Week 1 build - Rafter Form and first Rafter

I bought Dee William's Vardo plans because she explains how to build curved rafters. I wrote her and Katy and both responded.  Thanks, ladies!  I built my form from 3/4" ply and 2x4's.  I bought a shit load of wood clamps.  Jack shot a informative video that will give you a bit more information that I won't repeat here.

The date was Saturday, June 11th -- the date we'll use to determine the length of build time.  I built the frame before Sunday since the form needed time to cure and had to build it twice due to user error.  Regardless, on Sunday we cut and assembled the first rafter.  In the process I burnt out the motor of a new Kobalt table saw, thus encouraging me to get the heavy duty Ridgid saw  Their heavy duty table say, albeit it expensive, is really great to use.

On Monday, more than 24 hours after we bent the wood in the mold, I took the rafter out of the mold and had wet glue on the bottom side that was touching he plastic tape covering the mold.  I left it to dry.  I am buying a couple more clamps for the areas that appear to have gaps.

Additionally, Mac has a planer he is loaning me. It works great at taking down he rough sides. He as a Dewalt table planer.  So this coming weekend, they will bring the planer so I can get one rafter done -- start to finish--before I invest hours and hours. I can correct any problems.   The Douglas Fir to build one rafter is roughly $30, hence the cause for caution.  I ordered the wood from a wood craftsman lumber company in Temple Terrace and the wood came from Logan Lumber in Tampa.

For anyone who doesn't want to own a $500 planer, there are cabinet shops that may plane your rafters for a lesser price.  The company I contacted has not given me a quote.

A box of sawdust was generated for just one rafter.  I think a band saw would be better than a table saw, but I don't have one of them either. Since the blade is thinner you could produce less waste in the form of sawdust and get at least one more slide of usable wood to laminate.

I might add that Dee's bardo spec's 10' Douglas Fir for her 8' wide Vardo.  I'm using 8' Fir since my outside wheel well dimensions are 7'.  I don't need a lot of overhang, but a couple inches (similar to TheSunflower) makes a big difference in appearance. We're back to the function versus aesthetics trade off.