Beam Me up Robbie!

Hi, hope everyone is doing ok in lockdown/quarantine and it isn't making you stir crazy.

I'm still working away both on the day job and the shed hopefully I'm going to get out into the garden and get on with things over the coming long Easter weekend. I might even get the roof and doors on and get things wind and watertight! I might even be getting a little ambitious here!

I need to trim down the back wall pallets so that I can get a decent slope on the roof and to hopefully make things a little easier on the eye for my neighbours who have to look at this thing!  Trimming off the pallets means removing the top support blocks which keep the pallets rigid.

This also gives me a potential solution to another problem, how do I tie the walls together?  A big beam to run the full length for the shed which can be glued and nailed inside the trimmed pallets and can act as an anchor point to attach the roof trusses to later.  A 6-metre beam is not an easy thing to come by even when things are open.

Big beams are expensive, so not in keeping with keeping the cost down so I'm going to have a go at making Glulam beams myself from the timber I have.

GluLam or Glue Laminated timber is really common and is used in lots of architectural applications here's an example:

So let's not kid ourselves here, my beams are unlikely to match industrial standards. I'm only looking to hold up a few trusses, some OSB sheets and a bit of felt so it doesn't have to be super high spec.

So to glue, I need clamps but clamps are expensive so can I make them?    Of course, I can!:

Rummaging through my parts bin I've got some 200mm X 12mm coach bolts, some 12mm and I've got a load of timber I can use for bars.

So how big do the bars need to be:

I'm working on the basis that my boards will never be any bigger than 100mm, my bolt holes will need to be at least 12mm and I'll need a decent overhang at the ends to stop the boards splitting.

100x2 + 12x3 + 50x2 (the overhangs) = 336mm

To make it a nice round number I've made the bars 350mm.  Three bolts mean I can make up two beams side by side.

I just used the first bar as a template for the others

I have 20 x bolts so that's six clamps or 12 bars to cut

I decided that the bolt head should be recessed in the bottom bar to sit flush. to do this I drilled out a countersink with a 32 mm spade bit.

The bolts have a square section just under the heads that's a little wider than the shank of the screw so I drill out another recess with a 16mm spade bit then I drill out with a 10mm drill and waggle it around until I get a 12mm hole.

I would have used my pillar drill, but there might be enough tools in the garden already! so six of these done now for the top bars.

These don't need to be as complicated I just drilled three holes in the top bars using the 16mm spade bit to allow for any wobble or adjustment.

Six of these drilled,

and time to put everything together.

So I now have six clamps I can tighten using the nuts on the top, but do they work?

Well, this is the first attempt at making a beam:

So the major lessons learned from the first run are:

• When using glue that's likely to leak don't do glue-ups on your decking!
• Give yourself plenty of time to crimp down all those nuts.
• I've not got enough clamps or space to glue up a 6-metre beam in one go.

So I made up three sections with staggered boards that fit together are glued and then nailed to make sure everything will be solid when it gets nailed/screwed in place and the result is shown in the image below.

So the weekend looks like it's going to be decent weather, and I'm hoping to get out and get on with a bit more stuff.  The one thing I won't be doing is going to the park or meeting other folks, Fortunately COVID-19 hasn't touched my family but it has affected friends of mine.  

Remember there is no cure and whether you get symptoms, or even survive is just a crapshoot this stuff is actually in your hands. Just listen to Sam's advice:

Stay Safe,

Rob