Category: Timber Frame Projects

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Growing The Gardens Timber Frame Projects

Building the Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees

Building the Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – The completed post & beam project.

It’s not always the case that everything lines up for a special project. I had an idea to build a covered pavilion for my wedding venue, The Gardens of Castle Rock, and a few logs to do it. Mentioned this to a friend who had just purchased a track of land that would be combined with another field. The spruce trees were part of a shelter belt on an abandoned farmstead on this land. The site was being cleared to bring the full acreage into production. The trees were mine for the taking, what was left would end up on a burn pile. Felling the trees was fun and easy. The wind was blowing from the gravel road towards the open field. The hundred foot plus spruce trees seemed like slow motion as the came down. The Stihl 066 is a very powerful chainsaw and was an asset to the harvest. I had a rough idea how many timbers needed, and I cut a few extra. Wish I would have taken them all, but this being my first hewing project and large-scale post and beam build I didn’t. The skid loader handled the logs with ease. I just had to get used find in the center of the log and moving such long material. Several trips were made to transport the logs back to the yard. The project had begun…

Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – Watch the YouTube video of harvesting the trees for the Garden Pavilion.
Building the Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – The trees were located on an abandoned farm and were being cleared for row crops.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – The large spruce trees were part of a wind break for a farm and were estimated to be around eighty years old.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – With a proper hinge cut in the trunk it only took a gentle push to get the tree to fall.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – It always seems like slow motion when a hundred foot tall tree goes over.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – The New Holland skid loader with a homemade grapple had no problem handling the massive trees.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – All piled up and ready to be transported.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – It took multiple loads to transport all of the logs back you the yard.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – For sure, the trailer was not overweight…
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – It took multiple loads to transport all of the logs back you the yard.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – It took multiple loads to transport all of the logs back you the yard.
Building the Post & Beam Garden Pavilion ~ Harvesting the Trees – The completed post & beam project.
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Timber Frame Projects

Building the Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses

Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – The sawhorses at their new home at the Workshop at The Gardens

Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – The North House Folk School is in Grand Marais, Minnesota and has hundreds of classes each teaching Northern craft. Timber framing is one of the original coursed taught at the folk school. Ben Finely from DuckHill Workshop joined me for nine days in a timber framing class at North House in which we created a 10’x16’ frame for a pavilion.  During our class we made a video a day about our experience and the are all in a playlist located here—> Build Your Own Timber Frame. We finished our frame a day early and wanted to learn more about timber framing, so we set out to construct a set of sawhorses. The sawhorses were made from green white pine harvested in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Thank you for checking out this post! Enjoy!!

Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Watch the video to see the sawhorses form the very beginning to completion.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – North House Folk School is located on the shores of Lake Superior in Grand Marias, Minnesota.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – The sawhorse design, sketching out the dimensions and layout.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Laying out the timbers and marking the cuts.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Breaking down the timbers…. yeah, that’s a big saw!
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Ben giving the vintage mortising machine a go in doing the sawhorses.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Chisel work cleaning out the mortise.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – The corner chisel works great, but not an easy one to sharpen.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Knocking away the cut offs from the tenons of the legs.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Cleaning up the tenons… nothing beats a sharp chisel and green white pine.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Cleaning up the tenons… nothing beats a sharp chisel and green white pine.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Putting the angle cut on the feet of the sawhorses.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Cleaning up the feet of the sawhorses and making them look pretty.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Drilling the peg hole in the feet.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Assembling the components of the sawhorses.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Drilling the holes for the pegs.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Assembling the second sawhorses, learning as we go.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – The strap pulls it all together nice and tight befor we drill the peg holes in the tenons.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – Oak pegs are installed while still under tension from the strap.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – All of the esposed end cuts were sealed with Anchorseal.
Ultimate Timber Frame Sawhorses ~ Built at North House Folk School in Minnesota – The completed sawhorse set next to our pavilion frame in the Red Building… ready to head home.