Pre-assembly of Bents a bad idea?
Hi folks - Im building my first timber frame and things are progressing along and Im close to finishing the joinery for the first bent. My initial plan had been to cut all of the pieces and then on assembly day put them all together as I think is common. What Im wondering though is if its a bad idea to assemble the bents as I build them. And by assemble I mean peg them into a complete bent.
Im still working out my work flow - I think ideally it would be easier to cut all the posts at once, all the tie beams at once, etc but since this is my first build I wanted to do a complete bent first to make sure my joinery was working and that my measurements were OK. The problem Im running into is storage space - I have limited room to store the cut beams and since Im doing a test fitting anyway as I cut the joinery for a bent - could I not just pin all the sections and let that bent sit as a completed unit? Then do the next two in the same fashion? Then all I would need to do on raising day is attach the door posts and the girts. My point is that I dont have room to store the cut beams inside so is there any reason not to just complete the bent and store it assembled outside?
I know that this is likely uncommon due to the space required to store an assembled bent - but in my case I can assemble it then just pick it up with the tractor forks and stack it over by where the raising will happen later on.
So is this a bad idea? My guess is that I might run into some issue with fitting the bent into the post brackets on the bottom. Maybe this is something that's easier to attach at the base and then pull the joinery together at the top?