14 X 20 Post and beam build. Updates with my progress.

[Starting Small]

I decided to start this thread to document my progress of building my new sugar shack. I will be under extreme pressure to get it completed by February 1st. I am lucky to have found a great guy who is willing to teach my brother and I how to build post and beam structures. I will include pictures and do my best to answer questions for anyone although I am new to post and beam building. We will not be using long nails to tie the pieces together but using mortice and tenon to give it that sugarhouse look. I was originally going to use metal pins but since this guy is willing to teach us mortice and tenon I figured why not. My brother and I are going to work at his saw mill to offset some of the cost of the wood. The guy in the picture is my dad not myself. He was helping to shoot grades. I hope it gets done in time, thanks for reading!
-Dave

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[RC Maple]

That sounds like a great project! Building the shack was the most rewarding part of my whole experience. Learning a new skill with the mortice and tenon construction will be neat. Good luck with your building and will look forward to the pictures.

[unc23win]

Glad to see you got started Dave good luck!

[Starting Small]

Thanks guys, I will keep you updated on pics. Monday I will be working on the sawmill with my new "'mentor" to work off some of the cost of the wood. I am very lucky to have someone willing to teach me a skill like this. I am pumped. I am nervous about the 2 months till tapping since I also have to setup the woods on vac for the first time. My end goal is to be able to have a pancake breakfast for friends and family in March at the new shack. Thanks again,
-Dave

[Ligonierbeech]

Hey sounds good nice to have someone willing to teach you. Good luck!

[Jmsmithy]

Dave that's awesome! I love that look. I can't fathom the amount of pride you'll have when you're finished. We are in process of having ours built and I'm loving it - and all I'm doing is designing and writing checks!!! Good luck and congratulations !!! Please please please keep us updated w/ plenty of pix :cool:

[Starting Small]

Dave that's awesome! I love that look. I can't fathom the amount of pride you'll have when you're finished. We are in process of having ours built and I'm loving it - and all I'm doing is designing and writing checks!!! Good luck and congratulations !!! Please please please keep us updated w/ plenty of pix :cool:

Thank you all, I will definitely keep this updated. Today I worked for 3 hours on the sawmill helping my new coach/mentor with some of his projects and in return we started cutting some of my 6X6 beams. I will be working with him for another 3 hours on Thursday. It is not easy working outside all morning then putting on a shirt and tie for the office and appointments for the afternoon. I hope to start on the floor this weekend if we can get the floor joists cut.
-Dave

[Starting Small]

I also thought these blueprints would be helpful for you all to see. I had a hard time finding any so I had my "mentor" draw them up for me.
-Dave

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[Starting Small]

This log has been turned into some 4X6 floor joists. It is an amazing thing to watch. Some of the logs we have done were huge and then to see the final product of lumber gives me a new appreciation. We have made 19 floor joists so far, we need 22 total. We will finish up the last three tomorrow morning then start on some of the 6X6's for the frame. This Saturday I hope to have the structure of the floor completed. I am going to ship lap the floor boards so I will need some time to run those through the machine before I can lay them down.

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[madmapler]

I am going to ship lap the floor boards so I will need some time to run those through the machine before I can lay them down.

8178

Shiplap is nice but I've seen it on floors where the top lap curls or splinters. It all depends upon the thickness of the board, the depth of the lap, and of course the type of wood. Keeping the overlap to a minimum, if at all possible, will help regardless of the rest. You guys may already have considered this. What you're doing is way more than simply putting up a sugarhouse. Sounds like a great experience. I wish you well.

[Starting Small]

Shiplap is nice but I've seen it on floors where the top lap curls or splinters. It all depends upon the thickness of the board, the depth of the lap, and of course the type of wood. Keeping the overlap to a minimum, if at all possible, will help regardless of the rest. You guys may already have considered this. What you're doing is way more than simply putting up a sugarhouse. Sounds like a great experience. I wish you well.

