Well, this post was over a year in coming and I am pleased to finally get to release this story to the general public.
I have started a blog OTB Designworks here that will, over the course of the next few months, take you through the journey of an incredible home/sculpture we are constructing.
All the design work, from concepting to final blueprinting was done with Sketchup and Layout, and I will go quite in depth about techniques and workflows as I get to certain portions of the story. To whet your appetite a bit, there will be satellite draped vector based topography, panoramic mapped cylinders to show the views, ridiculously complex woodworking (35' tapered octagonal bastard valleys, anyone?), and HD animations.
My plan is for the blog to provide an environment of inspiration, as well to be educational experience, and I know all of you will really enjoy what we have going on here in Montana.
Oh, did I mention that we are fabricating in Montana and shipping to New York?
So, please take a few minutes and click over and check it out; I am sure you will find it worth your time. And, of course, I welcome all comments, suggestions, and dialogue, so don't hesitate to comment or ask questions.
I look forward to further discussions and I will update this thread as I add posts to the blog.
Some of the timber details that became part of the final design are two reciprocating floor sections, 35' tapered octagonal bastard valleys with purlins and jack rafters, posts with capitals and kneebraces which pass through the capital and tenon into the ridges, 3 common valleys, a post with 4 ridges, 3 common valleys, and two bastard valleys on top of it, a bressumer beam, scarf joints galore, and the list goes on.
I look forward to hearing everyone's reactions and comments; we are very proud of this sculpture residence and, hopefully, you find it as inspiring as we do.
Here is the first proposal we made to the Hollanders. While we are still finalizing the footprint and siting, there hasn't been too much work put into the timber frame design (other than the floor system), but it's coming, I promise.
The house is shown siting on the correct topography with a satellite image of the site applied to the mesh. Other than generating the vector topo lines, everything was constructed in Sketchup.
Thanks Ray, I appreciate you taking the time to say so.
Here is an animation of the final design for the Hollander House, with all of the timber frame finalized. I highly recommend choosing the 720p HD option for viewing the video, if you have a fast connection.
We will be using a steel piece to support the reciprocating floors (yeah, they aren't really reciprocating in a bearing sense of the word) and it will also allow the post below and the post above to have a good solid place to terminate.
There is 2 1/2x12's from Colorado, 7x14's rescued from a falling down pig farm, Douglas Fir logs from Montana, and a couple small beams from a barn in Illinois.
We are rabbeting the floor planking into the main floor beams so we can show the timbers and the design they are making.
The rim around the perimeter will be two rows of 2x12's sitting on a secondary bottom plate. While not necessarily essential, as we could have just used pressure treated 2x12 for the bottom plate, we thought it easier and quick during raising if the pressure treat was already installed on the concrete, on site, and then we could roll in and drop our floor onto the PT that we have squaring lines, if necessary, snapped onto it.
Keep in mind that we are fabricating this home in Montana and shipping and raising it in New York, so it is all about the most efficient and quickest raising possible.
Well, even though it feels like I am talking to myself here, which is a bit surprising since I thought everyone liked to see real world projects that came from a Sketchup model, but, oh well, I shall continue to forge forward.
These videos show the Kitchen Ridge System for the Hollander House. Since this house was designed around a mathematical grid that mirrors itself around the center of the bressumer beam, the Bedroom Ridge System is identical to the Kitchen system. This helps speed up the fabrication, as well as letting us remember fewer numbers of truth.
Each Ridge System is comprised of 4 posts, 3 ridges, 3 knee braces, and one capital.
Just cuz no one is commenting, doesn't mean they aren't watching! Check your thread view stats, Chuck.
I haven't seen the piece you call a "capital" before. I've certainly seen corbels used to support scarfs, but not where they extend out past the brace like you are doing. CB.
-- Clark Bremer Minneapolis Proud Member of the TFG
I wish I could take credit for the capital, knee brace, ridge connection detail, but my brother in arms Brad came up with that one out of the blue. I think it looks beautiful with the scarf sitting on top of it, and talk about a bomber connection. And you haven't seen it yet, but the eave wall also has a matching scarf joint (though smaller) and the relationship between the ridge scarf and the wall scarf makes for another layer of interest, I think
The only reason we even had the capital is because a couple of our posts were too short and so we needed to "stretch" them. We actually had parallel chord trusses in the original design, but, for a variety of reasons, we decided to forgo the bottom chord and go with knee braces.
I like the fix/choice, been there, it is nice to have other input info to such decisions, something my one man crew is missing.
