Combined Timber Crafts

 The following material was used with permission from Wikipedia.com under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. For further informatio, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_framing

Timber framing is the method of creating framed structures of heavy timber jointed together with pegged mortise and tenon joints (lengthening scarf joints and lap joints are also used). Diagonal bracing is used to prevent racking of the structure.

Historically the timbers would have been hewn square using a felling axe and finish surfaced with a broad axe. If required, smaller timbers were ripsawn from the hewn baulks using pitsaws or frame saws. Today it is more common for timbers to be bandsawn and the timbers may sometimes be machine planed on all four sides.

To deal with the variable sizes and shapes of hewn and sawn timbers the two main historical layout methods used were: scribe carpentry and square rule carpentry. Scribing was used throughout Europe, especially from the 12th to the 19th centuries, and was brought to North America where it was common into the early 19th century. In a scribe frame every timber will only fit in one place so that every timber has to be numbered. Square rule carpentry developed in New England in the 18th century and features housed joints in main timbers to allow for interchangeable braces and girts. Today regularized timber can mean that timber framing is treated as joinery especially when cut by large CNC machines.

To finish the walls, the spaces between the timbers were often infilled with wattle-and-daub, brick or rubble, with plastered faces on the exterior and interior which were often “ceiled” with wainscoting for insulation and warmth. This method of infilling the spaces created the half-timbered style, with the timbers of the frame being visible both inside and outside the building.