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Step 11Ready, set, Brace!
OK, so now we're going to brace the frame, which will make it stable.
The guy at the home despot told me that these types of braces are called sway braces. Maybe that means more to you than it does to me.
We're going to cut 8 braces. Get out that circ saw again, and dig up that thing you use to draw right angles
You're going to cut the trapezoid shape below out of the 2x3 stems. The angles are 45 degree angles.
There's no good rule (that I know. Keep in mind that I don't know anything about this, though...) for how long your braces should be. As I understand it, a longer brace will give you (I think) better leverage when the joint tries to move, so maybe longer braces make the structure sturdier, but I definitely know that they make it uglier. Eyeball it and figure out a length you like. I picked 17.5" for no real reason. It's a number that probably has absolutely _no_ significance in the zodiac.
I assumed when I told you how much stuff to buy that you'd be able to fit 4 braces onto one stem. If you can't fit that many, buy an extra stem or two.
To attach them to the frame, I lined up a 45 degree edge with the underside of the stalk, and then slid it along the stalk until the other 45 degree edge lined up with the edge of the trunk.
oh, yeah--MAKE SURE YOUR FRAME IS SQUARE BEFORE YOU BRACE IT.
otherwise it will be braced in a non-square position, which sucks.
Anyway, then I put a lag screw through the brace into the stalk, and drilled a hole through the brace and the stem and put a 3/8" bolt through that. The pictures might help you visualize it.
I'm pretty sure I put my lag screws in a dumb way. Tell me what a better way would be!
better yet, tell the people who are reading this by posting a comment. I already built my loft
The guy at the home despot told me that these types of braces are called sway braces. Maybe that means more to you than it does to me.
We're going to cut 8 braces. Get out that circ saw again, and dig up that thing you use to draw right angles
You're going to cut the trapezoid shape below out of the 2x3 stems. The angles are 45 degree angles.
There's no good rule (that I know. Keep in mind that I don't know anything about this, though...) for how long your braces should be. As I understand it, a longer brace will give you (I think) better leverage when the joint tries to move, so maybe longer braces make the structure sturdier, but I definitely know that they make it uglier. Eyeball it and figure out a length you like. I picked 17.5" for no real reason. It's a number that probably has absolutely _no_ significance in the zodiac.
I assumed when I told you how much stuff to buy that you'd be able to fit 4 braces onto one stem. If you can't fit that many, buy an extra stem or two.
To attach them to the frame, I lined up a 45 degree edge with the underside of the stalk, and then slid it along the stalk until the other 45 degree edge lined up with the edge of the trunk.
oh, yeah--MAKE SURE YOUR FRAME IS SQUARE BEFORE YOU BRACE IT.
otherwise it will be braced in a non-square position, which sucks.
Anyway, then I put a lag screw through the brace into the stalk, and drilled a hole through the brace and the stem and put a 3/8" bolt through that. The pictures might help you visualize it.
I'm pretty sure I put my lag screws in a dumb way. Tell me what a better way would be!
better yet, tell the people who are reading this by posting a comment. I already built my loft
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Mar 7, 2010. 8:18 PMhammerthumbs
says:
It looks like you put the bolt on one end through horizontally and on the other end vertically. I think the brace would be stronger if you could put both in horizontally. But to do this you would need to have the surfaces where the brace attaches be in the same vertical plane, which is where the suggestion about recessing the stalks into the trunks someone made on a previous page would come in handy.
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