Knee Brace Joinery: The WORST Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

Have you ever made a timber frame joinery mistake? Whether you're a seasoned pro or beginner, it's gonna happen. And yeah, yesterday, that's exactly what happened to me. So what would you guys do? I'm gonna show you how to fix this timber frame joint and still make yourself a strong structure. So stick with us. So yeah, we're on the last leg of dry fitting and assembling our frame out here on the table. And everything was going pretty smoothly for what you got to do for these giant beams that we're using here and over here. We're actually sort of sitting here admiring my mistakes because this was our last fitting yesterday that we were actually gonna put together. We were actually gonna call this section of the frame good. And as I get to putting in and dry fitting my knee braces and me, we've had this frame together and I'm always, I'm fitting my knee braces in the field. Does that look like it fits to you? No. So we weren't even planning on making a video here this week but we figured we'd show you. Yeah, stuff happens. So, I mean, there's a couple of choices. What do you really want to do about fixing this joint? I mean, do you really want to throw away this beautiful 17 foot, eight by 12 piece oak? No, not with all the join we cut. Look at all the love on the other side. So we're gonna show you how we actually have to fix this joint here or what we're gonna do without actually cutting new posts or new beams right here. And don't be depressed with me, Kitty. It's just a little gap, that's all. It's a little gap. I know. Jason is actually relishing in this moment right now because I remind him of all his mistakes. But I can promise you last night and yesterday I punished myself so many times. So realistically, guys, I'm actually gonna show you a way that, yes, you're gonna actually see my repair of what I've got to do here to make this knee brace fit so it's consistent throughout my building. And we're gonna make it look as good as humanly possible. But I'm gonna show you how we do this. And this way it's a reminder to me is always, always, always double check your measurements. And this is my fault. And what I did is when we were actually laying out our knee braces, is I usually check mine just like this, just wherever they're gonna sit. And I actually mark everything out. Whether I was rushing or whether I didn't double check, this is the mark that was supposed to be here. My pocket should have been right here. So I have a pocket here now that I don't want. And yes, it was a bit concerning. I don't know what to say. I was a little depressed with myself. But don't get depressed. These things that happen, they happen all the time. So really what we're gonna have to do is we're gonna show you how to refit this brace and put in a structural plug that you can actually use it. And we'll go from there. We're not just gonna stuff it with sawdust and glue? Yeah, that's part of the process. Sawdust and glue. So if this actually situation happened to you, I'd like to know what did you do or what would you do? I mean, there's actually several different options that can be done. And the most expensive and probably the worst is to replace this beam. I mean, not only is it a ridiculous piece of wood, there's love all over this thing. It's one joint away from being there forever. So I did not at all want to replace this beam. I sat here and talked about, do I make an offset knee brace and just make what I actually fit? But then I knew that I was going to see a difference in the rest of the knee braces that we made because they're all perfect. So realistically, what we're gonna actually do is I'm going to actually put a plug in here. And I'm gonna show you how we cut the plug, how we get assembled here. But what we're gonna have to do is because of the mistakes that I made is that we're gonna have to remortise this pocket. And we're gonna have, I'm gonna have that Jay get back here. I told him there was no more mortising for like a day. But yeah, we're gonna have to remortise this pocket and I'm gonna fit the knee brace that actually belongs in here. So we're gonna go down and I'm gonna show you how to cut the wood, cut and set your block. And I decided to use this method. And you'll see at the end when we finish it. You're gonna see the mistake. So this is for my barn. If this was for somebody or somebody's job, there's a possibility I'd be replacing this because they wouldn't want to see that. Me, that's gonna remind me to check. Now I've made a million mistakes. A million mistakes. I cannot remember whenever I've actually made this mistake. And it had to be because I was rushing. It was hot. I think I know it all. I don't know. But either way, it happened. And thank God we dry fitted here and not brought this out to the frame and then have a problem. This is why we dry fit and build everything here. I mean, you can see I'm assembling almost the whole entire barn right here on the table. So you've really got to make the decision for yourself. I want to spend the money, spend a whole bunch of time here. We'll fix your joint. Strong and simple. Remember your mistakes. I'm gonna remember this forever. It's gonna be in my shop right over my head. You're human, Dan. I know. Go figure that out. This is how I punish myself. Okay, the simplest fix to keep all of your knee braces uniform, in my mind anyway. Hopefully you guys have a better idea, but in my mind. I know that I need a 10-inch pocket and this 10-inch pocket needs to be in this direction. So that was my mistake right there. So really this is a, I want to say the quickest and easiest of fixes, but we're going to have to mortise out everything that we got going on in here. Two and five. So I'm going to have to ask my man