Timber Frame Joinery: The Art of Wood Assembly

Okay guys, if you're building yourself a dovetail cabin with our dovetail cabin jig that we showed you, log cabin, or even a timber frame, you're gonna need yourself some sturdy door box. Windows and door box. Very similar how to make. Super strong. Some unique joinery. We'll show you how to do it and get your building done right and strong. It's super strong. I think it's beefy. It's beefy. I know that. You don't want. But you're gonna actually build a dovetail cabin. Okay, whether you're making an actually door or a window buck, they're exactly the same, just different shapes. And real simple here, guys, you have to make yourself a sill plate. And this is how we're gonna lock the bottom in. It actually needs an angle here to actually make sure that the water gets shed off of the actual sill itself. Just like you would buy a door at the store. So you can see where the door is gonna land. The water is gonna roll off. This being cedar is gonna last forever. We've also cut this reveal to where my actual dovetail cabin is gonna sit. So this is gonna actually act like molding and actually cross-reference over the top of each one of the seams. But really the strength of this is all in the head here because this is where you're gonna want your strength for your log cabin to actually sit up again to be able to use this as a pillar. So this is not just screws, my friends. Good old fashioned timber framing. Good old fashioned window door timber framing. Cedar doesn't last like oak. Here you go. This is actually the joinery that's gonna be needed to keep this head. And you can see how this is not gonna move. Screws are not gonna be the only thing holding this together. We're actually using this joinery, this actual lead system here. That's gonna be the strength of that. And this is gonna keep everything square and not from moving. So as we go along, I'm gonna show you how to cut the joinery, how to fit it, how to cut yourself a sill at home, make yourself some door bucks that are worthy of a log cabin, okay? Not this stuff you get from the store with three quarter inch jams on it. These are six by eight cedars. I think this cabin's gonna look awesome, Jay. It's gonna look totally awesome. Beefy. Might be overkill, but that's okay. I thought it was underkill. We're going bigger. So the first thing I'm doing to get ready is I'm gonna build some of the sills that we need. And these are actually the window box sills. And this is the rough lumber right off of our sawmill. So hopefully you're cutting your own lumber and you're actually building this from wood from your homestead. But you can see what I need to do is I'm actually cutting myself a channel here and then I'm gonna make myself where our water's gonna be able to roll off. My window is gonna sit right here. Any rain, boom. Not gonna sit on your sill. Not gonna be a problem. So real simple. I'm just gonna make my two marks here. And I know that this is the top piece that I want. It being cedar, it sands out beautiful. We didn't sand this one yet. So this is all just rough cut. That's not a bad rough cut though, let's be honest. It's not. We only had one door and two window sills to make. So not a big deal. Real quick, I take my little saw. I'm gonna set my saw to one inch because that's the depth I'm looking for. Little blue. I wonder how many people name their saws and stuff. I think everybody names everything. Think so? We do. I do. Because I have five saws. You got a lot of names for me too. What? You got a lot of names for me too. I do. So here, make your first rip. If you're not comfortable cutting square, what you do is put your square right on here. How fast that would be if you were cutting it. That's how I do it. That's how Jay does it. So really here, that's what I'm looking for in the front. Put them over here in my jaw horse because I love this thing. I love this thing. Thanks, Bob. That was your dad's, wasn't it? It was my dad's. Thanks, Dan's dad. I would have never brought it and now I can't live without it. So what I'm going to do right here is I just want to mark off my one inch because that's exactly where my drip ledge is going to be. Oh, tilt today. Oh, you'll lose it a few times. I know. These red pencils are thinner. Yeah. Not a fan. I'm going to snap a line just to give me some reference to go to. And if you look, you can see I'm right here at the bottom of my cuts. Simple. This is a little bit of a trick. Yeah. Okay. This is one of those finesse skills. It's a finesse. Definitely, you've cut a few times. I've cut a few times, Jay. So I've got this on 25 degrees because that's what I like. You need to make sure you're all the way so that you're going to cut in one pass and take this whole piece out with you. For me, even if it's a little crooked, I know you're supposed, as you're running your saw, I'm going to try to hold