Let’s start with a simple wall, without door or window openings. We can get to the more difficult panels later.
The standard height of a panel is 2,453 meters. This is a standard ceiling height for most homes. Also easily conforms to drywall and plywood/OSB.
A wall is made up of beams with dimensions of 38mm deep and 140mm wide and they come in a variety of lengths, starting at 2.1 and then rising in 300mm increments up to 5.4m long. For the sake of this example, we will use 4.8m lengths of CLS C16 grade lumber.
The wall we want to make is on the pediment of the house, so there are no windows or doors. The gable wall is actually 9.5m, but we need to break it down into a more manageable size. We took the 9.5m wall and divided it by two to end up with two 4.75m long walls. This is much easier to treat.
Divide 4.75 by 0.4 (the centers of the vertical posts) to get 11.87. Round the number to 11 and then add 2 to increase the number of studs to 13. You now know how many vertical studs are in the panel.
You may recall that the standard height for a wall panel is 2453. It is formed by the vertical studs plus a double sole plate and a double head plate.
All it means is that on the ground lay two 4.75m long pieces of wood to which you attach the bottom of the studs and then lay two 4.75m long pieces of wood on top of the wall panel. You can use two 90mm paslode nails fired with a nail gun or two 100mm galvanized wire nails fired with a hammer.
Now you need to figure out what size to cut them.
So if we have two numbers of studs of dimensions 38 x 140mm at the top and bottom of the wall, all we have to do is subtract 152mm from the total height of the wall to get our vertical stud size. , which is 2301 m.
Cut 13 asparagus spears to 2.301 µm lengths making sure your cuts are plumb. It is very important to get the correct plumb length and cut to ensure a good fit.
Clear a space on the ground and place two pieces of wood along the ground. These will be used to make your panel lit. Keeping the ends of the panel off the ground makes it easier to attach the top and bottom plates to the vertical studs.
You can now begin nailing the panel keeping the edge of the vertical studs flush with the top of the base plate and header plate. Fasten the top and bottom of each stud with two numbered nails, either 90mm paslode nails fired with a nail gun or 100mm galvanized wire nails if you are using a hammer. Make sure the studs are not crooked in the frame and are plumb from the top of the wall to the bottom.
Work your way along the panel setting the studs on 400mm centres. This just means leaving a distance of 400mm from the center of one stud to the next.
You can also use the edge of the beam and just go from one edge to the other. Continue until all vertical studs have been nailed to the top and bottom plates.
Now you can add sheets of plywood or OSB to reinforce the frame. It is better to do it at this stage before lifting the panel, since the work will be faster when fixing the sheets to the frame when it is on the ground.
Attach plywood or OSB to each vertical stud on 150mm centers and around the perimeter of each sheet on 75mm centers. (An engineer will help you in this area by performing mathematical calculations to give you an accurate figure that you can follow.)
Just keep in mind that the panel can be very heavy, so make sure you have an extra set of hands or mechanical lifting equipment to help you out.
But if you are short of helping hands, you can leave this until the panel is fully fixed and braced.
Here you have made your first wood-framed wall panel. Congratulations.
