Ben Law’s team have now arrived on site in order to start on the main phase of construction of our new building. One of the first jobs that needs to be done is to build a framing bed.
Rudy, Adam and Nick have been building it today in what is ordinarily the back garden of the basecamp. The framing bed is where the timbers that will make up the main A frames of the structure are fitted together and assembled prior to the frame being raised. The timbers it’s made of provide fixed points that can be measured from to ensure that when the frame is eventually raised all of the timbers will align correctly.
The uprights are made out of offcuts of sweet chestnut from the coppice, and the cross members are made out of the douglas fir we felled earlier in the year. When the bed is dismantled the douglas fir will be reused as roof rafters.
We have been busy milling as many rafters as possible, both for the framing bed and to start to build up a stock of them for the roof. In the picture above you can see how we have milled a square out of the middle of a log, 14 x 2 inch boards are being cut off this, which will then be cut in half to make 7 x 2 inch rafters. Its quite exciting to think ahead to the time when they will be going on to the roof.