it as here. We're going to sand everything. So we're actually able to shape the wood if you do have some sort of a miscut here. So me, as I'm going along, as I'm on my line right here, what I do is I'm pinching my saw right here. So I'm giving myself a gauge. There we go. I mean, oh, my God. How did you make that? Look how easy that beautiful. See, I didn't see it the first time. He didn't. Jay was like, what are you doing? How did you do that? What's up? There we go. We're going to take these back to the mill and I'm going to cut these with my sawmill, nice and straight. Pop these off both sides and Jay's going to get to sanding and then we're going to fit this thing into a window. All right. That's how simple it is to make yourselves. So anytime, anytime that I actually have to do joinery where I need to do a big flat cut. Yes, I could use my monster skill saw to cut that. I always come down to the mill. It's so consistent. It's so quick. No issue for your shoulder. I'm not going to get any faster than that. It's pretty quick, Dan. Or straight. It's straight. And they're exactly even. Exactly. I've used the skill saw my whole life. I can't guarantee that every cut that we make is exactly even. I know everybody wants you to believe that they can. Yeah, they can't. Oh, I'm going to do it again. Knock out two of these things. You see, I actually position that piece because I knew I was cutting this off to get rid of any waste that you might have. Good thinking, Dan. I always know somewhere along the line we got to finish it, Jay. That's true. I appreciate it. Could have hit it on the bottom. I decided to cut it out. Smooth as butter, Jay. That's it. Got to love it. I mean, we use carbide blades for everything. I don't think we use anything else now. Well, maybe stripping. Everyone's stripping, stripping bark. Yeah. So that's it, guys. Our silk plates are made. We do a little planing, a little sanding. That section's done. So for your timber frame posts, this is the actual joinery or the cuts that you're looking to make. And this is all just rough cut. We haven't finished anything. It just got off the saw. So once I have already one made, yeah, it's easy and you can just mass produce them. So if you have yourself a good drawing, same thing. Now, me, I've got my piece here. This is my blank, which is a little bit long. I know that I have. Yeah, I've got about four or five inches. I want to try to get rid of this. I've got an issue down here and I'm trying to cut back. Normally, I've been measuring from my bottom and just cutting my way. So I'm going to kind of work backwards here. But here to make this joinery, we actually know we've got three inches, which is this tab right here, which is going to push you onto the shoulder. I know that this is two inches, so it makes me five. Here's what I'm looking to do. I know that it's two in going to bring me up to where I need to be. I know that my tenon right here is another two. So that's four inches that I'm going to be right here. And I'm actually know that this two inch mark here. This is the two inch ledge that we have. This right here is what we're looking to cut out. So real simple me. I'm going to take this. I'm going to mark this right here and here. That's where my tenon is going to be. If I was making this one right here. So now we actually have to deal with the one inch shoulders here and the three inch shoulder right here. So me, I know I'm going to come down the three inches and then I know I'm going to come down to the seven inches. So I could have done that same thing here. Here's my three inch cut. My seven inch cut. That is perfect here. I'm trying to show you. So you see where I'm at. My seven inch cut leaves me here. My last is going to follow in. There's the pattern. So this is actually what we need to cut. Now, there's actually two different ways that this can get cut. You can cut all of this with skill saws. You can cut them with the big skill saw. You can cut them. Yeah, you can. I use a combination of my little blue skill saw and my big red skill saw. Me, that or I make two cuts with a small skill saw. Run this down to my mill. And that's where the joinery is actually going to get cut. It's going to be easy. I'm going to show you both ways and you decide which way you think is easy. But that's the patterns that we need to cut. Hopefully that explains what's going on right here. How we laid that out. My head hurts. I don't know if that was a little too quick. I could slow down on the next one. I've made one or two of these. Yeah, I've made one or two of these. All right. I'm looking forward to this. I'm not, but here we go. If I've got to actually gauge my saw, I'm going to use a skill saw to cut these, actually come back on my beam. I mark, I know I need three inch cuts. I also know I need five inch cuts. So I'm basically giving myself a gauge if I already didn't have