Decisions, Decisions

     Being of little experience like myself I have found there are many decisions to make. These range from the kind of Chisels, saws, type of pegs and maybe the most important is the type of wood to use. Due to the fact that I live in Florida I have found that Cypress is the most available. I started out wanting to use southern yellow pine because I thought it would be stronger and I liked the smell. The SYP timbers I got for the sawhorse were mostly fatwood which really smelled good but made it extremely heavy and hard to work with. The saws gummed up with resin and it was hard to chisel. It also checked and shaked so badly that I believe it would basically be unusable. Since the saw horses I have found a sawmill less than an hour away but they only sell cypress. This stuff is green and very heavy  due to the water content. When sawing through the wood or chiseling I have noticed water seeping from the wood. It also smells like pickles, not the way I wanted my wood to smell. The positives are the wood is extremely square and sizes are accurate, no parallelograms like the southern yellow pine I had previously purchased which needed to be planed down to square. The cypress also seems to have little grain run out and very few knots so it seems to be a very good choice for my situation.

  

     Above are my first beams I cut were (2) 8x8 post with an 8x10 time beam with Wedged half dovetail joints into the post. Here I used the last of the southern yellow pine I ordered. This stuff drove me nuts because of the uneven sides. The rest of the bents will be cut from cypress.

    As you can see in the pic above I would leave my chisels in the sawdust box. I found this practice to be a bad idea. Apparently moisture from the wood will cause the chisels to corrode. I now take them out and rub them down with a light oil.

Above is a picture of my chisels, a purple heart mallet (good for driving pegs),  ironwood mallet framers square, forstner bit, plane, and a Belgium whet stone for sharpening chisels. Not shown are a 16" Makita timber saw and  a 6" Makita planer. Pictured below is the Makita 1/2" drill. I also have several hand saws which the only one that I can't do without is a 12" Japanese saw which is extremely sharp and cuts on the pull stroke. I need a 24" japanes saw but havn't found one. The square is called "Big Al" which can be purchased on the Timber Framers Guild website. It is great for laying out beams. It's best characteristic for me is it lays flat on the beam while marking.

Above is The Makita drill, ironwood mallet and chisels which I purchased from Barr Specialty Tools. 

  I have to mention my Ironwood mallet which I use when chiseling. This thing is incredibly hard and I like the way it feels in my hand. It is in the pic above by the makita drill with a 2" forstner bit.