Cedar Gazebo Framing

Nice work there John. Those are the little projects I like to do also. And the CAD has helped me in the same way.

I did a hipped curved roof a few years back and no one would touch it for fear of ruining material or taking forever to do. It took me a few hours of CAD, a half day to cut rafters at my house, and a day to install. You come out smelling like roses.

Love the trusses

A few more ...

The hole in the gazebo is where a masonry fireplace will go. The painters will stain the beams and trusses and paint the t&g roof decking before we insunder the tall. There will be a 2x8 installed under the trusses on the outside of beams like a soffit and then 6" mahogany crown. The roof will be inch and a half thick cedar shakes, with copper drip edge and step flashing. The deck around the pool area will be a slate type material with "cool deck" applied.

The fireplace will be two sided, so that you can be in the hot tub watching the fire, or sitting at the table and enjoying the same fire.

The joinery is mostly half lap, with the two end trusses mortised out to accept the 8x8 ridge. The center truss is cut on a 12 degree angle mortised into the ridge.

The posts and struts are mortise and tenon, backed up with lags which were countersunk and will be covered with dowels.

I would really like to learn better ways of doing the hip joinery. It looks good, but I wonder how "authentic" it is.

All the bolts and nuts that are left exposed are stainless Allen heads, very pricey, about 1.5k, but they look much better than hex heads. Had to get the nuts made, so for now we have hex heads on them.

With the t&g roof decking, we will be leaving a space as opposed to getting them tight, to leave shadow lines. On top of the 2x6 t&g, I am going to staple 1/2" cd ply, just to keep the pine from twisting as it dries and shrinks over time.

I agree, projects like these are the most fun you can have with your bags on :thumbsup:

Last week I bid a timber framed gazebo for a golf course. It was about 24x32 and even had a cupola on top. I will probably have to buy a 10 inch circ saw if we do it. I have done a few smaller ones in the past and we just rented the saw. I like the idea of the router to make some of the notches. Looks great!

That is the most original (& interesting) design for a gazebo that I have ever seen & it will be stolen quicker than tools out of the back of a truck. Imitation is a form of flattery & there will be plenty of that going on now.
Great job.
Steve

kpatrix said:

I just got through framing a cedar gazebo, it was a fun construction.

I have been taking CAD classes at the local community college, and my finals project was to make drawings for a model, which could be anything from a rocket to a house. Since I had this job coming up, I decided to draw all the parts out in CAD, so school and work kind of tied together.

Everything went together perfect, thankfully. I used my CAD drawings to cut everything, which is a really efficient way of doing things. In the past I have built trusses like these using lines snapped on a deck, with this project I had a stack of 8 1/2x11 sheets with all dimensions on them.

Next week (hope i'm not jinxing anything) I should be starting a large custom with lots of radius rafters. I am looking forward to using CAD on this project also.

Happy New Year everyone, and may this year be better than last.

John

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kpatrix said:

The joinery is mostly half lap, with the two end trusses mortised out to accept the 8x8 ridge. The center truss is cut on a 12 degree angle mortised into the ridge.

The posts and struts are mortise and tenon, backed up with lags which were countersunk and will be covered with dowels.

I would really like to learn better ways of doing the hip joinery. It looks good, but I wonder how "authentic" it is.

All the bolts and nuts that are left exposed are stainless Allen heads, very pricey, about 1.5k, but they look much better than hex heads. Had to get the nuts made, so for now we have hex heads on them.

With the t&g roof decking, we will be leaving a space as opposed to getting them tight, to leave shadow lines. On top of the 2x6 t&g, I am going to staple 1/2" cd ply, just to keep the pine from twisting as it dries and shrinks over time.

I agree, projects like these are the most fun you can have with your bags on :thumbsup:

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John,

Nice work!! I can almost smell the cedar from here :clap:

Can you explain how you made the mortises, notches etc? How about that jig in the picture that looks like it matches the roof slope?

Tim,

The picture with the jig is the ridge beam, which is set in the plane of the 12/12 roof. This is one area especially where the CAD came into play. When I was playing around with the truss layout and joinery, I initially had a 4x12 in mind. When I drew it out, I was going to lap the rafters, cutting them square and bolting them together, like the joints on the bottom.

Seeing that the 4x8 rafters would have an 8x8 by inch and three quarter lap cutout, it made sense to use an 8x8 ridge. The rafters have a plumb cut, and I used my router to mortise out the 8x8 triangle notch on each one to accept the ridge.

This left a little work on how to assemble the center truss. The rafters could be cut square and butt into the ridge, but it wouldn't look like a good connection. I was going to make a square notch into the ridge where the rafters hit, about an inch deep, but when I drew that out I saw I would have to bevel the rafters. So I made a tapered notch in the ridge with that jig. It is made from wedges 8 inches long ripped 2" to nothing, with half inch plywood base. I used my makita to make a bunch of passes then hit and chiseled it.

The perimeter beams are 8x12. They sit on 8x8 posts. The posts and beams are mortise and tenoned together. I used a router and jig to mortise the beams and left tenons on the post to slid in. This will keep the posts from twisting. I cut a diagonal kerf across the post tenons, and put wedges in there so that when the beam was dropped down, the theory was the wegdes make the joint tight. I also painted everything with TiteBond III.

The notches I made in the posts were the hardest ones. It tapers from 2 inches deep to one. They are made for 8x8's. I just used my Makita again making 8 passes about an inch apart, then plunge cut into the sides first with the circular saw and then with a reciprocating saw. It was finished up with hammer, chisel, and grinder. I love that grinder with 36 grit on it.

Twelve inch lags are countersunk six inches into the beams and posts. This was a PITA. They all had to be pretty much hand driven with a 4 way lug nut wrench. Impact drivers wouldn't work, even with pilot holes. Everything else has 6" spider drive truss screws countersunk in. I have lots of dowels to glue and sand still.

jlhaslip said:

Has that structure been looked at be an Engineer? Why no Braces?
Nice work, but I'm thinking there needs to be some bracing.
And how is the structure attached to the slab?

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It was drawn and stamped by an architect, built to his plans. The slab has Simpson SSTB24's at each post location, with a coupling and 5/8 all thread epoxied 16" into each post. The footings are 36" cubes with 12x12 grade beams tied in. The masonry footing is 36"x13'x42" deep. It's like a huge inverted moment frame. There is very little movement right now, and when the CMU based fireplace is installed, it will provide additional support.

jlhaslip said:

As I stated above, nice work. Too much steel in it to be called a "Timber Frame", more like a "post and beam" style to me.
Traditional Timber Frames use very little (if any) steel connectors. Mortise/Tenon connections with "pins" made of wood.

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Just read through this thread again...didn't see anyone call it a "timber frame." It's just a nicely built gazebo, built to engineer's specs. You're trying just a little too hard ...dude's got his bases covered.

Mac