Timber Framers Guild Forums General General Forum Questions Opinions or advice on using Red Spruce timbers

I'm in the early stages of planning a 16 x 24 foot
garage. The only species locally available and
affordable is red spruce (picea rubens). This will be my first timber frame.
I will be using white pine for the braces, but the other tinbers will be red spruce. I know spruce has the strength, but it is prone to twist and
checking, and is more difficult to work with hand tools than other species. Any wisdom or advice on working wth this species would be very helpfull and much appreciated. Thanks

Find your answers in ch's 3,4,7,12 of the free download wood handbook on the TFG homepage.
good luck

I would order extra, give the timbers a bit of time to twist(3-4 wks) and reject the worst ones. If you're using a twisted timber, snapline joinery can be a big help(you can level the joinery). Good luck, spruce is strong and light.

Thanks for the input. The timbers will be sawn
this week. I'll stack and sticker them. It will likely be late May before any cutting begins. I hope by then the timbers will have seasoned enough to have a crown, and begin showing signs of how they will behave as far as winding or twisting goes.
In the meantime I will have to scare up the necessary tools beyond what I already have. I'm not sure which way to go for boring the mortises, electric drill or hand operated boring machine such as Millers falls. Any advice??

There are boring machines listed for sale in the tools section.
Jim Rogers

I would pick up both a geared down electric drill with lots of umph and a hand operated boring machine.... If you don't mind power tools you will appreciate having a strong drill to rough out the wood, and everybody seems to like the boring machine, they are fun machines to work on.