Reassembly of 40 for 40 Gazebo

 

It has been a few months. The snow is gone and the frost is out of the ground. So it’s time to take the parts for the gazebo out of storage and put them up.

The first step is to locate the holes for the six posts. This was tricky but using the radius of the 12 foot diameter of the gazebo I located the center of each hole.

Taking the photos from the treehouse with the spiral stairs gives a nice perspective.

Getting the right depth so that the finished gazebo would be level required that the holes were different depths to compensate for the slope of the land.

After the hole depths were rough dug I placed a cement cookie into the holes that the legs of post could set on and I dialed in the levelness.

I used a laser level placed in the center of the hexagon and double checked it across the sides.

I set up and placed some scaffolding to provide support for the posts while I began setting them up. It also gave me a platform to work off from. 

This was going to be trickier than I thought. The center scaffolding would be used later when I put up the rafters. I planned for the outside scaffolding to be rolled around as I set the rim joists to tie a pair of post together. Unfortunately the wheels of the scaffolding lined up with the holes. I had to use a ladder in stead.

I forgot to mention that I needed to take apart the rafters that I put together last fall so that I could get at the rim joists. All parts were numbered and chisel marked. All I had to do was keep everything straight.

Well it was a struggle but I got the first four up and this stabilized things.

Success. So far so good.

Here you can see the treehouse in the back ground that allows for the overhead views. This will be very nice to look at when the rafters are put up.

With the rafters all laid out the reassembly of the roof can begin.

Peg Factory for the gazebo

 

Well for sure these guys are going to be of no help in making the wooden pegs that will be used to hold my gazebo together and I know why.

It’s below zero today and there are several steps in the process of turning the 3/4” square stick at the top into a nice smooth 3/4” diameter wooden peg as shown on the bottom. Lets look at the steps…

So after ripping the wood for the peg into a 3/4” square you have to mark off the wood that you want to get rid of to make it round. You should also draw a bullseye on the end to give you an idea where the point should be.

Now take the peg blank over to your shaving horse (Don’t have a shaving horse? Make one. I did.) and using your draw knife to remove the unwanted corners and round the stick up a bit. Don’t forget to put a point on one end as shown here.

Now you are going to drive the rough shaved peg through the 1st sizing hole (red one) with a soft faced, heavy hammer. The 1st sizing hole is 7/8” diameter drilled through a 1/4” thick piece of steel.

This will reduce the peg to a rough 7/8” diameter.

Next drive the same peg through the green 2nd hole, the finish 3/4” diameter hole. This will take off  any remaining wood on the peg that is over 3/4” and smooth the surface out.

And there you have it. One down and 35 more to go…

Making these wooden pegs is going to be duck soup. That reminded me of my pet duct growing up.

Reciprocal rafter assembly

 

In my mind this is what the 12 five inch diameter 8 foot long fence posts will look like in a few days.

In case you’re wondering, like I did, this is the machine used by the people I got the untreated fence posts from looks like. Pretty wicked and very noisy when in operation.

With my fresh load of 12 tamerack fence posts loaded I could begin the process. 

I am not going to go into all the details for designing and calculating a reciprocal roof rafter. Spend a few hours on google and you can see how it is done. But I will say that if the idea of designing and laying out a truss for a hip rafter scares you then a reciprocal roof will be more difficult.

With the rim joists layed out and leveled the first rafter is put in place. The Charlie stick is in place and holding the rafter at the correct pitch angle for the roof. All this is based on the calculations using the diameter of the posts and the “Rummy” (look it up) distance used. 

All the posts were layed out. The lower end of the first rafter was tied to the rim with twine. Now the lay up could begin.
 

Posts would be added and tied to the rim. The last post, number 12, would be slid under the first post, number 1. This would require that the number 1 post be jacked up to allow this. Tricky…

Needless to say it did not go well on the first couple of tries. 

But after a few adjustments and fine tuning on the pitch and Charlie stick success was had. Doing all this with the posts 8 feet in the air at the top of the gazebo would be a real killer if you know what I mean!

The next day it was time to begin the steps to anchor the rafters in place. First the posts were secured to the rim joist with 10” GRK screws.

Now with the bottom ends secure I could drill the holes for the bolts that would lock in place the top ends of each rafter. This would require several steps for each hole and need to be repeated 12 times.

Each hole would need to be located so that it went through the center of both the top and bottom post it sits on. This was no small task and required several visual observations from different angles to make sure it was good. The drill guide used for the framing holes was a big help.

Several different drill bits and parts were used in the process as you can see. I “built” a work table to keep all these tools handy but still had to make many, many trips up and down the ladder and out of the frame squeezing between rafters to do it. 

Here is the small stud bolt that I put in the bottom of each post to help locate, and hold the correct position on the mating post below it during assembly. This stud bolt needed to be removed before I drilled or it would kill my 3/4” auger bit. 

Here are the steps I needed to do for each hole -

1 - Jack up post with handyman jack.

2 - Remove stud bolt.

3 - Lower post and remove jack

4 - Position drill guide and secure to post with GRK screws.

5 - Drill 3/4” hole through top and bottom post.

6 - Change to 2”diameter counter bore bit. 

7 - Counter bored 3/4” hole to match length of 3/4”dia.  12” long ready bolt. 

8 - Change to 15/16” dia. Bit.

9 - Enlarge 3/4”dia hole to 15/16” diameter.

10 - Install 3/4” bolt washers and nuts.

11 - Change back to 3/4” dia. Bit

- Repeat process.

I just had to remember to perform step #3 twelve times!

Well so much for that. #$@%!^&@ I remembered step #3  10 times and then sure enough drilled right into the stud bolt I forgot to remove. My mother would say it was enough to make a preacher swear.

 

And after all that here it is all bolted up. With all the posts and rafter numbered. Re-assembly when the ground thaws this spring should go well. Until then I’ll be working on making the pegs to put the frame together on the shaving horse.