Today, we made a long flat template that will hold 12 lengths of 63mm wide CLS planks and guide our router machine to make a series of 40mm wide slots, spaced out regularly at 612mm intervals. This is used like the temple from earlier to get a consistent spacing on the legs.
Slot-cutting-jig-for-multiple-pieces
It measured 4.8metres long (16 feet) and 1 metre wide, with 8 pairs of short rails (made from 19mm by 25mm battens) screwed down the length for guiding the router to go up one side and back down the other side.
We got 12 CLS timber planks off the pallet and laid them all in a tight group on the ground, and laid the template over the top of them. we then carefully sliced away wood to leave a groove in the flat surface of the CLS timber, ready for the inner leg to lock into when we start building the exterior walls.
Slots-cut-in-multiple-pieces
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will glue and nail these pieces we made today, putting them on the layer of wood we already have installed. We will use a short version of the wall leg (one 89mm CLS chunk for the front leg and one longer piece of 63mm CLS for the inner leg) to help align the upper outer slots we got in the 89mm wide Footplate, to position the new timber with the slots for the inner legs so they are both lined up.