Bladed Scarf Joint with Tenons
Part IV: fitting the joint.
Approaching the moment of truth, this is the initial test fit. The timbers are fairly closely aligned and roughly 1.5" of tenon is being laid into the mortice by slowly lowering it with a jack. Getting to this point was the most tedious part of the entire process. I'm a couple of saw horses and one block column short of what I could really use and as you can see in the pictures below some of the terrain has become a challenge to cross over.
After the timber is fully down and I'm convinced the tenons will slide into their mortices, I relocate the jack to the rear of the timber where it's needed to perfect vertical alignment. Once aligned and shimmed at the saw horses, a little mechanical advantage is required to get the timbers to slide. Fat hemp rope is a handy when you want to make a quick and easy non-marring sling and at least one good come-along is a must, this is the little two ton model.
25ft. of Pine + 25ft. of Hickory = ~45ft. of Pickory?
Now that the scarf is pulled tightly together I layout the remaining joinery and locate holes to recieve the J bolts set in the foundation. The clamp at the far left end of the combined timber is holding one of my 100ft. tape measures in place, it's identical twin is layed out on the foundation.
Here is the assembled joint... Not exactly a flawless (nearly invisible) joint but far more than adequate for a sill that's going onto a poured concrete foundation. In reality I could have gotten away with just butting the two timbers. This was good practice, it allows me to evaluate tools and techniques while still moving forward on the frame as a whole.
My next scarf joint will be up in full view when the house is complete, better to work through mistakes here on the sill.
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