- Starting Up
- Rough Sawn Lumber Delivery
- Planning the Timber Frame Gazebo
- Peg Making (It’s a hard knot life for us…)
- The Foundation (sill plates and joists)
- Flooring (half-lap)
- Posts and Beams (part 1)
- Braces – Posts and Beams (part 2)
- Bent Assembly : Posts and Beams (part 3)
- Bent Raising: Post and Beams (part 4)
- Rafter Creation
- Top Plates – Tying it all together
- Raising the Rafters
- Windows Resurected
- Roof Decking and Siding Preparation
- Raising the Roof
- Cedar Shingles
- Siding the Gazebo – Shiplap
- Screens with Wood Frames
- Making Wooden Bolts
- Door with Wooden Hinges
The rafter seats have been cut in the top plate. The top plates are in place on the gazebo, and the rafters have been cut and pegged together at the joint. Now it is time to raise the rafters.
This is the first rafter raised into position and temporarily held in place with a brace and a rope. This was a bit tricky and got the adrenaline pumping a bit.
The two end rafters raised and temporarily nailed to each other for stability. The board used to secure the two rafters together also has the marks to align the other rafters. (This was my FIL’s idea and saved us a lot of time and aggravation.)
A fourth rafter being positioned from below so it can be tipped up into place. We loaded them in place upside-down then swung them up into place.
Tipping the rafter into place. Notice that the push-stick in my FIL’s hand is about to slip off the rafter. 2 seconds after this photo was taken, the rafter slipped off the push-stick and came swinging down toward my FIL. Fortunately he is fast on his feet and managed to get his head out of the way, and only ended up getting whacked on the thumb. (this is one of many times I had to apologise to my MIL for almost killing her husband) The push stick is counter intuitive. In this picture, it looks like it is facing the right direction, but it should actually be facing the other way. Had it been facing the other way, it couldn’t have slipped off the way it did. The rest of them all had it facing the right direction…experience is a GOOD teacher.
Okay when the adrenaline from the mishap stopped making our hearts race, we tried again, this time making sure the push stick was on the rafter correctly. All remaining rafters (9 in total) were raised without incident.
Securing some rigging to hold the rafter in place and align it while I tacked it in place to the temporary board.
My FIL commenting that if we expected him to sleep in the attic of the gazebo we should have made it a little taller. (the gazebo will have no attic or loft) Don’t be fooled, he is standing on one of the bents. There are no other beams running across the space so there is nothing else to stand on.
Here are all the rafters in place, along with a few of the roof boards nailed in place.