant that there are people that want comission something like this, not pratical, not purposeful just because, really looking forward to seeing it in place

 

[ScottyT]

after a fairly long winded conversation and another site visit I finally got the arbour up. Me and a team of 3 other chaps got it up in two days, it was a private estate and working hours are permitted between 7:45 and 4:30, we arrived both days at half 9 so we got on well.
My first problem, and the crux of the entire job, was how to go about setting up the post shoes on the concrete base (that had already been slabbed) so they were absolutely where they needed to be, no tolerance to be wrong here at all, not even slightly.
I decided to cut 4 pieces of softwood exactly 3m long, mark one on the bottom of my 12 posts that had all been drilled out to accept the M25 threaded bar to get the locations of the drillings, I then clamped all 4 together dead flush, and drilled the 4 holes I had marked in the correct positions with an 1” spade but.
Assembling this into a square on site and popping the bar and plates into it gave me a 1 to 1 replica of the building. I assured absolute squareness and set about drilling the concrete

Initial laying of my setting out square, if you look closely you can spot the drillings ready to accept the bar and plates.
Once I was happy we had the correct position and we were square off of the property, I put all the shoes in and drilled them M20 to take M12 threaded bar chemfixed into the holes.

Here’s what that looked like, the concreting was not great, very uneven, and the fact the slabs were already down was a lot less than ideal, very tricky to mark accurately. That aside it went very well, and we had our fixings in place ready to receive the posts.
This was the first time I had put this thing together, so I was keen to see if it all worked out. I decided to make 4 sections consisting of 3 posts (1x corner post and 2x straights) and two trellis panels. This way they were self supporting and easy connectable at the end via the middle ring beam.

You can see how it was going together in this photo above, the arches are fitted here purely for stability at this time of the build.
The aim on day one was to get up to ring beam, and that happened so all was going well.

Working our way around here. Two great chaps here. The one on the right hand side is James, he’s been on about 6 months and was formally a willow weaver, and the chap on the left is Pete who has been a roofer all of his life and fancied something a little easier, he’s not sure if he’s made the right choice I couldn’t of put this up without these chaps, they worked very hard.

We’re up to ring beam here, all measurements, mortices, tennons and laying out so far has worked out a treat. Time for the roof now.

First thing was to get the coving on, that allowed the plate to be put up with greater stability as we effectively widened the ring beam by double. Lovely. Once that was on the plates went up, checked and rechecked for square, and it was fixed down when i was happy we were playing in the correct ball park.

Here’s the only photo I got of the coving on with the plate ratcheted up tight. The chap at the front is the 3rd member of the team, he’s been on with us for 6 years now and loves the site side of what we do.
With the plate up it’s just a simple jigsaw puzzle to get the rafters in and the battens fixed up (all this I done at the yard so provided it goes up exactly the same it’s a simple case of fit and forget)

Up they go, no hitches really just a slight fiddle to seat some home.
It’s bish bash bosh time now.

Battens fixed.

Getting there now

The arches fitted in really nicely, if you get the templates rite the spindle can do all the work for you. This wasn’t touched at all from the machining stage. No faff.
I brushed over the levelling process with the spin plates for the posts and some other fairly boring details and just want to give you the end results of the build. It’s the first proper start to finish I’ve done on here and the next thing I get to make that isn’t a door or window I’ll give it a go again for those who are interested. I appreciate the feedback and I like to share my work with you folks. I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s the thing done and dusted minus some plugs to flush up and some Sanding and snagging.