a preset gauge. A lot of guys have a board with all the saw blades in it. You can gauge that way. Me, I don't know. I seem to there, man. I'm trying to gauge to my three because that's going to be my first cut. That's it. Simple pimple. Now, here's the not so simple part with this big guy. Mm hmm. You ready? Mm hmm. A couple of pull ins. A little heavy. Right here. Safety first, Jay. Safety first. Safety first. You know what? I'm going to roll it. Because I'm trying to get my gauge on my saw to stay on there a little better. And I'm cutting this one. Why I did that was to helpfully ride my gauge right there. Very harsh, my friend. It's heavy, too, Dan. It is heavy. This is why I like the use of my sawmill. Yeah. And I'll show you here in a minute. But now I got a gauge to a five cut. Except where it went. There you go. Going to five again. Big red. Big red, my friend. Big red. I think my cut was a hair short on that. I'd rather be a hair short than a hair long. Little blue. Little blue coming out. Make sure that you're back. I'm cutting two inches. A little Japanese saw. A little hacking. We've got a one inch mark here. Clean that cut off. Now it's starting to show itself. We're going to just start peeling away pieces, Jay. All right. That one cut was a little bit shallow. All right. I do like to have a little less sawing going on. I know. Like you said, though, better to be shallow than deep. Just a little bit of clean up there. I'm going to just drop this one right down to as far as I can go. And I'm just going to hand saw it. I think the other method is going to prove to be a little quicker, Jay. Yeah, it's always fun to cut tabs on the mill. It is always fun for us anyway. Yeah, I don't know who's watching or who has a mill or doesn't. That's true. There we go. Look at that. That's the rough cut that we're looking for. Just like that mirror image. Little clean up. I really like that tab. I do like that tab. And it's strong when this goes together. It's strong. Yeah. Even in cedar. OK, I've got another one marked up for the other side. I'm going to take you down there. I'll show you how we cut it off the mill. We'll be able to make it just a couple of cuts with a skill saw. Bada bing, bada boom, it'll be done. I think this is if you don't have a mill, it's doable. Love it. OK, we'll do the sawmill method here. So the only couple of cuts, you don't have to make cross cuts this way. You don't have to do drop cuts, which are really what the hardship is. He's got this guy here. Set up a little blow. It's a little bit more manageable of a saw there, Dan. He is. I love this little saw. Two inches. We'll finish the cut, and then we'll have just one more little cut. Boom, boom, boom. You make this look pretty easy, Dan. Do I, Jay? You do. It's like flying, Jay. That's right. Now we just have this little one inch guy right here. We need to finish. Bing, bang, boom. I know this looks like a mishmash of cuts here. You'll see. Thing will peel away like a house of cards, Jay. I was trying to think where you're going to go with that. A house of cards. That wasn't bad. We're using house of oak from house of oak to house of card. Here we go. Now we're taking it to the mill. Here we go. I love it. I love this little drawing. I can see the cuts. So all our drop cuts here, we're going to just actually make on the sawmill. I find this a little less effort on my back when we're making hundreds of these things. If you have a sawmill, may as well use it. You may as well use it. It doesn't even make sense not to use it. I'm with you on that. So here we go. Let's punch out a couple of these. You tell me what you think. The thing is running, Jay. It is running. You put high octane in that thing? Racing fuel, jet fuel, jet fuel. There you go. There we go. I think we should be just peeling away now. Should be a nice, simple two and four, Jay. It does look a lot better on your back, Dan. Well, I mean, the cuts too, the speed. Yeah. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. Imagine if we had four of them to do down here. Mm hmm. And you could gang them up, right? You could. Did you turn the throttle up on that thing, Jay? No, no comment, Dan. No comment. There we go. Hey, look at that. So I don't know. You tell me. Is that easier to do here or there? I mean, we we have actually less cleanup. They're actually all pretty decent cuts. I appreciate that. I appreciate that too. You just saw a mill. Save your back. Love it. OK, so we lined up. So this is going to be the head jam. And this is actually the cut that's going to fit into our notch there. And we actually laid out where the mortise has to go. And because of the way our mortise machine is, you see this round right here. This bottom of this pocket is round like that. So for us to get this to work is we need to take our post and instead of rounding the edges over here, we need to round them right