Porch Posts/ A 24x28 house

[Don_P]

Wow, is this house taking forever, but we're having fun 
We got the heavy timber trusses set in the greatroom ceiling a week ago


and started setting the porch posts this past week. We fabbed them in the basement garage,this is a corner post being fitted (PEG, new toy, that's a Makita chain mortiser with the yellow cover on the floor, big labor saver)


We now needed to get them up to the porch a floor above. At the rate we are able to set and brace them I really didn't want to bring a crane in and the site wouldn't allow us to reach where we needed to with a Lull so we decided to go manual. Probably not OSHA but it works if you are careful. We bolted the scaffold together, counterweighted the rear, clamped and chained an I beam on top and hung a chainfall from it. Lift and roll across the deck and set the posts over 1/2"x4" knife plates that will be bored and pinned through the posts. This is the first couple of posts of 12 that will support the front porch roof.

[PEG688]

Nice new toy    Lookin good Don!!   Where there's a will there is a way!!     Rome wasn't built in day eh

What are you using , again if you've mentioned it all ready, for the post and beam stock?  Looks like White Pine, pretty nice stuff to nice tight knots!!


It it's Pine the smell must be amazing in the temp shop!!

[Don_P]

Yup, the interior timbers are eastern white pine, they came from a large local sawmill/ log and timber home company and were kiln dried and in house graded. The exterior stock was from the oak trees I cleared on site. We had done all the oak work in the garage before moving upstairs to the pine, it was like moving from cutting iron to soap. The smell is nice, especially compared to the heavy acid smell of oak. A friend has been doing a porch in black locust timbers. We were talking a few weeks ago, nice stable and strong but his elbows were screaming. Michelle was doing my prep and mortising while I fitted up. After several days she was hurting and asked if there wasn't a power tool to cut the mortises... can a guy ask for more 

[PEG688]

Michelle was doing my prep and mortising while I fitted up. After several days she was hurting and asked if there wasn't a power tool to cut the mortises... can a guy ask for more 

Michelle is your wife??

I love the smell of Pine, Red Oak is a endurance think, like you said sour  acid smelling  stuff. Red Cedar makes me sneeze , not uncontrollably just a nuisance thing .

[Don_P]

26 years plus a few more and truly blessed, we've worked and played together for most of it.

This was a mixture of several species of red and 2 of white oak, I'm usually ok unless it's bacterially infected... I hate cat pith oak  We did a run of western redcedar log homes and both ended up with nosebleeds, still pretty sensitive to the fine dust from it. One friend cannot be around it or teak. I can feel locust but some folks cannot be near the dust. I've only worked with one person who sensitized to pine and that was pretty mild.

[Rob_O]

Incredible work guys

[Don_P]

I took the camera to work today, we got the front porch roof on. In the far right rear in one pic you can see one of the stone columns rising for the back porch.

[MountainDon]

A magnificent porch!