Many of the beams will be joined to other beams on top of the log girders with lap joints. These laps are 8" long so some beams had to have an 8"-long section, 3" wide cut out of the end (basically, half of the lap).

The circular saw cuts much straighter and smoother than the blade of a reciprocating saw, but the circular saw couldn't cut the full 3" depth we needed, so a little old-fashioned hand sawing was necessary to finish the cuts.

Here's another pic of the nice fit of a beam in one of Bob's perfectly routed notches and the iron bracket supporting the beam. On the other side of the RPSL, Jeff's getting ready to pilot-drill the holes in another notch before bolting the next bracket in place.

After test-fitting the front beam against the pole, we discovered that the notch needed a little more work.

When test-fitting the rear beam against the notch in the rear RPSL, we noticed that the notch would have to be cut much deeper than the notches in the other three poles. So instead of taking more material out of the pole, we decided to take some out of the beam. First, Bob made some passes across the beam with the circular saw, then John cut some of the material out with the hand saw.

Next, Bob knocked down the remaining material with a hammer...

...then scraped the surface smooth with a chisel.

Nice job, Bob!