Building corbels
October 30th, 2009
While the roof was getting replaced the existing corbels all got destroyed in the process. Lee decided that he wanted fancier corbels then the originals so he made up his own. To get started, he built three for the dormer (one was just for practice). Most of the corbel dimensions were already decided for us. The overhang of the roof was two feet so that was one length. The window placement made it so the part of the corbel that came down the wall was sixteen inches. (The other 13 corbels on the house are 26″ long.) The width of the wood is two and a half inches.
Lee made his cuts. He did an open mortise and tenon joint to connect the right angle. Then the joint was glued and clamped.
He drilled a hole through the open mortise and tenon joint and then chiseled it square for a wooden peg.
The wooden peg through the joint makes the corbel stronger and adds a nicer look. The peg was left out a half an inch through both sides. The diagonal brace was then screwed into place.
The diagonal brace is a half inch smaller then the other elements in the corbel. The corners of the diagonal brace and the bottom of the vertical are chamfered. The horizontal will be fit tightly against the varge rafter as we may later add faux caps so it looks like the supports pierce the face of the eaves. In a way, these corbels are the beginning of our planned architectural update for the house: from rough depression-era craftsman to a more refined arts and crafts styling.
Lee and I had a lot of discussions on how to make the corbels look. I hated anything that looked too ornate. He hated how plain the originals were and liked ones that emphasized the joinery. Finally I told him to knock himself out and just do whatever he preferred. I like them quite a lot and am very happy with how they turned out. I do feel bad for him in that I think they would have looked a bit different if he hadn’t of spent the last three weeks pointing out corbels I hated on other people’s houses.
Of course with Lee being Lee he couldn’t help himself and had to add some more details. These ones are just faux pegs. He drilled a quarter inch deep hole with a forstner bit (this leaves a flat bottom). Then he chiseled the corners out square. The pegs themselves are three quarters inch cubes which were glued into place.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:10 am
Nice work! I just researched corbels – we don’t have them on our home. I’m going to have to start looking at other people’s homes & see if they have corbels! You need to show a pic when you install them!
October 30th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Very nice! I will have to show these to Dan. We will be needing to replace all of ours eventually.
So nice to see your progress. We’ve been slowed down in our renovations due to Dan’s work schedule, but that will change once we get to the holidays.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I really like that last photo; the lighting is beautiful.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Lynn – we should have provided a definition of corbels I suppose. I didn’t know what they were called either until we started looking for them to get ideas. Nearby Eugene has a lot of homes of this period with corbels in the downtown area, but most are pretty simple: square stock and a simple mitered diagonal. I tended to like the ones that used smaller stock for the diagonal. The pegs are just me being a little OCD. They are installed now, but not painted. They’ll all be primer white for the winter, but long term we think we’ll paint them a dark brown contrasting color.
Leigh – Thanks. They were a fair bit of work (and I have 13 larger ones left to do), but each one went faster than the previous. I bought a plunge bit for my router to hopefully speed up cutting the tenon holes using a template. We definitely know how the progress goes. It seems to vary with my work too, and our mood, and the weather …
Rachael – Pure random success! Robin took the photo while I held a shop light at an angle. It’s so easy to use flash, but the results can be better if you don’t. In this case, the flash tended to flatten out the pegs so you couldn’t see them.