Ponderosa Pine for sub floor

[SilverBox]

Well I slabbed one off at 5/4s and then I set up a 24" span and jumped up and down on 4/4 at 24" and 5/4s at 24". I can just barely feel a tiny bit of flex in the 4/4 (maybe 1/8th) and none in the 5/4 (but the ends of the board do jump around about half of what the 4/4 does, so there probably is 1/16th or so of flex, I just don't notice it when I'm jumping up and down). But I still can't deceide, I really think the 4/4 will be fine, but it can't really hurt to use 5/4, I'll probably only take an extra hour or two milling to make em 5/4 instead of 4/4..

 

[SilverBox]

It sounds like you are going old school with your layout... Do you know why carpenters ran subfloor @ 45° to the joists? It was to avoid a running-seam, just as you do today with modern building materials. Some would say it was also stronger for lateral loads. You might even consider bridging... It will really tie everything together and spread/transfer loads.

I've seen turn of the century homes here, with two layers of 4/4 subfloor ran in a lattice pattern, then finished with pine 4/4 T&G. The joists were rough cut pine or fir, usually 2"X12" (actual not nominal)... I've seen some old buildings with joists 3"X12"... You wanna talk about strong! Grandpa didn't mess around!

Those carpenters didn't have load calcs, or engineers, or specs (They did have a crapload of common sense). It would've gone something like this... "Hey Jeb, ya think we could park the wagon on this thing loaded with hay?" "Yup, probably three of'em."

I heard an old saying at some point in my carpentry career... "If it looks strong, it is strong." Good saying.

If I used 3x12 joists I could probably eliminate the 6x12 center beam/girder. But the beam is already made, the joists and subfloor are not. I have made the headers for the 9' doors as well, I figure I need to make the pp flooring first before the df joists as pp has alot of sap in it, so I'd rather have the pp done first to get as much of the sap out as I can.

 

[SilverBox]

Well after canting up all the logs I had picked out some of them had some rather large knots in them, which pretty much convinced me that I should go with 5/4's so thats what I did. I have a few more to slab off but this should be enuf for the floor.

The bottom 9 boards are 22' long and 14" wide. 1 tank of gas per cut.. bleh.

 

[mtngun]

Good looking boards. Nothing like building with boards you milled yourself.

 

[MR4WD]

The bottom 9 boards are 22' long and 14" wide. 1 tank of gas per cut.. bleh.

What did you use for mill rails?

I'm after making up a garage or carport and need 16-17' long rails. Longest I have now is 12'...

Thanks,
Chad.

 

[SilverBox]

three 2x8s (one 12', two 8'). I have a bunch of 7/16s head bolts that are 2.5-4.5" long that I put in with a cordless screw gun. I used a lil bit of blocking and stood the bolts off a bit and kept adjusting till I had it right (eyeballed down the 3 boards to make sure they were even with each other) then I took a slab off the top with the alaskan and after that I snapped a line on each side and took off each side with the mini mill, moving the 12' guide board one time along the snapped line. Then I took off the 9 boards. It was a pita, I actually rewelded the grip handles on my mill because of this log and changed my chain sharpening practices (I found that I needed to take 5 strokes or so every 2 tanks of gas to keep cutting at max speed, before this I never timed my cuts all that close, they didn't take long). This is the longest log I've tried so far.

I have a big doug fir that I have to mill in place that I took down a few weeks ago and I cut the first two logs on it at 25' (first log is 35" diameter at the base and 28" or so at the small end). I don't think my hoe will move them from where they are unless I slab them off 6" thick, so that will be a big test of my current method for bigger longer logs. Just squaring that bad boy up will probably take a few hours.

 

[BIG JAKE]

Well after canting up all the logs I had picked out some of them had some rather large knots in them, which pretty much convinced me that I should go with 5/4's so thats what I did. I have a few more to slab off but this should be enuf for the floor.

The bottom 9 boards are 22' long and 14" wide. 1 tank of gas per cut.. bleh.

Nice stack there SB! On the knots I had a lumber package last year delivered with a number of bad 2X8X10's. They were stamped #2. I had to cull some(more than a few) out(poor grading) as you could stand on some of them and they would snap in the middle from the knots. I won't buy any more lumber from that outfit as I've had some weirdness from them before-ain't worth the hassle. In this case it cost me as time is money.
You can cut the boards in shorter lengths to exclude those in your floor or leave them in. knots often fall out with time as the board dries/traffic leaving holes in your floor. Gorilla glue will cure that.

 

[SilverBox]

Nice stack there SB! On the knots I had a lumber package last year delivered with a number of bad 2X8X10's. They were stamped #2. I had to cull some(more than a few) out(poor grading) as you could stand on some of them and they would snap in the middle from the knots. I won't buy any more lumber from that outfit as I've had some weirdness from them before-ain't worth the hassle. In this case it cost me as time is money.
You can cut the boards in shorter lengths to exclude those in your floor or leave them in. knots often fall out with time as the board dries/traffic leaving holes in your floor. Gorilla glue will cure that.

Yup my plan was to keep a few extra boards around and if I had any problems with knots shrinking and coming out I'd just replace that section between two joists as the problems (if any) occured. If its obvious a knotty area is going to be a problem, I probably will eliminate it, but so far even the bigger 4-5" knots look pretty good because its so thick.