Often times splice location pops it's head up and looks around. I wonder how this splice and block would look on a graph with stress and bending applied?
Let me look through the 80+ page engineering booklet and see if I can find the analysis of the scarf, though, if memory serves, he wasn't worried about it at all, especially since the ridge is so well supported.
+1 on having smart and creative guys around; we have quite the collaborative effort going on up here and it is exciting to be a part of.
The engineer didn't even analyze the scarf joint, or at least he didn't include the bending stress graph in my booklet, sorry about that.
The two videos that follow are showing the bastard valley bent systems, of which there are two, each mirror-images of each other.
Each bent is comprised of a tapered octagonal bastard valley (tapering from 15" to 12"), a tapered knee brace, a horizontal tie, a "pacman" 20" diameter log post, 2 12" diameter posts with flats cut on them 7* off of bent centerline plumb (these flats define the stairway opening, which cuts across both systems), and a baby post to cut down the span of the bastard valley.
Other than the barrel bolts we are using to hold the tie to the posts, and a lag shot into the bottom end of the knee brace, everything else is all wood joinery.
Each valley sits on 5 bearing points and the main peak of the house is the centerline bearing point for 10 different timbers. As you can see from the animation, the bastard valleys sit on the ridges that sit on the main, 24" diameter, Old Glory post. So, it goes without saying, even though I am going ahead and saying it, that the precision required throughout this system was off the chart. I think these bastard valleys in particular (each with 25 notches) will be the most complicated and challenging, and expensive, pieces of wood I have ever been involved with. Not to mention setting up the interior posts so that, when raised, their flats that define the stairway are not only where they are supposed to be, but the angles are correct so the planes are perfect.
Suffice to say, there has been a whole lot of double checking before cutting on this job!
Thanks for taking the time to post something; it sure seems pretty quiet around here, you know?
Hahaha, questions like how many hours we have in each bastard valley are what I try hard to never think about. Suffice to say that, by the time we were done cutting them, I was completely over even looking at them. They sure look magnificent, though, I think.
Thanks for complimenting the joinery, my friend. As you can see, there was no margin for error with so many bearing points sitting on other timbers and with so many valleys zeroing out on one center line; any error in elevation would not only have been catastrophic, but would have remained hidden for the months before assembly when all of our ability to "catch up" a problem would have been gone because everything was cut already.
Yeah, we often clip our jack and purlin nosings, though, with the Fein tool making the cutting much easier, it is less necessary from an ease of fabrication standpoint. All of our jacks and purlins were scribed into their valleys, as opposed to square ruling, so it was actually easier to just leave the noses going to a point. I guess they are a bit more fragile during shipping, but the points completely bury anyway, so that wasn't a big concern. Plus, with leaving the noses long (and the housings a bit longer than scribed), we were left with a bit of lateral adjustment that we thought would be helpful, maybe, during the raising.
Next post will show the bastards being place in space, in the shop, for all of the scribing! And that was was no small task, let me assure you.
Not too much on this end over here Chuck. A restoration job on a historic structure right now, scarfing the bottoms of deteriorated verticals and rebuilding an octagonal roof, but no big stick stuff.
Yea its a little quiet, but at least we all have this cool thread to follow...
I'm going to have to look into this Fein tool you speak of..
Hey Mo, that sounds like an interesting job! I don't if it is something in the water these days, or what, but the last three projects I have been involved with features octagons as part of their design.
WTF? I see the damned things in my sleep...
If you weren't joking about the Fein tool, and I assume that you must be, then you need to go buy one of those things right now! You won't know what you did without it. And don't buy the cheap knockoff brands either; the Fein is so expensive because it is bullet proof and awesome.
HI Mike, nice to see you here! Yes, what you drew is exactly how we are cutting the jack rafters. Another nice thing about doing it this way is the cut across the rafters (3 1/2 x 8) is one slice with the Bigfoot. When you say undercutting the valleys, I assume you are referring to cutting in backing cuts, because we are for sure doing that, too.
Chuck, did you consider cutting blunting the tip of the jack, so that the downslope side of the housing is 90 degrees to the side of the Valley? That's common practice. The idea is that the jack will not act as a wedge. Imagine some thrust down the jack, and how it might want to pop the face off the valley. If you have the "red book", read the last paragraph on page 87, which explains it better than I can.
It's not difficult to cut these. On the Valley, it's easier to make a plumb cut than to undercut. And on the jack, once you've made the main cut like you already have, all you need to do is set the saw to 90, and set the base on the face you just created when you made the main cut, and nip off the corner.