Jay to get one more horizontal mortising because we're not taking this apart for him to do that. That's probably a good call. So if you boys want to see some man glitter, let's just watch what happens here. Time to get dirty. So while he's actually mortising the hole, I'm going to run down to the mill and get our pieces cut that we need to fix this. I guess nobody has to ask what we're going to do with the extra blocks. There you go. So lucky for me, I have a sawmill here and we need something. We have drops all the time. This was actually laying right here, which is going to make a perfect block for what we need for this. And I've already got it up on my sawmill. Why make one? Let's make two all at once because you never know. I could screw that one up as well. And if not, heck, we got a backup ready to go. So I mean, real simple on the layout here. This is actually an eight by 12. I'm looking to actually get the lumber right here. One reason for it to lay exactly the same as it is in the beam, not only for the end grain, but for the strength of the block. So what we're really going to do here just to get everything perfect though, is that we're going to probably just trim off. Let me get my pen, Jay. You like when I draw. I do like it a lot. We're going to actually just trim off a half inch piece here so that we can get down to some fresh wood here. This wood has been hanging around and drying. And then we're actually going to cut our slab two inches in this direction. Now I know. So there's where our plugs are going to be. That's right on it, Jay. Like it. Now I'm actually not exactly going to use the line I drew on here as we cut this. You'll see I'm going to fine tune it because I want this to be tight. Perfect fitting. This is a two by 12. To get us some fresh. Here we go. We're going to just actually make a couple of cuts right there because I need 10 inch pieces. And that's what I need. So we need to trim this stuff off here and we'll show you how quick and easy it is to make a plug for this problem. I love when you mark on stuff, Dan. I love marking on a jig too. OK, for the plug that we want to get, I'm actually going to mark out the next couple of cuts that we need. And I'm leaving myself a little bit of fat so we can sand this plug in there and make it look perfect. But these are actually going to end up being two four inch plugs, 10 inches wide, 10 inches deep so that we get the end grain that we need. So really, as we're cruising along with our sawmill, I'm going to make all the cuts right here. Get my pieces. No reason to. I don't think there's any reason that you actually have to get out your chop saw, table saw, nothing. If you don't have it, you have a sawmill. We're going to do it all right here right now. Multifunctional. Plugs and all. Mistakes and all. So you're also getting premium cut wood here for your plugs, which is what you want. They're going to hold in a little bit stronger. So keep your scraps carbide clean. Started cutting at the wrong mark, Jay. Needed seven and a half, not seven. Can't do that. Mistakes again. See, I changed my mind again. It'd be just as easy to get rid of this whole thing. Some dry wood. Look at the wood though. Very, very decent. We're going to split the actual crack here. I see a little crack in that, Jay. Do you? Oh, I do. I see a perfect premium one. You see, you never know until you cut in. Let's see how that goes, Jay. I'm going to cut around that guy. That could easily move us down. Or just do two lengthwise. Look at the end of this bad boy. See, that's got a little crack in him. Okay, we're going to maneuver around that crack now. We're going to cut that crack out, Jay. Cut the crack out. Let's cut your crack. Easy now. Didn't come out as perfect as I thought, Jay. Hmm, well that crack kind of threw us. I'm going to skim these even lighter. I'm going to change my plan as I'm cutting, fellas. Changing the plan. Got to be maneuverable. Dry oaks, no joke. It's no joke. I thought that was the banger. Lucky you had your PPE on, Jay. I know. Always with my glasses. While I'm actually cutting here, I'm actually happy with that. I'm going to come in and take my fours. Right from here, my four and a quarters. I need four. Four and a quarter is where it's going to be. And I promise you, if this doesn't work, we're going to cut those to be what we need. Got lots of wood to play with. We do have a half inch. And we're going to go to five and a quarter. That's going to be our other piece. Sorry for the extra drawing. And start off as a good drawing. It did start off pretty good. Look how messy we got. All right. I know what's going on. Right now, let's make a cut. And I'm going to keep this one together. Seven and a quarter. Okay, our plug stock is ready. So really what I'm going to do is just mark out. I know I need 10 inch plugs. I need them tight. I'm going to make them just a little bit bigger than that. So a couple quick cuts. And we'll actually have four pieces. We'll have four plugs. We can make four times the mistakes, Jay. Only once per project, Dan. Only one per project. One per project. This is where I mess up again if I don't scribble out my lines. So I know I'm going to make it bigger because I'm going to sand this stuff to make it fit perfectly quick. Cut this one, Dan. No more mistakes on this piece. That's why I'm making four. Hey, make mistakes while fixing your mistakes. I know. And Jay's going to be like, what do I do with these? I'll be like, you store them somewhere. We're going to need another shed. Okay. No, right line. Step, I don't know, Jay, in the fixing of the mistake. Okay. Importantly, when we start the sawmill, we need to make sure that we're a heavy two because I'm going to sand this to fit nice and tight. I'm going to check my cut. I'm going to thoroughly check my