starting out

pdeery

i'm just getting into doing a bit of woodwork purely as a hobby but i dont have much experience and was wondering if anyone knows of any good begginners websites to give me some tips.

also where is the best place to get good timber. most of the builders merchants only have red and white deal.

i'm in the middle of building a house and have 4 rsj's in my living room ceiling which is 5.5m high and i want to box them in oak to look like solid oak beams and i want to do this myself. any tips?

thanks
P

O-Ninio

Before cladding the beams it would be wise to fireproof them as the strength of steel is greatly reduced with heat, this may be done in a number of ways, first you could coat them with intumiscent paint, which is a form of fireproofing which expands when heated, secondly or preferably in addition to the first method you could slab the beams with pink plasterboards (the fire ones). In order to attatch anythinh to the beams first take a measurement between the flanges, cut a load of of 3 x 2 stock so it is tight you will need to bang these in with a hammer they need to be tight enough to hold once in yet not so tight that they get damaged when fitting, put these at approx 16 inch centres. Next run 2 x 1 horizontally i.e in the direction of the beam, you now have your grounds for fixing, next box in the beam in the material of your choice, I would recommend fireproofing it first with the paint and fireboards and then above this you could use 1/4 inch oak veneered ply you may have to mitre it at the external edge so the ply is not visible or you could put in a solid edge of oak.