The mystery seemingly deepens...
Don - As I've suggested above, I've never been in a Scribed Connecting Girt barn, and I've restored or repaired more than a few, and have been in countless more. (every opportunity to explore any historic frame that comes up - Often work diven "Would you look at my barn ? kinda things - but also any Antique Store, Farm Stand, Barn Sale, or neighbor in his barnyard opportunity that arises) And here you find a pocket of them, both the CG Barns in your photographs are Scribed.
It might be that the cross section I have visited is not large enough to accurately reflect developed patterns, or it might be that there were some hard headed locals who were happy to build to their clientels desire, in the new framing style, but chose to continue to lay out their framing in the method they preferred and were comfortable in - One of the most mysterious aspects of the rapid shift to Square Rule is why it overcame the (human) natural tendency of people to resist change and stick with what they know best - Paradoxically, it is in some ways easier to scribe a CG barn than its plated counterpart, it is simply earier to move small pieces around than it is to move long continuous or scarfed plates. In the end the choice of Square over Scribe is only the trading of one set of tasks for a different set of tasks - The carpenters who witnessed and participated in the shift would have known both sets - Both have their advantages, and to my mind, SR is not a clearly superior choice - Which leaves only personal preference or fashion or following the trend of the competition - Making it only that much more mysterious.
Have you researched or verified the dates of construction of these barns ? I'd like to see them if you're willing and it can be arranged, I'm guessing I'm only about an hour or so from you, Lebanon being the closest border town.
Jim - Butt Purlin is an English term, and one Sussex Oak suggests has been superseded. Dap is a term common to bridgewrighting, where such joinery is common, bypassing webs often being let into one another (double dapped) or chord lams being let into posts. It does seem to be coming into more common usage in the trade, I was recently brought to a smile, while in a joinery planning session in recently co-instructing this years FTX, one of the other instructors used the term.
Besides, Dap, despite, or perhaps because of, its seeming simplicity, extends a certain elegance and eloquence, simply not found in notch.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dapAnd I would have attended your historic framing get together, had I not been out of the area.
I too, would be interested to know the details of the earliest known CG frame, and as a fellow philologer / student of the ever evolving derivation of words and terms, and especially those common to our trade, I'd be interested in knowing the contemperaneous term for this framing methodology - Did ironwork borrow the term from timberframing or did the timber framing revival borrow it from ironwork ?
