Crowning studs and party walls

Tidbit Break
Crowning a stud. To crown a stud, you sight along the length of it, and if it curves along the length of the board, you want it to “frown” when using it in a frame, so that the act of nailing it into the frame will attempt to straighten the board. A crown itself is the upward bow, curve or rise along the length of a board.

Today we put up a party wall on the third floor, and I discovered that there’s always room for improvement in my math skills! I was building again with Lorraine today (I love her energy and bubbly personality!) and just like last week with the bay window project, Lorraine and I were both taking the initiative to try to figure out what the procedure to the project was, so today we both knew we were building a party wall; we were in the middle of the project, and after lunch we still both went up and tried to measure out the length for the party wall and act as though we were going to build it on our own.

We talked through how many pieces of wood we would need based on a frame built with studs 12” on centre. To do both sides of the party wall, we concluded we would need 26 studs; 13 on each frame. However, when Roger came back up and we were discussing things with him, I said we would need 26 studs for the one side. Lorraine agreed with me. That didn’t sound right to Roger, and so he was measuring things, and we were remeasuring things, and he came up with the number 13! Well of course it’s 13, Roger, I was just trying to see if you were paying attention! We wouldn’t want you to miscount anything now, would we!? (oops!)

I learned a lot that day though. It was probably my most productive framing day ever. It started off with finishing putting the OSB on another bay window, and putting that window into place. I wanted to help lift the window, but Bruce made me Level Girl, so I had to run around with the level and tell people where to put the window and when we could put in the brace.

Then I moved on to putting up a party wall. That project involved building four frames, each about 156” long, spaced at least ¾” apart to accommodate for the drywall that will go in between the walls. We had to crown the studs first. Building the frame itself is fairly simple, so it was a very rewarding project, because you can put most of your effort into the strategy of the project, and the actual process is fairly repetitive, and in that way, almost calming.

I also made use of this opportunity to really cut down on the time it took me to drive a nail. Speaking of hammers … there was this one kid there today who had the most awesome hammer I have ever seen; the only thing you need to have is impeccable aim, and it does the rest of the work – it’s even a “self setting” hammer! I need one of those for framing! It has a nail-shaped indent along the top, and a magnet to hold the nail in place while you set it with one strike, then you can drive it in with about three more strikes. Bloody awesome!

Lunch that day was also nice – it was just warm enough to not need coats at lunch time, and C+ was taking a nap, while Lorraine, Corey and I talked, with C+ joining in occasionally. We talked about everything from carpenter’s unions, to working in Vancouver to stickers on your hard hat / helmet and whether or not they were allowed. It was just a very relaxing lunch; one of those times when I felt just comfortable to be there, and like that was where I belonged.