I had not considered that. We will be using 1 inch pine boards for the floor. Is it the wear and tear that makes them curl and splinter? The depth will probably be half inch. Thanks,
-Dave

[Starting Small]

I should also mention that most of the joints will the mortice and tenon (notched and wooden pegged) we have decided to use screws to attach the floor joice's to the sill and the corner posts will use brackets to secure to the floor. We started to look at our timing and decided to save ourselves a couple weeks by limiting some of the labor. I will post more pics Saturday when the floor has been started.
-Dave

[madmapler]

Dave, I cant say that it wont work. I can say that all your old New England houses of which pine flooring(much harder than todays pine) was common was laid straight edge and this is for the reason that I first explained. It also had a subfloor under it for support as well as for bridging the gaps. Even t&g hardwood has a stubby tongue to prevent splinters. My other thought is that if this shiplap pine is to be your only flooring layer it might especially be a problem because pine is relatively flexible under weight and this may cause the laps to fail. Especially when used in a work utility environment.

[Starting Small]

Dave, I cant say that it wont work. I can say that all your old New England houses of which pine flooring(much harder than todays pine) was common was laid straight edge and this is for the reason that I first explained. It also had a subfloor under it for support as well as for bridging the gaps. Even t&g hardwood has a stubby tongue to prevent splinters. My other thought is that if this shiplap pine is to be your only flooring layer it might especially be a problem because pine is relatively flexible under weight and this may cause the laps to fail. Especially when used in a work utility environment.
Interesting, I may need to reconsider this then. I was planning on having it be the only layer of flooring on 4X6 joists 12 inches on center. Thanks for the heads up,
-Dave

[unc23win]

I would agree you probably would want a sub floor maybe even 3/4" ply wood.

[madmapler]

4X6 joists 12"oc is an exceptionally tight layout. Thats only an 8" span between the joists. You're charting new territory there as far as my experience goes. Maybe you wont have a problem. If your looking to save a little time I can tell you that spacing your joists out to 16"oc and going with an underlayment and straight edge pine is a more proven method but its your project. Looking back at your previous posts it looks like you have all your joists cut now anyway. If you ever have a problem you can always put a floor over it. Should be able to park a bulldozer on it then.:)

[Starting Small]

Haha I agree, the guy who is coaching me on this project admits that he tends to overbuild. We are even going to use 4X6's on the roof except doing those 24" on center. Since he has a sawmill it is easy to over build a project without that much more work or money. Originally we were only going to do 12" on center for the floor where the evaporator is going to go and then 14" for the rest. Then we just said for a couple more joists we can just do the whole thing 12" and make it uniform. This will be a brick house when we get done with it!
-Dave

[Starting Small]

We ran into some problems with the base so it took longer than we thought to get to this point.
-Dave
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[Starting Small]

After going back and forth we decided to plane the floors and shiplap them. We had the local high school shop class plane them and we bought them some drill bits as a thank you. This is a picture of my brother using the router. It took us about 3.5 hours to make sure each board had a partner so the length equaled 20 feet and then we ripped each board to ensure the width was the same for each pair. Then we used the router and shiplapped them. About halfway through our backs were wondering why we did not use sawhorses to router on. The wood that is acting as the floor now is just put thre to keep the snow from getting to deep in case we get a storm and it makes it easier to work on now. Those planks will become the roof and/or siding. Thanks,
-Dave
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[Starting Small]

We have almost all of the wood sawn. We only need to saw the windbraces and the roof joists which should not take more than a couple hours on the sawmill to bang out. We have planed all of the 6X6's to make sure they are a true 6X6 and now just started with the morise and tenons. Hopefully all of the joint work will be done in the next week and a half and then we can assemble on site. We are doing this work in a barn so we are not too effected by the weather. Once everything is cut then we can assemble, screw down the floor, nail the siding and then focus on the roof. Thanks,
-Dave
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[madmapler]

A structure like that is something to be real proud of. I'd like to build my house that way someday if I get a chance. Do you find its easier than you thought? More or less time consuming?

