Popular Mechanics USA - 03.2020 - 04.2020

A

200-YEAR

SHED

I

n 1989, my father-in-law taught me to

smoke meats and cheeses. I was a timber

frame builder—I have my own company,

called OakBridge Timber Framing—and I

wanted a home project to help me unwind

in the evenings and on weekends. I com-

bined my passion for building with the skills

my father-in-law had given me and I built

my family an old-fashioned timber-frame

smokehouse.

My design is strong but simple. A timber-

frame structure isn’t just slapped up. Compared

to a stick-built home, it uses more substantial

cuts of wood and is fitted together with unique

joinery like mortises, tenons, and wooden pegs

as opposed to studs. The latter might not be

able to withstand heavy winds or storms, but

I’ve seen timber frames survive tornado hits.

They just won’t fall. My smokehouse shed will

be around for my family and the younger genera-

tion after them. Plus, the timber-frame method

isn’t only for smokehouses—it can be the heart

of almost any structure.

My smokehouse isn’t just functional: It takes

me back in time. I go in to check my bacons and

it’s a step back 100 years. Sometimes when I’m

out there banking the smokehouse for the night,

I wonder why I’m working so hard on something

so old-fashioned, but it’s worth all the time and

effort once you have everyone enjoying the

things you’ve made. —Johnny Miller, as told to

Matt Allyn and Tyler Daswick

For a full list of steps and materials, visit

popularmechanics.com/timberframe.

CONSTRUCTION STEPS

Decide what t y pe of wood to use. A light weight

wood like poplar or pine will make it easy to lift

the timber into place, but if your timber will

be exposed to the elements in the absence of

siding or roofing, opt for white oak, Douglas

fir, or cedar.

Cut your beams, rafters, roof boards, and

siding boards to size, then cut the joints. Start

with the mortises and tenons. A standard mor-

tise is 4 inches deep and 1.5 inches wide to

accommodate a 3.75-inch tenon. A mortise

should be a quarter-inch deeper than the tenon.

The bird’s-mouth joints on the rafters should be

1.5 inches vertical by 6 inches horizontal. You

can use a circular saw for most of these cuts and

a 1.5-inch drill bit for the mortises, but a corner

chisel makes a nice tenon, too.

A timber frame’s sill supports the walls and

secures them to the foundation. To ensure sta-

bility, drill two anchor bolts up through the

foundation into each beam of the sill (one at

each end of each beam, for eight bolts total).

The bolts should reach all the way through the

sill so you can secure the nut, but if you’d like to

hide the hardware, drill a 2-inch-deep hole in

the sill to meet the anchor bolt before it peeks

above the wood, attach the nut, then plug the

hole with a wooden peg.

Assemble the frame for the front (the taller)

and back (shorter) walls with your materials

laid on the ground, rather than standing on

the sill. Fit the horizontal tie beams between

Mortise-

and-

tenon

joints

Sill

Corner

posts

Brace

beams

Tie

beams

Rafters

42 March/April 2020 ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE RETSECK