 

[ScottyT]

after a fairly long winded conversation and another site visit I finally got the arbour up. Me and a team of 3 other chaps got it up in two days, it was a private estate and working hours are permitted between 7:45 and 4:30, we arrived both days at half 9 so we got on well.
My first problem, and the crux of the entire job, was how to go about setting up the post shoes on the concrete base (that had already been slabbed) so they were absolutely where they needed to be, no tolerance to be wrong here at all, not even slightly.
I decided to cut 4 pieces of softwood exactly 3m long, mark one on the bottom of my 12 posts that had all been drilled out to accept the M25 threaded bar to get the locations of the drillings, I then clamped all 4 together dead flush, and drilled the 4 holes I had marked in the correct positions with an 1” spade but.
Assembling this into a square on site and popping the bar and plates into it gave me a 1 to 1 replica of the building. I assured absolute squareness and set about drilling the concrete
View attachment 144420

Initial laying of my setting out square, if you look closely you can spot the drillings ready to accept the bar and plates.
Once I was happy we had the correct position and we were square off of the property, I put all the shoes in and drilled them M20 to take M12 threaded bar chemfixed into the holes.

View attachment 144421

Here’s what that looked like, the concreting was not great, very uneven, and the fact the slabs were already down was a lot less than ideal, very tricky to mark accurately. That aside it went very well, and we had our fixings in place ready to receive the posts.
This was the first time I had put this thing together, so I was keen to see if it all worked out. I decided to make 4 sections consisting of 3 posts (1x corner post and 2x straights) and two trellis panels. This way they were self supporting and easy connectable at the end via the middle ring beam.

View attachment 144422

You can see how it was going together in this photo above, the arches are fitted here purely for stability at this time of the build.
The aim on day one was to get up to ring beam, and that happened so all was going well.

View attachment 144423

Working our way around here. Two great chaps here. The one on the right hand side is James, he’s been on about 6 months and was formally a willow weaver, and the chap on the left is Pete who has been a roofer all of his life and fancied something a little easier, he’s not sure if he’s made the right choice I couldn’t of put this up without these chaps, they worked very hard.
View attachment 144424

We’re up to ring beam here, all measurements, mortices, tennons and laying out so far has worked out a treat. Time for the roof now.

First thing was to get the coving on, that allowed the plate to be put up with greater stability as we effectively widened the ring beam by double. Lovely. Once that was on the plates went up, checked and rechecked for square, and it was fixed down when i was happy we were playing in the correct ball park.

View attachment 144425

Here’s the only photo I got of the coving on with the plate ratcheted up tight. The chap at the front is the 3rd member of the team, he’s been on with us for 6 years now and loves the site side of what we do.
With the plate up it’s just a simple jigsaw puzzle to get the rafters in and the battens fixed up (all this I done at the yard so provided it goes up exactly the same it’s a simple case of fit and forget)
View attachment 144426

Up they go, no hitches really just a slight fiddle to seat some home.
It’s bish bash bosh time now.

View attachment 144427

Battens fixed.

View attachment 144428

Getting there now

View attachment 144429

The arches fitted in really nicely, if you get the templates rite the spindle can do all the work for you. This wasn’t touched at all from the machining stage. No faff.
I brushed over the levelling process with the spin plates for the posts and some other fairly boring details and just want to give you the end results of the build. It’s the first proper start to finish I’ve done on here and the next thing I get to make that isn’t a door or window I’ll give it a go again for those who are interested. I appreciate the feedback and I like to share my work with you folks. I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s the thing done and dusted minus some plugs to flush up and some Sanding and snagging.

 

[baldkev]

Thats very cool. You clearly pull in good jobs and obviously have the skills to pull it off

 

[Ollie78]

Really tidy job.

 

[Inspector]

I enjoy opening your threads. You have enviable skills and I thank you for sharing some of them.

Pete

 

[Molynoox]

Incredible.

Anybody want to buy some woodworking tools...

 

[ScottyT]

Thanks for the interest and replies to the thread over the past few weeks, I am pleased you enjoyed it.

Scotty

 

[foxbat]

It's chuffing brilliant! Thankyou for sharing the build - really hope the home it's in realise what they have

 

[blackteaonesugar]

That's frikkin awesome

 

[Jaydee]

Beautiful work. It’s great to see craftsmanship to this high standard.