Let’s start with a simple wall, with no 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 adapts to plasterboard and plywood / OSB.
A wooden enclosed wall with dimensions of 38mm deep and 140mm wide and comes in a variety of lengths, ranging from 2.1 and then rising in 300mm increments up to 5.4m in length. For the sake of this example, we will use lengths of CLS C16 grade lumber of 4.8m.
The wall we want to make is on the gable end of the house, therefore, there are no windows or doors. The gable wall is actually 9.5m, but we have to break it down into a more manageable size. We take the 9.5 m wall and divide it by two to end up with two 4.75 m long walls. This is much easier to handle.
Divide 4.75 by 0.4 (the centers of the vertical studs) to get 11.87. Round the number to 11 and then add 2 to increase the number of studs to 13. Now you know how many vertical studs are in the panel.
You may recall that the standard height of a wall panel is 2.453. This is made up of the vertical studs plus a double-deck plate and a double-head plate.
The only thing it means is that on the ground you put two 4.75 m long wooden sections to which you attach the bottom part of the studs and then you place two 4.75 m long wooden sections on top of the wall panel. You can use two 90mm paslode nails fired with a nail gun or two 100mm galvanized wire nails with a hammer.
Now you need to figure out what size to cut them.
So if we have two 38 x 140mm beams at the top and bottom of the wall, all we have to do is subtract 152mm from the total wall height to get our riser size, which is 2.301 m.
Cut 13 studs to 2.301m lengths making sure your cuts are plumb. It is very important to get the length and plumb cut correctly to ensure a good fit.
Clear a space on the floor and lay two pieces of wood lengthwise on the floor. These will be used to make your panel. Keeping the ends of the panel off the ground makes it easier to attach the top and bottom plates to the uprights.
Now you can begin nailing the panel keeping the edge of the vertical studs flush with the top of the base plate and header plate. Attach the top and bottom of each stud with two number nails, either 90mm paslode nails fired with a nail gun or 100mm galvanized wire nails if you are using a hammer. Make sure studs are not crooked in frame and plumb from top of wall to bottom.
Work along the panel fixing the studs on 400mm centers. This just means leaving a distance of 400mm from the center of one stud to the next.
You can also use the stile edge and just go from one edge to the other. Continue until you have nailed all the uprights to the top and bottom plates.
Now you can add sheets of plywood or OSB to fit the frame. It is best to do this at this stage before lifting the panel, as the job will go faster by fixing the sheets to the frame when it is on the ground.
Attach the plywood or OSB to each upright 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 a few extra pairs of hands or mechanical lifting equipment to help you out.
But if you don’t have help, you can leave this until the panel is completely fixed and reinforced.
Done, you’ve made your first wood-framed wall panel. Congratulations.