any manly man mancave skeptics?

[TimberGeek]

This house has a "cold attic" the insulation is a soy based spray in expanding foam between the attic floor joists except the area where the second story bumps up to allow the stairs access the attic.  In that area I have the same spray foam between the rafters and the walls of the bump up have a combination double bubble radiant barrier and recycled blue jean insulation.

As for how long I've been a builder that's kind of hard to quantify...
  My father set up a home workshop shortly after we moved to Connecticut from Alaska (1970 or 71) so I've been exposed to tools (including chainsaws) and basic home improvements most of my life.  At ~age 13 I sketched out my first "dream house" a simple open cabin design (think Walden).  Starting in 1985 I worked for a landscape architect and did most of his stone and wood working for 9 or 10 years, he'd give me a drawing and I'd figure out how to make it work by the seat of my pants.  Mostly Japanese and Thai influenced fences, torii gates, walkways, decks and gazebos (pseudo chashitsu), we were heavy into Japanese influenced gardens some with water features and the occasional traditional European formal garden.  So I got fairly adept at working with rough wood and stone.
  I learned timber framing & timber frame engineering from books starting in ~2000, joined the Timber Framers Guild and took a couple weeks of hands on classes at Heartwood School before jumping into building the house which started with a partial "Sobon frame" I purchased on eBay in 2001.  I've been 'completing' the house and bouncing around plans for a barn/workshop ever since. 

[GodSlayer]

nice.
so you're building it totally by yourself? sounds like an episode of Grand Designs

I'd love to be able to build something like a ninja warrior backyard.

[TimberGeek]

To a large part its all me, I have that Logosol M7 chainsaw mill which I used to convert trees on the property and donated logs into siding and other materials, but most the structural timbers were milled by a local sawmill to satisfy building codes, I did sneak a few of my own in there.      The excavation, poured foundation, stress skin panels, metal roof, spray foam and chimney were all done by hired contractors.
Also a majority of the plumbing and electric was local contractors, unfortunately I chose poorly when I selected the first company to do that.   

I had a recently graduated Heartwood timber frame apprentice assist me with cutting the frame additions.  I did all the main timber layout and cut most of the joinery, he did all of the knee braces and some of the cutting on the larger timbers.  We used the excavator and a couple friends to raise most of the frame.  My wife assisted with window and tar paper installation, I'd spend mornings on shorter pieces of paper, moving and extending scaffolding (she doesn't do ladders) then we'd tackle the next set of windows and long runs when she got home from work.

I've got large portions of the process documented various places on the web unfortunately my camera died a while ago and I've not had the funds to replace it.
Our old personal web page: http://dreamscapes-design.com/RavenArch/home.htm which I'll get around to rewriting one of these days to bring everything together.
My image gallery on the Forestry Forum: http://www.forestryforum.com/gallery/index.php?cat=12870  I believe these can be viewed through guest access.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TimberGeek
and an album on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raphael.swift/media_set?set=a.101721186521057.3922.100000495274689&type=3

[GodSlayer]

what's the idea of the 'Plate scarf' connection of two beams?

[TimberGeek]

In this house the plates tie the entire frame together so the ideal solution would be a single beam running the full length of the frame.  As 36+ foot timbers are hard (expensive) to come by in this part of the world the next best thing is to join two timbers together end to end.  The traditional strong way to do that is with a scarf joint.  My frame is bolted to a continuous concrete foundation so the scarf joints in the sill plates aren't strictly necessary but the house is designed so it can sit on 8 concrete pillars or a dry laid stone foundation.

There are a variety of different scarf joint designs and which gets used depends on the expected forces on the timber.
The scarf joints in the original house design are 'bladed scarf joints with long tenons', one step more complex than a simple half lap.  The tenons prevent the 2 beams from moving horizontally with respect to each other and their length resists tear out of the end grain under tension.  The simple half laps (blades) ease assembly (unless you raise in the wrong order and get the upper blade installed first  ), if expected tension was higher I could have additional pegs through the blades to increase strength in that direction.  Here's that joint being test fit.



In my shed addition I went a little over the top and used what's called a stop splayed under-squinted pegged and wedged scarf joint.
 