[Starting Small]

A structure like that is something to be real proud of. I'd like to build my house that way someday if I get a chance. Do you find its easier than you thought? More or less time consuming?
Thank you I really appreciate it. It has been a learning experience. I am grateful to be mentored by someone who really knows what he is doing. It is definitely more time consuming than I anticipated. Especially since we are sawing each piece of wood from 10-14 foot logs. One thing I did not anticipate taking so long was planing the 6X6 beams. In my mind if the beams are 6 1/8 that was close enough but apparently not. Even though we have an electric planer we push down the beam, most logs are not square coming out of the sawmill. So now it is shaped more like a rhombus than a square and we have to get creative on making it square. I finished that job up this morning. This afternoon I did some work with the chisel. Very cool but very easy to make a mistake. Easier to take wood off than it is to put back on! I think if I were to do it over again I would have started it in June and worked at a little slower pace and in warmer weather. The goal is to be boiling in this in a month or 6 weeks. It may not be 100% completed but at least have it functional. Building a house like this would be a neat project but it would require tons of time and more skill than I will ever have. A chain mortiser saves so much time that it would take forever to build this structure without one. I included a youtube video I found of a chain morticer in action so you could see what it does. My mentor can complete a post with 3 mortises and a tenon in about an hour and a half. I think by the weekend all the posts will be done. When comparing this to the time it would take to build a stick built shed there is no comparison. I think the difference is the help other people could give. Noone really knows how to do this so asking friends or family to help is pointless. Whereas if you get 5-7 guys working on a stick built shed it goes pretty quickly. I am glad that I chose to build it like this not only because it has a neat look to it but because I am learning a skill that I would otherwise never have grasped. If you get a chance to see how one is built definitely take advantage of it. I will try and post some pics tomorrow of the chain mortiser and us chiseling. Thanks!
-Dave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNbWOWxoT7s

[Brian Ryther]

I have mixed feelings on the chain mortise tool. The end product is the same but I think you loose a little of the history and a lot of sweat not using a beam borer and chisel to make the holes. Mostly I wish I knew about this tool before I built my 3600 square foot building this year. I was only able to make an average of 2 beams per day. I also did not plane the beams to exact size. The traditional method is to chose your best side and work off it's face for lay out. Are you putting shoulders on your beams or is everything off the face?

[Starting Small]

Yes you probably do lose a little history and appreciation for how it was done years ago and how hard it was/is without power tools. I give you a ton of credit building a 3600 sf building without the chain mortiser. We are not going to use shoulders since there will be a center beam at 10 feet on each side. We did not feel that it would need the extra strength of a shoulder. I think if it were to be a longer building and we were to be storing alot of weight up top we probably would have.
-Dave

[madmapler]

I rebuilt part of my barn last year and dabbled with a chisel. Its a whole different experience than stick building of which I've done my share. Theres a school close by to me called the Heartwood school that actually teaches post and beam construction as well as several other crafts/trades. I've talked with them and its something I'd really like to do. The courses are'nt really that long. I know a few guys who have done it with hand hewn beams. I love that idea but dont know if I'd ever take it that far. I've been watching your project also Brian, Very nice.

[Starting Small]

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We finished all the posts today and 2 out of the 3 tie beam/cross beams. One of the pictures is me working on a mortise. The plan is to do the barn raising next weekend. After that things will start to move quickly. I am thinking we might actually be able to make it in time to boil in early February!
-Dave

[Starting Small]

Today we fit all of the post and beams together, assembled most of the shack and then disassembled it. Tomorrow is the barn raising and we will bring the timbers over to my home to assembe, stay tuned for more pics.
-Dave

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[Starting Small]

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[Starting Small]

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[unc23win]

Looking good Dave keep up the good work!

[bigschuss]

One thing I did not anticipate taking so long was planing the 6X6 beams. In my mind if the beams are 6 1/8 that was close enough but apparently not.

Just found this thread for the first time. Nice job! It's coming out great. I built a 12x16 timber frame sugar house 2 years ago. Love the look of a TF. And as you said...what a great craft to pick-up.

If you lay out your beams using the square rule the beams do not have to be exact. I made a few beams myself and bought some others, and none of them were exactly 7x7. With the square rule this doesn't matter.

Have you thought about adding a loft to one half of your frame? I placed my evaporator at the far end of my building and have a loft on the other end. A very easy project with minimal cost and time...and a great place to store buckets, lids, duck decoys, etc.

