Don have you seen Sobons yellow covered book which Ken mentions? (page 17) I haven't seen the downloadable version and am wondering what happened to fig. 31-33 in the yellow book. Fig. 34 and 35 show the bracing in three planes like the Sherely Mass barn. Ken I see the dragon tie connection, I am guessing they weren't thinking dragons at the time, just more bracing. I always pictured the cross tie as a support for the dragon and not specifically to brace the building, all though it must help. It seem the builders of the Sherely barns, for there are two of them bolted together, liked to brace a lot. In one of the other barns Jim shows there was bracing even in the roof system. These CG frames with the girts at the plate level are almost the same as a house frame I rebuilt which had long plates which were half lapped with the ties, at a first glance it is difficult to tell which style they built with. That building only had 8 braces in the whole frame, and three were missing. Tim