This is that joint being test fit, pegs are installed vertically through the blades to keep the joint from separating horizontally.

[GodSlayer]

yea, that second one is the one I saw. will it be an exposed/visible beam in the finished building? seems like a lot of lovely artistic work to do for merely pragmatic reasons

[TimberGeek]

Yup, that one is exposed (part of why I chose that design) unfortunately it's in the laundry room/pantry.  If I'd rotated the house 180^o it would be over the front door but I've oriented the house for solar panels (to be added some time in the future) and the way it stands I can have a more aesthetically pleasing (and snow resistant) front entry and facade.

[GodSlayer]

would anyone know a good glue for rubber?

I've been using liquid nails since I already have it for woodwork, but to bond rubber to wood it's fucking useless, it sticks to the wood and comes right the fuck off the rubber like it was never there.

do I need something like epoxy, crazy strong stuff that'll kinda dissolve the rubber a bit and really get a good grip on it?

what works good with wood, but will also bond with rubber?!


some Yahoo Answers cunt said
"Liquid Nails is good but they have a new product: Perfect Glue 1 in a small yellow tube with a red cap.
You need to make sure you don't get something that will actually dissolve the rubber, or expand, etc. "

but I know from experience Liquid Nails is abject garbage, and I think I _do_ want the rubber to dissolve--as is, it's just too slick, there's no bonding with the glue going on.

[TimberGeek]

I've used contact cement (aka: contact adhesive).  It doesn't melt the rubber and how permanent the bond will be has a lot to do with preparing the wood surface before hand (the smoother it is the more contact you get).
I suspect if you can use a sanding sealer on the surface the rubber is going to be applied to it will make the bond about as permanent as the wood itself but I haven't done this.  One down side of sanding sealer is it penetrates the fibers and will effect stain uptake.

[GodSlayer]

I've used contact cement (aka: contact adhesive).  It doesn't melt the rubber and how permanent the bond will be has a lot to do with preparing the wood surface before hand (the smoother it is the more contact you get).
I suspect if you can use a sanding sealer on the surface the rubber is going to be applied to it will make the bond about as permanent as the wood itself but I haven't done this.  One down side of sanding sealer is it penetrates the fibers and will effect stain uptake.

hmm.
and what's the deal with what I keep reading, you leave it for ages before finally sticking it together? ...kinda the opposite of super glue :S new to me.

on the other hand, I just found a staple gun in the garage, and I'm thinking that could be an easier option.

[TimberGeek]

hmm.
and what's the deal with what I keep reading, you leave it for ages before finally sticking it together? ...kinda the opposite of super glue :S new to me.

on the other hand, I just found a staple gun in the garage, and I'm thinking that could be an easier option.

It's a bit counter intuitive isn't it,  put it together damp for a temporary bond or wait until it dries for a permanent bond...  "must be magic" 
I've been thinking of building a new tire for my "antique" lawnmower using strips of rubber and contact cement.  It's the only one I've found that can handle what I ironically refer to as the lawn.

Staples could work depending on circumstances but they might pull through, screws with large washers is another option.

[GodSlayer]

screws with large washers is another option.

mm, not here. it's a small item, and the surface is ribbed, so getting a staple along one of the lines seems like the easiest way if glue won't hold

[TimberGeek]

I'd definitely try glue first.  Seating a staple in those grooves looks like an annoying challenge unless you've got access to better staple gun technology than what is commonly available around here...  I've gone through ~7 staple guns to wind up with a model that hasn't changed since the 1960's (or earlier?).

[GodSlayer]

got some glue (contact cement ya have to premix, I think, I forget, it's in the garage). yet to try it.

scored a few big ass dowels the other day (basically the same spec as olympic parallel bars), now I'm trying to figure out if I can make a small pair of bars (~L1300mm, H1500mm) or if it would just be either too heavy and expensive, or too unstable.

same problem with a pull-up bar. I really want something self-standing, but sturdy, or in the ground but not fucking expensive (can't seem to find any posts around 3000mm long cheap anywhere). frustrating, given how half the damn city is being torn down, you'd think we'd have all kinds of shit people don't want anymore.