October 14, 2010 – 3:27 pm
This is Karl Willms design timber frame. Build with high grade select structural D.Fir, tight grain and kiln with RF technology. Frame is build in very steeped site, footing were poured on 20 some different height level, must been very tough even moving materials around this site.
When we arrived, floor was all done and ready, thanks for all hard work for the contractor.
We already installed deck frame in advance and this main frame took 2 days to put together. Lots of help and all good help, very fun also satisfied project.
I was very pleased myself for the result and client and contractor are also very pleased, so it is the best project of the year for us.
Frame design are simple though, it had some challenge on joinery design to maintain the strength also make the assemble procedure possible. Even I had study of this procedure in advance well, it still took a bid of modification of the joinery at the raising site. Glass will be fit in between timber so groove for inserting glass stops are in place. I will follow this detail as installation makes progress. Stan is pre applied in our shop just incase if the weather turned into very cold so crew can not access to the site it means it will leave it open till next Spring but I think they will be able to put roof before that happens.
I had my crew Eiji with me on this assemble and he is the one looks after some finishing touch in our shop so this was great experience for him to spend time together with us to tune up his work at the production. I am sure he will make great progress on next frame.
Thanks for Terry Hall who is timber frame manager for the project, designer Karl and Kyle Willms, contractor James and Andrew Boak and Mike Besanger who is the owner of the project!
October 14, 2010 – 2:58 pm
We have been raising one frame per week this year, it’s been very busy summer. One of the frame we build near my house in Chase, this is the addition to existing house connect with walkway structure.
It is full structure with timer. total 200 pcs of structural member to frame 1,200 sqft foot print main house. Bent style frame which means all the bent is assembled on floor and raised as one unit connect with girt in between. Total of 4 days to complete main frame which is 50 pcs per day to put together, total volume of this main structure is 9,850 bdft so about 2,500 bdft a day for raising.
Material for this project was dead standing D.fir, we searched dry timber and applied kirf on every single member which had heart center in timber. Since this is build in our area, we will monitor this frame very close to see if the kirf is working properly as we are aiming, I believe it will.
October 11, 2010 – 1:54 pm
Even we knew it is best to apply stain in our shop, we kept doing it as minimum because it holds up our main production. This time, timing fits well so we have applied stain in our shop.
Product is Broda Protector is what we used this time. http://www.cbrproducts.com/content/about-our-products. This is the product mixed in Vancouver and water born but not totally water based.
Two coat with clear UV top coat, total three coat total, two days drying time for each coat so total of 6 days required to stain all.
We are giving serious consideration to test and use Boem product which is made in Switzerland and testing is at Forenteck http://boehme.ch/. This product has 10 year warranty which I have never seen in stain product.
Advantage on applying stain in our shop is
- Apply in controlled environment before any other hand put on timber.
- Apply on 6 side including inside mortise and any joinery.
We are also going to test some fire retardant product from Japan with new stain and get ready for next year line of production.
