Settlement Post & Beam

“By All means read what the experts have to say. Just don’t let it get in the way of your woodworking.” John Brown

The thing about timber framing is... Sometimes you have to sit back on a rafter and enjoy the warm breeze blowing in off the lake.

THE TIMBER KNEE BRACE EXPLAINED

We’ve received some requests to demystify a curved timber knee brace. Lucky for you, we have 42 of these to make for an Oak frame that we are cutting right now. Here it goes!

Our’s is a nominal 4”x 6” (3.75” x 5.75”)

1. Lay out the brace using a speed square.

2. Set 7 1/4” saw to 7/8” and cut cheek piece angle cuts. 

3. Set 7 1/4" saw to 45 degree angle and 3/8". Make a back cut along top and bottom of both tenons. This will shorten the length of the angle on our tenon to ensure our mortise is completely covered.

4. Set 10” saw to full depth, then inch into your back-cut line from the previous step and plunge the saw backwards and down in order to relieve the cheek piece. (carefully!)

5. Clean up your now visible tenons with a 2” framing chisel.

6. Using a flexible strip of wood (we generally use a strip of base shoe molding) create your desired radius. We settled on a 2.5” inch radius for this brace.

7. Head to the band saw and carefully cut your radius staying just outside your line.

8.  Using a belt sander with rough grit paper, ease your radius in to the line. Be sure to finish by sanding with the grain or you’ll have some nasty scratches to buff out with the orbital.

9. Grab your orbital sander and sand out any scratches left by the belt sander.

10. Fit the brace to its corresponding mortise. When satisfied, drill the joint with a 1” tri-cut auger bit (we use WoodOwl bits) and drive the peg to secure your joint.

Cheers!

Nothing better than drilling that last mortise before taking out the canoe.

A smart man once said "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings."

We fetched some good tidings today.

Photo credit: Delanie Bakos