Here's one for the experts out there. Allow me to set the scene. As far as you can tell you've done all that you reasonably could to have your frame match the perfect model that you have raised in your head hundreds of times. You have layed out your joints slowly and methodically, measured 3,4 no... 10 times before cutting. You've test fit and draw bored all the pieces that you could manage and hoped for the best with the monster timbers. Come raising day the frame goes up with ease, just a trim here and a shave there and everything fits nice and tight. Hero yet again. But wait!! What's this I see? A gap! Right there where the post joins the rafter. It must be 1/4" wide! Holy crap everybody standing around, the client included must be staring at that glaring gap also. I mean how could they not notice, it's flashing neon red and screaming "Look at me, look at meeee!!" Not knowing for sure if I even need to address the, ahem, uh...gap but feeling obliged to at least comment I offer up a rambling and less than convincing lecture on roof loads and frame settling and solar flares and how, in time, say 2 or 3 million years that gap will close up.
So, what I want to know is from all you guys with so many frames under your belts you can't remember them all is this. What kind of tolerances do you guys expect in your joints? Do I just suck at this or is it simply unreasonable to expect precision hair-line joinery all the time in a moving, checking, twisting material like wood? The frames in the glossy mags from what I can tell are perfect in every way. Not even a chipped edge?! (My hunch is that the framers tool of choice in those cases was a mouse but what do I know)I thank you for any feedback. Ray