here to make that joinery fit pretty tight. So this is what came off the sawmill that we showed you. It's and all you're going to do is actually like right here. You have an edge when you get it off your sawmill. You're going to want to take your chisels, clean up. There you don't want anything in the way of blocking that joinery. So you're just looking to make sure that's a clean, clean edge. Oh, I take my sander, especially that this is a cedar. OK, for us, the quickest way to achieve this round. Really simple. I like this little disk. I don't even know what they call the grinder. The grinder disk. We don't even have a name for him yet other than the knuckle buster. The big. Yeah, no doubt. That'll take your scale. It's all really quick and easy. And I call you know what? It's the shape of this almost like you're hand shaping or sculpting. I think it's meant for like seats and things like that. Would go. That's it. It's too aggressive to just see it right now. Even the sandpaper, you need to go pretty light. I mean, I'm just going to clean it all up. We wouldn't want that joint standing. That's right. I love, you know, this disk. The disk sanding works so well on here. That's how we clean them up to join them. So we're going to make a quick slice into this piece here and then we're going to start fitting it and see how it works. And if any adjustments need to be made. I had to weigh the option of walking down to the mill or picking up this saw. Long and boring. There you have it. Bingo. A little clean up and then we're going to fit the tabs. OK, let's give a little dry test to see if our cuts line up. Oh, I don't know, Jay. That one looks really, really good. If we put a timber screw, even though we have our joinery here, we're still going to put timber screws in here on the final assembly. When we take them up to Paul Bunyan, though, we're going to take them off as a package and we're going to assemble them there. I'm not going to bring them up there assembled. Well, that's a good thing. Easier storage, Jay. Absolutely. No chance of getting broke. Oh, there. That looks really good. Same thing. It's like there's one little bow in the. I'm going to fix that, Jay. OK. So that's what we're really doing with dry fitting, making sure we're happy with the piece of joinery where it's sitting. So you got a little bow in that there? I do have a little bow right there. And it's keeping it. You can see it's keeping me from rocking. So I'm going to try to take care of that right now. You all good? No, it's actually pretty heavy. It's not oak. It is an oak. And I actually feel it a little bit. Hmm. You see right here, that's where we end up noticing it. Hmm. OK. We're going to fix that, though, right now, Jay. Let's fix it up. Me, I'm going to shape my way back. Never underestimate the power of a grinder or a sander. A little bit, but it's not. There we go. Ah, hair more. I'm going to give it that hair more. You said perfect, but I knew you saw that right away. I saw it right away. It looked perfect. It was perfect down here. Just the edge. There we go. Perfect. There we go. If you saw it, I saw it, Jay. No, I know you did. I know that eagle eye of yours. We ain't no lie. We ain't gonna lie. Oh, yes, yes, there it goes. Sits a bunch better right there. Mm hmm. So there's the support. Am I going to be our window frame? I don't know if I want to put this up here, Jay. Sure. Let's see what happens. Even that's pretty heavy. I would say it's late in the week, but I think it's only Tuesday. I know, but it's late in the day. There you go. And if you notice, there's only one guy working. My apologies. Hey, look, you're in the window. There we go. There's an upside down window. How's this going to go together? So once you got all your pieces cut up fit and you're ready to assemble, we always put anchor seal. You see that? So we're sealing the end grains and the water, no anything that's going to go through it. And actually, we've actually already pre assembled one of the windows. And we're at the last step right now where we're going to make the shadow box, the trim for this piece. So we're actually all snapped up. I don't know. You can see how that is for the front door, the windows, the door box, everything. So this is where the channel of the six by is going to sit. Let's just think about this is a dovetail piece. Boom. That's going to be nice. That's how that's going to sit against your door frame. And then it's set perfectly for you to put a piece of trim in the back. So that's why we did that. I like that, Dan. Trims off your windows very nicely, Jay. Gives you the beefy look. This is beefy. Think of the beef. This is a window jam right here. So real quick, I've already got my saw set up. I actually have to cut a six inch channel, which is right here. Boom. So everything has been put together, screwed with timber screws, and I'm going to make the