Laying out the first truss took some extra time. Each each timber had to be individually layed out and matched to the original mortise.
Six king post trusses were recut from heart of yellow pine timbers that were removed from a building built in 1840. The sawdust from the center of the timbers was still a little sticky from sap. The original trusses were over 50 feet wide. We cut down the width to 34 feet and recut the joints to fit to most of the original mortises.
By the time we started working on the 3rd truss we had developed a system of laying out and cutting the trusses, which helped to speed up the assembly process.
The original joinery was very rustic, which the owner wanted in the lodge, but the interesting thing about the original joinery was that very few of the joints had pegs. You could tell that the trusses had been assembled in place one piece at a time. The tenons were only 2 inches long and 2 inches wide. The rafters and braces were supported against the kingpost with their weight only. Since these recut trusses were going to be raised assembled, we lenghtened the tenons to 4 inches and pegged all of the joints.
A large forklift was used to move the assembled truss out of the work area. The trusses were transported to the lodge nearby and set in place with a crane.
Final shot of the fully assembled timber framed king post trusses.