I'm sure Mike will be along with a nifty picture illustrating this momentarily.
-- Clark Bremer Minneapolis Proud Member of the TFG
Yeah, we actually cut our rafters like that all the time when we are square ruling; it was just a time saver on this particular job to cut them the way we did them here. One extra cut, when you have 52 jack rafters adds up to a bunch of time, you know? Also, especially with the tapered octagon bastard valleys, the plumb cut is no more difficult than the square cut, but only if you are using the Fein tool.
I actually discussed the wedging action with the engineer and he kind of laughed and said that was really nothing to worry about, especially since we are screwing 10" panels over the entire structure.
We were just discussing in the shop that, for the common jack's, we probably will square the nose since the valley square cut on a rectilinear timber is easier to cut than the pointed version.
One extra cut, when you have 52 jack rafters adds up to a bunch of time, you know?
Says the man who designed a house with tapered octagon bastard valleys and reciprocating floor systems.
I'd think the housing would be harder to undercut than nipping off the jacks, regardless of what shape / size the valleys are. This Fein tool must be a miracle worker? I've looked around for them on the web - but I have no idea which tool you are using. The reciprocating cutting thing? Can you post some photos of it in use? Inquiring minds want to know.
Cool project, regardless of personal joinery decisions.
Robbing from the left hand to feed the right, you know?
Yes, I am referring to the Fein oscillating cutter; it makes cutting peculiar angles a breeze. It lets you get into funky corners and cut very precisely without a lot of chisel work.
I absolutely love mine and I will shoot some video next time we are using one.
I am attaching a short animation of the bastard jacks and purlins and you will be able to see a bit more clearly why a squared off nose doesn't really work in this situation.
Again, we will almost certainly be nipping the noses on the common valleys, this was more of a special application in the bastard system.
Here is the fabrication and assembly of the bastard crotch system. We used cribbing to place the bastard valleys in space, both for scribing them together and for scribing in the jack rafters and purlins.
We isolated the elevation at the center of each bearing point, using the computer, and then constructed a wall system to place the valleys correctly. It definitely took some patience and time to get them sitting perfectly, but our cribbing system worked really well and did everything we had hoped of it.
Robbing from the left hand to feed the right, you know?
it's only robbing if you get caught thanks for posting the amazing vids of this super cool frame. It's so great to see the transformation from animated model to real world work..truly amazing stuff
there's a thin line between hobby and mental illness
We consider ourselves really lucky to have the honor of designing and fabricating this timber frame and to have clients who are driven to create something a little different than the standard fare.
The whole process has been very inspiring and fulfilling, not to mention challenging and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Here is the bastard crotch system right before we disassembled it. You can see all of the purlins and jack rafters have now been cut in and the the backing cuts in the bastard valleys have been cut in as well.
Well, we have finally got to the raising of posts! This video shows us locating the center of Old Glory with the assistance of 4 string lines and the installation of Old Glory and 3 of the 4 posts that surround the stairway opening and support the bastard valleys.
The interior posts attach to the floor beam with mortice and tenon joinery and Old Glory sits right on the pressure treated plate.
And? I haven't read that one yet, what did you think of it? Have you read Fingerprints of the Gods yet? It will definitely getting the old imagination going, at least for me.
We have all the stairway posts up and now it was time to install the tie beams, knee braces, and base posts for the bastard valley systems.
The floating knee brace worked great for installing the base post, btw. We had discussed putting the whole bent together and flying it as a whole, and we may do that when we have a crane at our disposal, but, since we have an old grad-all in the yard, we had to keep weight and size to a minimum. Everything is clicking together nicely, especially since the timbers sat around for a couple of months after cutting.
More posts going up, as well as the two ridges that we need installed before we can drop in the bastard valleys. It's starting to look like a forest of trees, now, and it is great to finally go vertical with the frame.
The first bastard valley is installed! After months of cutting, off of math, in the shop, and then weeks cutting posts into the floor, it was very gratifying to watch the bastard drop in the slick as can be, sitting perfectly on all 5 bearing points. THe whole system, when we checked elevations, was within 1/4", how sweet is that?
We spent all day, yesterday, releveling the floor for rafter scribing. You would be amazed at how much frost heave can move a building. It sure makes it obvious why we put our footers below frost line.
Now that the two bastard valleys have been installed (and sitting just as pretty as you please), we could install the rest of the ridges that go out to the two gable walls by the kitchen and the master bedroom.
I just completed a ray-traced animation of the SketchUp model of the Hollander house we are currently fabricating. I used a mac specific software called Cheetah3D for the rendering and it took my very powerful computer 5 days to render the 8700 frames, and that is without soft shadows.