cut. We're going to disassemble. And then when we get up to the fair, we'll have to reassemble them, Jay. Kind of happens with us. Assemble, reassemble. Yeah. You need to make sure everything fits. That is a big cut in the field. That's a big cut, Dan. I'm already dusty. I'm going at it again. Go at it. Get dustier. That is a healthy cut. That's a nice white shirt you got there, Dan. We're usually working with white oak, Jay. Today it's red. A little bit different. OK. That's a nice cut. It is a nice cut. You'll see here I've already snapped the line right here. So I'm actually going to disassemble right now. And then I'm just going to make the last cut and pull them out. That is a window frame. That's a window frame. And then we'll put it back together so that you can see it again. What do you got for us, Dan? All right. We're going to make the second cut for our shadow box piece right now. You'll see. Inch and a half. It's a little shallow over here. What's that? Oh, maybe not. There's a little tab on there. It's just a little tab all the way. Nice cut. Can I have that hammer? I know. Nice cut. Right there. Yeah, it is kind of right here. Fell off. I'm not going to lie. I'm going to fix that. I did not see that. Dan, that's unlike you. I know. It's late in the day. It is late in the day. Fix it, everybody. Like that. It's like that. And there it is. I love this shadow box thing, as you call it. I do love that. So it's almost like homemade trim. It's so we just need a little chisel work. Nothing major. I could have probably cut it a little bit deeper. That's it. As soon as you put your windows in, you're already trimmed out. Nobody doesn't love to be trimmed out early. No, get it. Get it done. Get it done. There's enough other things to do. There is enough other things, Jay. That's it. Truth be told, I got to get on the sharpening those things. We've been using them a lot. Yeah, they are super dull, Jay. Sorry. Super dull. I got to get on it. One last cut. One last piece. Well, let's see. I think that's another beautiful cut. There you go. Oh, look at that. So there we go. Let us put our frames together. But it gives you an idea. The drawing you're going to make with your 6x5 material. Yeah, that is pretty cool. It is cool. Yeah, I like it a lot. I think it's sturdier that way, too. Yeah, this is going to be a really good storm shelter. A lot of tornadoes around here. Go to the sauna. All right. Just parts. Parts is parts. All right. OK, so realistically, now that you've had all your parts made, you had everything waxed, you might have even had it stored in your garage for a while because you're not ready to go to the job site yet. You can have this in pieces. And when you get to either the job site or when we get to the show, this is how we put these together. And it's real simple. We're using wood screws, my friend. Timber screws. So let me get one started here, Jay. Are those eight or tens? I can't remember. These are eight. Probably be easier if I was helping you. It always would be easier, but everybody understands this is the only part that doesn't interlock. So it's completely solid. So everything's waxed, everything's sealed. So you really don't have to worry about it. Let's see how this goes. Yeah, it's pretty cool looking. If it goes together, if it goes together, look at that. Oh, it is snug. Yep. The good part about these timber screws is how well they draw in. As you see it, you actually only have threads on this end. So it's pulling these two units together. You don't have threads here tying everything together. Perfect. Look at that. That's it. So now you have timber screws and you have joinery. It just sucks that right in. It sure did. The same way here right now, Jay. It's very satisfying. That one had a different head on it. There you go. That's the assembly of your door frames. And these are structural door frames for a log cabin. A timber frame or actually anything. But it is a structural door frame. That's the door frame. I want to be in a storm. This is the storm frame, my friend. Forget the bathtub. They don't use those cast iron bathtubs anymore. You need yourself one of these frames in a storm. That's right. Beautiful work. So that's it. That's how easy this stuff is to install. And it's ready to be put into your cabin. Is this a picture window, Jay? Just a window to take pictures with? No, this is for our bunion build for the dovetail cabin. I mean, who wouldn't want beefy window box like this? I mean, it's beautiful. My friends, they are simple, beefy, easy. Who's going to want a little door box like this with a little piece of molding when you got a giant log cabin? Make it look cool. Not just windows, but doors. All exactly the same way. Just the shape is different. So hopefully this helped you out, guys. It's a fun project, even for a shed or just anything in the yard. Build your own doors and windows.