Great job! Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[Sugarmaker]

Very nice looking timber frame structure that you can be proud of. My guess is your to busy to post because you have a lot of moves to make to get this ready to boil in. You will get many compliments and have many great times in it!
I did not build a timber frame sugarhouse, but chose a more conventional pole building method and cement floor. But I had a great time designing and building our sugarhouse. It was designed to use it for making syrup, bees are secondary and it gets used as storage in the off season.
Very good pictures!
Regards,
Chris

[Starting Small]

Thanks guys, this week I was barley able to work on the shack. We have all the roof joists cut and now we have to mortice them as well. If work cooperates I am hoping to lay the floor down this week because I want the rafters going up in 10-14 days from now. What is in the pictures as the floor is actually the pine roof boards that we laid down just to make working easier. Once the floor is down I will feel a bit more relaxed because if I have to I can get the evaporator in and covered with a tarp and potentially boiling if push comes to shove and the weather breaks. I am thrilled that this is not an early season, I feel like I am working on borrowed time! I will continue to post pics of the process. If I can get the pine roof boards up in 2 weeks then I will feel great. Of course I also have to run lines and setup my woods for vacuum this year. I am asking myself why I did not start these projects in May...
-Dave

[sap retreiver]

I can't wait to see pics of the rafter system. I'm slowly working on a similar design and love to seee how others are doing their's. Looks sweet so far. good luck

[maple flats]

Looks like a great project. It will be a real eye catcher when you get visitors and will help you sell more syrup.
Make sure you protect the floor under and near the evaporator. Under you only need to protect under the firebox, but in front be sure to cover the wood enough to keep sparks from being an issue.
When I first built my sugarhouse it had a wood floor for 3 seasons before I finally got to put in concrete. For those years I laid up a hearth of 8" concrete blocks, it was about 3' out front and 12" wider on each side. Then it reduced to about 2" extra on each side under the firebox portion. I capped the blocks with 22 ga galv. sheet metal and each side was bent down 90 degrees to contain the unit. After I poured a concrete floor I got rid of the hearth and used the blocks for stacking lumber on from my sawmill.
Keep up the good work!

[Starting Small]

Getting closer...

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[sap retreiver]

Thats awesome! More things, ideas, to run through my head! she'll be good and rugged for sure. are those 4x6 rafters? I was hoping to run my roof boards vertical so i would need purlings across the top. I'll figure something out someday. keep the pics flowing, i need some more to drool about

[Sugarmaker]

Yes looks stout! Nice project.
Regards,
Chris

[Starting Small]

Thank you for the compliments and encouragement. You are correct, those are 4X6's. Probably overbuilt but will not hurt. Saturday we are putting the roof boards on and at some point we need to finish installing the floor. Maybe a quarter of the floor is installed. Work has been getting in the way!
-Dave

[sap retreiver]

theres nothing wrong with being too much. its not work that gets in the way, its the 8 hour wait to leave. keep on banging away

[Starting Small]

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[adk1]

I hope it's about done by now?

[wildlifewarrior]

Hi retriever, Starting small is my brother. We ran the boards horizontally so we didn't need any purlins, with 24'' on center it was cake. Going horizontal with the roof boards also allowed is to ensure that each rafter was truly spaced out correctly bottom to top. We are also throwing on a steel roof, so that will be going in the opposite direction of the roof boards.

Mik

[Michael Greer]

It looks great. Is that nearby hillside tall enough to allow gravity to do all the work for you? Anything you can do to avoid pumps, motors, and other technology will make it all less prone to problems. Making syrup shouldn't be like launching the space shuttle.

[sap retreiver]

Thanks for the info. I wanted to go vertical to be different but ya its gonna cost me. That looks awesome. You guys have definetly re inspired me to get going on it. Keep up the good work and dont forget to miss your thumb

[Starting Small]

It looks great. Is that nearby hillside tall enough to allow gravity to do all the work for you? Anything you can do to avoid pumps, motors, and other technology will make it all less prone to problems. Making syrup shouldn't be like launching the space shuttle.
Thanks, the hill on the side is not on my property. The goal is to have the feed tank on the 14 foot end near the wall. That way it would gravity feed from the wall to the evap. Unfortunately the woods are offsite so I need to haul sap in. Thanks,
-Dave

[Starting Small]

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[optionguru]

Is the siding freshly sawn (sp??). I used similar for my barn and after a year I had some decent gaps from shrinkage. Looks great though, very jealous.

[Starting Small]

Hi Pete, yes we actually just cut the siding from logs on Tuesday so it is as green as can be. The plan is to put up 4 inch battens next year once everything shrinks up to cover the gaps. Thanks,
-Dave

[Timberwolf]

Nice job, much nicer looking than what I boil in!

