Rustic Boxcar Timbers and Plates

Now for the next part of the project: Making the rafters! It started out with making the metal plates. We cut cardboard templates out and then I would trace them onto some hard-board a half-inch smaller than the original cardboard template. They'd then be cut out using the plasma cutter. After that, they were cleaned up a bit and painted!

Several coats of both paint and primer ensured that these babies would look good in the end.

The finished products! (Yep, all of these would be used on just two rafters!) 

Then came the measuring and cutting of the wooden beams. That took awhile… And also alota math! I stuck around in the house during most of that process, so I don't have many pictures of it.

And then in the end, one of the two rafters. After this picture was taken, they were sprayed with polyurethane several times to seal them and give them a little darker look. 

The next step: Floor and Walls

Ashleigh