Timber Framing With My Son

(Warning: Lots of pictures. Fairly long posting.)

Very recently, I enjoyed a very special ten days with son Will. He had signed up for a class at the North House School (click on the name to learn more) in Grand Marais on timber framing. His goals were to learn timber framing skills and to prepare all the timbers necessary to build a sauna for his lake property in the process. He had asked me to be his assistant, and I was delighted to accept. Here is the project we worked on and finished together. (Sometime next summer, Will will prepare a foundation and then invite a group of us to assist in assembling the timbers and erecting the structure. Subsequently, he will apply exterior and interior walls, doors, windows, etc.)

There were four groups enrolled in the class. Three of them are receiving an initial orientation from instructor Peter here. The fourth team arrived a day later. Other groups built a storage shed with a loft for their grandchildren to enjoy, a porch addition for a timber-framed house built in a prior class, and a room addition for a timber-framed house built in a prior class.

One of the first lessons was on timber selection. There are lots of things to consider when choosing the timbers for such structures. You have to take the locations of knots into account, and there may be defects such as checks (cracks), shakes (separation along growth rings), or other issues to plan around.

Although many tools were familiar to us, there were some surprises. I'd never previously seen these large circular saws, which can cut to a depth of 6" as opposed to the usual 3" or so. Frankly, I found these saws a little intimidating, but Will really mastered using them to cut good square ends.

Here is Will moving one of our first timbers into the shop. That is Lake Superior in the background. We worked beside the lake the entire week! Note the handy cart, which made moving these heavy timbers quite easy. This particular one probably weighed in at 300 pounds or so.

Naturally, we had to get a photo of us near the school sign.

Perhaps the most demanding aspect of the work is measuring. We were expected to get each timber, for which we had detailed drawings, and its associated tenons, mortises, and other cuts positioned to very precise specifications. Peter taught us many techniques and the use of some interesting measuring tools and expected measurements not to vary more than a 1/32". If you do this all correctly, then the finished timbers should all fit together perfectly at the final location.

We used a tool called a chain mortiser to cut mortise slots. You can think of it as being like a tiny chain saw mounted on a special vise, which you plunge down into the timber. After using this tool, we cleaned up each mortise with large framing chisels until exact 1-1/2" widths and proper depths were achieved. (We made lots and lots of sawdust during the class!)

Here is proof that Will mastered that big circular saw. We wore hearing and eye protection at all times.

The first evening, the school threw a "pizza potluck", which involved their providing the pizza dough and everyone in the various classes bringing toppings to share. It was a nice get-to-know-each-other event.

As Will is already a very experienced pizza maker, I asked him to make my crust for me.

I added my own toppings.

Then the school director baked them in a hot brick oven that they had been firing all day. It was something like 600º inside, so the pizzas baked within a few minutes.

The next day we were back to measuring and laying out the individual timbers.

Here is the school as seen from its dock on the lake. The buildings on the right were prior timber framing projects by introductory classes. Will's class was different in that he actually ended up with a completed structure of his own.

This structure was to be auctioned off by the school at a later date. The red building behind it is the shop in which we worked each day.

This photo offers a closeup of the kinds of joinery we did. We learned the terminology for the timbers too: posts are topped by plates with braces used to strengthen and square the structures and girts joining the bents that make up cross sections of the structure. I couldn't help but think about the barn on the farm where I was raised. That barn was made this way.

This pile is a completed set of plates and posts from our first couple of days of work.

Across the courtyard from us, a blacksmithing class was underway.

Mark and Susan were building a porch to add to the cabin they made last year.

Paul and Tracy were building a one room addition for their cabin.

On Wednesday afternoon, Peter had a half day off, so we decided to use that time to haul some of the timbers we had finished up to Will's lake property.

We ended up making four total trips up there over the course of the week because of the weight limits of my pickup. The first two trips involved moving three 16' plates and several posts.

Will has studied timber framing for quite awhile in advance of the class and is interested in using some of the old tools that were traditionally involved in the trade. He bought this antique boring machine and tried it out, making one entire timber strictly with it and hand tools (chisels, slicks, planes, etc.).