We now have all of the rafters up in space and ready for scribing. As the rafters sit in housings on the plates, notch into the ridges, and half lap each other, precision is of the upmost importance, as you can well imagine. Lots of double checking ourselves before the actual scribing. I go into more detail on my blog about how we actually set the rafters in space, if anyone is interested.
And here are all of the rafters cut into their final positions.
It may be a while before I do another ridge/rafter configuration like this as it is really fussy to get right. Since each rafter cuts into the ridge and half laps the rafter coming from the other side, any deviation from perfect causes gaps all over the place. And the two half lap shoulders have to be absolutely in the right place or the everything goes to heck.
Of course, this just means that double checking becomes even more important, especially since the whole structure is sitting on temporary post bases and is still moving around as the ground finally dries out from winter and stops heaving from the frost. We were, in the middle of winter, seeing various bearing points change by over 1/2" a DAY!!! Talk about chasing and angry cat.
As may not be obvious from the video, this system ended up unbelievably tight and we had no deviations from theo, anywhere, of more than 1/4". Booyah!
Thanks for the kind words, guys; much appreciated! And yes, it was a brutal winter up here in Montana, and it has been the rainiest damned Spring I have ever seen, and the rivers are flooding and the mountain biking trails are still mostly under snow, and Glacier Park is never going to get some of their high trails open. On a brighter note, the glaciers, themselves, must have gotten a bit bigger this year, which is a refreshing change from the last couple of decades.
Now that the common rafters are all complete, outside, it was time to start putting together the common valley system in the shop.
We will have the 3 common valleys (9x12's), 2 of the 4 ridges (11x11's), and all of the common jack rafters (3.5x8's) set-up in the shop, before we disassemble everything and take the valleys outside for final scribing down into the frame.
This video is showing the 3 common valleys, cut together, and sitting in space on custom cribbing walls, ready for us to bring the 2 ridges up, from underneath, for scribing.
And here are 2 of the 4 ridges cut into the 3 common valleys. The other two ridges and the two bastard valleys are outside and we won't be able to cut the two systems together until we have completed the common valley setup in the shop.
Once we had the ridges in, we could concentrate on the common jack rafters. Since two of the ridges are outside, with the bastard jack raffters, we couldn't cut everything in the shop, but we could cut the Entry and Garage side common jacks, as well as the tails of the Bedroom and Kitchen jacks.
This video shows the Garage and Entry rafters completed and the Bedroom and Kitchen rafters set in space, ready for scribing. We had to make temporary ridges for them, to hold them at the correct pitch/height so we could ensure that the two systems would go together correctly, outside. Lots of transit and calculator work during setup, as you can imagine.
And the completed shop setup of the common valley system. Now we get the unenviable task of taking this system down and integrating into the main frame that is set up outside.
chuck - this thing still being cut? or is it being assembled now in NY?
how many guys and gals working on the frame? anyone from the TFG? or are you doing this all in house?
interesting process. most of the frames i've cut / raised, including both CNC and hand - were cut stick by stick and then taken to the site to pre-assemble and then raise. usually within a week or two.
Hi Mike, sorry to drop off the planet for so long.
Frame was just raised during the last two weeks of November.
Basically, the vasty majority of the work was done by four guys, though there was certainly a support crew of another 6 or 7 guys who all pitched in at some time or another.
All done in house; a couple of the guys are past members but, as far as I know, no one is a current member of the guild.
There were a multitude of reasons why we stood so much of the frame in Montana before we shipped to New York. After having raised her, I am glad we did everything the way we did because the raising went flawlessly and with no hiccups of any kind. Of course the raising was a group effort, with the clients, Kim and Steve, Kim's brother Walter, and Luke and Jason, all providing critical support and assistance to the four of us.
I haven't compiled all the video and pictures yet, but I have completed the editing of a time lapse that we went to the trouble of shooting.
Thought you guys might like to watch it; 12 days distilled down to 4:48 is always fun to watch, I think.
Can you provide some information about the crane you used?
I wish I could tell you more, but I don't really know too much about it.
It had a 72' long boom and could handle 1800 lbs at the end of the 72'. I guess this was the smaller of the two they had available. Best part about it was it ran off a 3 phase generator and was virtually silent; gotta love that. And the operator works from a remote control and can stand anywhere on the site to operate; completely eliminates hand signals and definitely makes things quicker and more efficient. I would use one of these again without hesitation. I guess the crane, generator, and truck can all be had for about $225,000.
