TexasTimbers

I've had 2 hard drive crashes since I did most of what little TFing around here that I've done. The projects are still here though so I'll take some new pics when I can. These pics below somehow survived though. It was a simple looking project that was actually more involved than the more "elegant" looking beams and joinery I have made.

I built this monstrosity in my 40' x 50' shop on top of timber-framed saw horses I made. It was not easy to lay the joints out so far away, and rustic or not, they have to be within a fraction of an inch of each other for the thing to have sat down on the steel pads I had drilled into the ground. They ended up sitting right smack down on top, as if I had known what I was doing.

I had to borrow my buddy's forklift because my skidsteer would not lift it near high enough to stand it up. I removed it from the shop with the skidsteer *and* the forklift by myself! And with a jury-rigged sling, a lot of patience, and a wing and a prayer. Red wadn't no help at all.

We eventually blasted the bark off after deciding it looked like crap leavng it on. We were going for a mix of rustic and finsihed because the log for the top member was not big enough to have cut a regular beam out of it. Still it was over 22' long if memory serves. We got it looking real good eventually, all oiled up with BLO and all. And then a few days after we decided it looked good enough, our dumpster man, with his new truck, his new taller truck, came flying into our place like he always does on Wednesday, but with his new taller truck, and plowed right into it.

To the builders' credit ( ;-) ), it tore the entry down only part way and stopped that huge truck in its tracks like a cable traps a F-18 on a carrier deck. The steel posts (oil well casing) and shop-built metal fasteners (1/2" steel plate) that I built didn't pull apart all the way, and the eastern red cedar frame actually held together, except it did bust the top member in the middle, but did not pull apart all the way.

I went and jumped in the skidsteer, put the forks on, and had him back up as I pushed the whole entry back upright, in a co-ordinated effort. It actually stayed like that for another 2 years or so - sagging in the middle but never coming apart even through some nasty thunderstorms, one with 75+ MPH gusts which tore the heck out of a lot of stuff around here. I looked out the window knowing it would be laying on its side, but it just rocked back and forth through the whole storm, never giving up the ghost. Half the welds had been tor apart, and the top member was holding only by long wood fibers that were broke, but hanging on for dear life. I finally took it down a few months ago when one of the rock trucks came to deliver our driveway extension, and the commercial entry I have was too boggy to use. I stood on top of his cab, sawed out a section of the top member, wide enough for his stack to pass through coming in and going out. Later that day I whacked the whole east post down to about 3' tall. The west post still stands, with the brace and about 6' of the top member left. The long steel pipe gate still swings from it. I figure when I get time, I will build a better-looking entry right from the start. And taller too .... . . .
Moral of the long story, timber framing is time consuming. Not building your timber framed entry tall enough, is down right depressing.

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Flame Box Elder

Handyman

Looks nice and rustic TT. I like that seeing those at the end of a driveways. Are you going to hang a name plate from it?

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Collector of Old Tools
Fixer of all things broke
Expert = Drip under pressure

Cole

I like it! Nice work!

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red

Very nice. Red

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