The boring machine is a rather ingenious device, which cuts in a strictly perpendicular way.

We used a sliding miter saw to cut the 45º angles on all the braces. Will also eventually cut a nice curve on the side of each one.

I cut some of the tenons on the ends of braces with this band saw.

This stack represents the complete set of timbers that we manufactured during the week and which will make the structure appearing in the drawing at the beginning of this post. This was taken after the last of them had been hauled to his lake property.

We covered them with tarps, where they now await next year's trips back to the lake to prepare the foundation. I really look forward to helping put this together and raise it, especially after having been involved in helping to make all the timbers. What a fun class this was and what a great opportunity to do something together with my son!

East Coast Trip

We recently spent seven days on a trip to eastern locations (five days involved driving!). The primary motivation was to attend a wedding reception for Jessica and Mike at Mike's parents home. We decided to take advantage of the trip to visit friends in New Jersey as well and to see my sister and brother-in-law at their convenient midpoint location in Ohio. Somehow, I failed to take any pictures at the reception or at my sister's home, but I can tell you a bit about our visits in New Jersey and to Harpers Ferry, WV, which is near Mike's parents home.

We visited good friends David and Robert at their second home in Highlands, NJ. Mostly, we just "hung out" and relaxed, but David, Kathie and I did go for a morning stroll. The Highlands bridge is being rebuilt, and I knew that grandson Henry would want to see the crane, so I took some shots of that. If you look closely, you can see David and Kathie in the lower right corner as they study the crane.

The old draw bridge is being replaced by twin higher spans that will allow water vessels to pass below without traffic being stopped.

David and Kathie posed for me near an old anchor.

Then, David and I took a turn.

Finally, one of Kathie and me to make all combinations complete.

Above David and Robert's home are the twin lights of Navasink, about which you can read more here. We have toured these famous twin lights in the past. They are housed in a gorgeous old stone building, and there is a museum with lots of information about Fresnel lenses and other lighthouse lore.

A little further along our walk, we paused to look at the New York City skyline across the water to the north of Highlands.

Here is a view from their living room looking east across their deck and out into the Atlantic Ocean. The deck is a wonderful place to hot tub, enjoy a drink or a meal or the evening breezes, and to see the night sky and passing ships.

One evening, the moon rose above the ocean and was a bright red/orange color. I attempted to capture the sight, but the time exposure was tricky, so the quality of the image is poor. Most of the distant lights are party boats or fishing boats out in the Atlantic.

Robert prepared an outstanding meal of shrimp, scallops, and couscous, which we enjoyed on the deck.

The next two days were spent in Maryland at Mike's parents home. Kathie and I took advantage of a free morning to visit the Harpers Ferry National Park. This small, historic community is in a spectacular geologic and geographic location at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. Mountains and hills in the Appalachian range rise on all sides of the rivers and the town.

A park volunteer offered us a walking tour, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was hot that day--in the low 90s.

Harpers Ferry has, not surprisingly, flooded many times.

Here is the original main street.

I knew of Harpers Ferry's Civil War involvement, but there is much more history associated with the community as well. Lewis and Clark did part of their outfitting there. The many factories and mills that were once there were the site of the original introduction of interchangeable parts for manufactured items, and the town hosted a school/college for freed black persons after the war.

Of course, the most famous and well-known aspect of Harpers Ferry's history was the John Brown raid that preceded the Civil War by about 18 months. This spot marks the location of the building in which the abolitionist and his sons and others tried to hold out against the town and the army. He had come there to attempt to take control of the armory and its cache of weapons in order to build up an army aimed at defeating slavery.

This is the actual building in which that holdout took place. It was moved to a different location for various reasons, but the intent is to finally relocate it to the original historic spot just about a block away. Brown's efforts failed when Colonel Robert E. Lee (then a Union soldier) led a company of marines to Harpers Ferry to overpower and take him prisoner. Brown was later hanged by the Commonwealth of Virginia for treason. Harpers Ferry and all of what is now West Virginia was then still a part of Virginia.