Steel Brackets For Bridge

Interesting jobs are always coming into the shop.  Summertime is a busy time around here as local ranchers and land owners are geared up to do those outside projects before the snow falls again. 

A project that came in this week entails building brackets for a rough on timber footbridge.  The brackets are custom built for a local homeowner and will be a private bridge over a river.  The owner requested brackets in order to tie all the timber together.  Other options include nailing, lagging or through bolting.  Metal brackets work the best because the joints are then reinforced in the timber.

The brackets are built out of two inch by quarter inch strap with half inch lag bolts.  Tom used his iron worker to shear up the strips for the brackets and then once they were sheared to length, LeRoy punched holes in for the lag bolts.  The picture above shows this process.  Tom’s older iron worker was used to punch the holes because the die needed fit the old one.

After the holes were finished, Tom deburred them, sanded the corners and folded them to specific angles where the timbers will fit together.

Fifty two total brackets were built for the project.