cut. Yeah. I'm going to come down, Jay. Make it a little fatter. We're not making a mistake again, my friend. I got aggressive. Triple checking now, Jay. Got yourself a little nervous, didn't you, Dan? I did. I was hoping for the peel away, Jay. I know. I was looking for some drama. I can't believe I didn't get myself all the way down. I can't believe. Mistake number. Let's not even go there. Mistake number. That's two and a half. You idiot. What an idiot. Okay. Don't be so hard on yourself, Dan. Are you talking to me? Don't think it doesn't happen. There you go. There we are. That's what we're looking at. So there we are. We got rid of the heart. I don't know about that one. I'm going to pick the best one. We got four now, Jay. One mistake, four plugs. There you go. Not one mistake, pal. I just made a mistake. That's all right. We're only human. All right. So instead of disassembling our frame, we kind of run or I make Jay run. The mortars are horizontal and the clamp is definitely strong enough for it to hold. So he actually just gets after it here. And yeah, it's sawdust city for Jay right now. Sawdust city. It's better than taking this whole thing apart though. I'm telling you. It is. We have one joint. Now I've got our piece, our block that we're actually going to use to hold the knee brace in. Had to sand it down. We did it so it would fit snugly here. And we've got the same grain pattern going through in this direction now. So Jay's already got the mega. We'll call it the mega mistake pocket. All fit. And we're already dried so that when we do put this together, hopefully for the first time it fits and we could draw bore our stuff. So normally when I'm fitting my frame just like this, this one's easy with the mega pocket. Got plenty of room. So let's see how. Let's see how we fit here. And it's actually fitting very snug. Oh yeah, you could. I'm actually very happy here with the joints that we have going on. So I don't need to make any adjustments to the knee brace to make it fit. This is the way it would have fit if we actually cut the hole right the first time. No comment without my patch. So all I did before I actually put this in, I wanted to make sure everything fit because once we pound this piece in, we're never getting it out. And that's just the reality of it. That thing's going to probably wedge right in there. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop this out. And since we know this is not coming out, I would put a good dose of anchor seal if we had a good dose of anchor seal in there, Jay. We're a little low. So me, because this piece needs to stay and it's actually part of the structure, I'm just going to wax the whole entire thing so that I could get all of this on my hands. It'll probably make it slip in there a little bit better for your skin. So I think this is essential. Make sure that you seal anything that you're going to do. You don't want this little piece to dry out. I don't know why I did that because we're going to have to sand it. Oh, my God. It's slippery, Jay. Let's see how she goes in there. Let's see how it goes. Take a little motivation. It takes it snug. Here, right here. On this, I've been wiping it. That's nice. Thank you, Jason. I've been wiping it on that part of my shirt. Helper, craftsman, cameraman, and now rag. Hand rag. Now when you put this block in, I don't think it's coming out, Jay. I don't think so. I hope not. That's the point. I hope not either. Right here. There we are. Plug is perfect. Perfect. You can see it's seated right in there. So there we go. There's our plug fix. OK, we got our block fit in place and this is not coming out of here. So now we're back to the point of dry fitting our knee brace so that we could get our draw boards all taken care of and make sure that this thing fits together. One guy. One guy timber framing. One guy. All right, we're going to need to tighten up this joint. There's only one way to do this, boys. Tap, tap. Let out some aggression. Let out a little aggression. I know you like to hit things. But I think we're on the downside, Jay. All right, that's good. Normally there my peg is in. I'm looking right here. Boom. There's our fit. Looking good. Does look good. It does look good. Looks good. This is good right here, my friend. So I don't know. I don't think that looks totally terrible. It is a small reminder of what's going to happen here. But right now I'm going to actually finish drilling my holes through here and I'm going to drive pegs in there and leave them because that's where it actually should be. But I don't know, Jay. I think that's actually a pretty good fix for a pretty simple mess up. I think that's a pretty good fix. You know, it almost looks it's so clean. It almost looks intentional. Maybe we should do that everywhere. It's ornamental. We have nine more pegs that we actually made, Jay. I think it looks pretty good by the time we sand it and stain it. Yep. It's really nice. Looks pretty good. It's really nice. We'll see when we get the stain on it coming soon. Hopefully tomorrow. So you can see if you make a mistake on your timber framing, there's usually some sort of trick to get you out of it. Now, I'd like to know from anybody else what you would do to fix this problem. But honestly, for what I have to look at, I'm actually pretty happy for what we did. This is a strong joint. It's tight fitting. And I really believe that the frame is going to be just as strong as it would be, my friend. So hopefully this helped you out. And if you guys run into a problem like this, there's a quick, easy way to fix it instead of actually wasting your beams. Saving money. Looks good. Maybe you should make more mistakes every once in a while. We make more videos about it. Let me know what mistakes are out there and I'll try to fix that for you.