This past winter, we cut and raised a new frame for Poland Provisions, a farm stand and general store in Poland, Maine. They’re right across the street from the town hall, and we can’t wait to stop in for a sandwich this summer. We designed the frame with the help of Fire Tower Engineered Timber, and worked together to create a bent that could support restaurant seating on the second floor.
The second floor girts are 9×12; they’re big, but not too big. The ends of the girts are let into the face of the post 2″ and are joined with a through spline. Interestingly, when used in conjunction with haunches like these, FTET likes the spline to be referenced to the top of the timber.The other place we collaborated intently was on these shoes to keep the bottoms of the rafters from spreading. PTF and the client preferred traditional joinery, and the rafter and tie beam are joined by a pinned mortise-and-tenon, but this is a new building, and wasn’t earning an engineer’s stamp without a steel tension connector. It was really interesting to design a bracket that wouldn’t interfere with the joinery, and wouldn’t overwhelm the frame visually.Ultimately, most of the back-and-forth came down to using a plate that was large enough to withstand the outward thrust of these rafters. It’s big, but the patron will only see it in profile. I think the final bracket compliments the joinery, and its function is legible to the visitor.These are the bottoms of the ends of the tie beams, all ready to be flown onto the walls. The half dovetail sits in a complimentary cog in the plate, and the little square mortise accepts the post teasel.PTF really loves the English tying joint. Here are a stack of post tops with the characteristic stepped-down plate shoulder, and extended teasel tenon.We had a lot of help on this frame from some of our newest employees. Here is Henry, trimming a brace tenon and getting it ready to fit. He doesn’t like to brag, but Henry is a very talented timber framer.A stack of bents, assembled and stacked for crane day.Dan, PTF’s oldest employee, assesses the fit of the cupola rafters, and prepares them for pinning.We had a little extra time in preparation for crane day, so we assembled the cupola frame by muscle. Here, Dan and Jake pull its two little bents together.Bent 4 being lifted into place. We need a person to foot the bottom of each post, and walk the bent gently into place. Each post is tied to the concrete pad with an invisible Timberlinx connector. It always seems like the connector is going to be hard to install, but the parts came together without a hitch.Alex is another employee that PTF hired in the last year. Here, he’s using a comealong to draw Bent 4 to Bent 3 and seat the eave girt into its housing.Bent 1, front gable end. This heavy collar tie, short posts, and braces were required to direct the ridge load to the pair of front drive posts.Here’s Dan setting the Bent 3 upper triangle onto its eave post. In an English tying joint, the plate sits on the outside half of the top of the post, and the inside face of the post rises up past the plate to engage the tie beam with a teasel tenon. In this picture, you can see how big and honking that rafter bracket is. Ultimately, it will be 8′ above the patrons’ heads.Traditional halved and bladed scarf joint, with opposing wedges. When we go into an old barn, one of the first things we look for is where the plate is scarfed.Tanner and Dave Maggio are climbing down from installing the cupola frame. I was real worried she wasn’t going to fit, because the tolerance between the two rafters was so tight, but the cupola slid right in. Fit like a glove.Alex and Daron relaxing against the cupola. Look at the pride on their faces. Or is that relief?We’re pretty good at process photos, but getting finish photos is never our strong suit. The frame is mostly complete here, we’re flying in joists before we install the purlins.A tired and happy crew at the end of a long crane day. Thanks so much to Sheila and Charley for this work. As always, we had a blast.
From the bottom to the top in one day I am impressed it really looks good I’m sure you’re not only pleased with what you were accomplishing that day but probably a bit tired I am a retired carpenter and builder
Wow! What beautiful work!!!
From the bottom to the top in one day I am impressed it really looks good I’m sure you’re not only pleased with what you were accomplishing that day but probably a bit tired I am a retired carpenter and builder