[bigschuss]

Nice job Dave. Looking good! I did the same exact thing…I put up 1x10 green pine ship-lap, but when it dried I had to put a batten strip over it.

I noticed the stop splayed scarf. Nice! I used one of those in my frame too, though I used a stop splayed scarf with wedges.

Blair

[Starting Small]

Nice job Dave. Looking good! I did the same exact thing…I put up 1x10 green pine ship-lap, but when it dried I had to put a batten strip over it.

I noticed the stop splayed scarf. Nice! I use one of those in my frame too, though I used a stop splayed scarf with wedges.

Blair

Thanks alot, I think if someone has never made a scarf joint it is difficult to understand how long one of those take to make! To look at it does not look time consuming but the constant fitting and taking apart of large beams takes some patience thats for sure. I saw your joint with the wedges, that must have taken forever to make, nice work on yours as well.
-Dave

[bigschuss]

Thanks alot, I think if someone has never made a scarf joint it is difficult to understand how long one of those take to make! To look at it does not look time consuming but the constant fitting and taking apart of large beams takes some patience thats for sure. I saw your joint with the wedges, that must have taken forever to make, nice work on yours as well.
-Dave

Yes, cutting the joinery, especially on a scarf, is time consuming. But as you know…just so rewarding! Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Blair

[RiverSap]

Great looking sugar shack Dave. You are indeed an inspiration. I have one question. How did you attach the roof joists to the 6”X6”22’ horizontal beams. The picture you posted of the plans showed this but it was not all that clear.
Thanks
RiverSap

[Starting Small]

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[Starting Small]

Great looking sugar shack Dave. You are indeed an inspiration. I have one question. How did you attach the roof joists to the 6”X6”22’ horizontal beams. The picture you posted of the plans showed this but it was not all that clear.
Thanks
RiverSap

Sorry I did not respond sooner....we attached the using timberlock screws and a birds mouth cutout. Thanksm,
-Dave

[CampHamp]

The trees have been waiting for you to finish up. Let us know when you're done, so we can all start making some syrup.

[Starting Small]

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Took some time off this Summer, but now we find ourselves at crunch time again. Here is an update of where we are. Hoping to finish fire bricking this week. Then into the woods to finish up some laterals and drop lines.
-Dave

[Dennis H.]

Looking good.

[COMSTOCK MAPLES]

Your place looks awesome!!!!!! Good luck too you in the new sugar house. Take care

[maple flats]

starting small, I have a question. In the picture of the cage tote setting in under the roof, it says the pic was taken at 4:40pm, 12/28/14. Is that time on your camera set right? It is dark here then, and I'm west of you. I wonder if the time is on DL savings time to help you get more done.

[Starting Small]

starting small, I have a question. In the picture of the cage tote setting in under the roof, it says the pic was taken at 4:40pm, 12/28/14. Is that time on your camera set right? It is dark here then, and I'm west of you. I wonder if the time is on DL savings time to help you get more done.

The time stamp was just when I downloaded the picture from my phone, not when I actually took the picture. I wish it was still that light out here at that time!
-Dave

[Ghs57]

Nice Dutch style frame. I went with an English style for mine, but it's attched to a Dutch style barn. Hope they don't fight. I'll have pictures some day.

[Clarkfield Farms]

Nice Dutch style frame. I went with an English style for mine, but it's attched to a Dutch style barn. Hope they don't fight. I'll have pictures some day.

You're in NY, Ghs57; I don't know you, otherwise I'd have included the appropriate "DUH?!?!" :D We have Dutch AND English history, your structures are compatible. :)

[sugarwoodacres]

Very nice work. I have 2 friends coming over this weekend to build a 14 x 20. Can you message me or post a close up of the coupala ? It looks like slats that don't open ? Thanks and good luck this season .

[Starting Small]

Very nice work. I have 2 friends coming over this weekend to build a 14 x 20. Can you message me or post a close up of the coupala ? It looks like slats that don't open ? Thanks and good luck this season .

I will try and remember to take a picture this weekend for you. The slats are fixed but they are open enough to let air flow I hope. They are angled down to keep the rain out. Thanks,
-Dave

[Starting Small]

Some more pictures of the continuing sugar shack build.
-Dave

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