This One Rings a Bell (3)

Well hello again my friends. It’s been about a week or so since I last wrote, and that’s a little longer than usual. A few things going on – quite a few hours of part time work in the last 2 weeks, along with a lot of time outside of that preparing to teach.

Then there’s my truck. I was cruising down the interstate about a week or so ago and the transfer case somehow lost a bunch of oil, and, at a steady 70 mph, the gears heated up quickly and by the time i was thinking that the whining sound was not too good and making to pull over, things turned critical, and the transfer case essentially blew up. A bit of excitement to be sure, and fortunately I have AAA coverage and was able to be towed home for free. I pulled the case off the transmission a few days later, and found 4 of the gears inside essentially in, um, melted condition. That means I have had to pony up for another used transfer case ($450) and a gasket set ($79). New gears from Toyota are rather expensive so that option was out. At least I can do the work myself which does save some coin.

Anyway, I imagine you might have come here to read about carpentry. I’ve been busy with that as well, moving along the drawing for the bell tower. I was starting in on the fan rafter layout, and then realized I needed to develop the curved hip rafter and curved perimeter fascia (kaya-oi) first. That’s something I have done before:

So at first it seemed like it would be a straightforward matter, however the universe, as such, seemed to have other plans. Instead of ‘straightforward’, I got wormhole. Part of the hassle involves the drawing software (SketchUp) and some of its peculiarities (such as the fact you can’t draw true circles with it). And due to the fact the I can check the development in 2D with 3D rendering and then find tiny discrepancies, I gave myself more work to do. If made the piece directly in wood, as is from the 2D drawing, the discrepancies would likely come out in the wash. However, being prone to perfectionism in these cases, I would strive to figure out where the little error came from and believe me, hours and hours would pass by as I sorted the problems. Damn those hours! It was all good learning I suppose.

I managed in the end not to tear any hair out and have now completed the curved decorative rafters and kaya-oi. Hooray!

I’d like to share a few pictures, and I’ll spare any involved explanations for the time being as I’m pretty much wiped out.

Here’s an overview of one of the drawings to develop the fanning rafter pattern and the hip rafter section:

Clicking on the above picture will present less strain on the eyes.

A close up of the nose of the hip rafter, showing the kera-kubi nose treatment and the cross section of the kaya-oi in orange:

Placed on the building, now we get an idea of the rough eave projection:

Another shot:

Next I have to develop curvilinear battens, or komai, which sit atop the rafters in the exposed part of the eave. Then I have to develop the curvilinear shapes of the various purlins (moya and keta) which meet the decorative hip rafter. After that, I can turn to the development of the curved fanning rafters. When that lot is sorted out, I can move to the hidden roof structure, which is curvilinear and irregular, with fanning cantilevers. At least the rafters in the hidden roof will be the regular type. Lots of fun ahead.

Thanks as always for your visit today. –> on to post 4