This was brand new historic reconstruction. The building was private property, and we had to get permission from the owner to gain admittance for detailed information.
The original barn is still being used and will probably survive for some time. The reason it was chosen was because it dated back to the 1860 period and had unusual early framing characteristics such as tie girts between the tops of the purlin posts, and very heavy handhewn timbers, which in itself meant that the timbers were chosen from the 1st generation forests.
The timbers also were rectangular rather than square which placed properly in the framework allowed good heavy relish at the seating points.
The braces were another story they also were handhewn from hardwood, rectangular rather than square, and the seatings of their feet did not follow the regular framing plan which would have been that they would have been laid out along the framing lines. They (the feet of the braces) rather followed a line about 15 degrees inside the framing lines.
This characteristic created a lot of hard work for the hewing team, and then the framers had to create a method for creating them from the hewn stock, and accurately placing them in their positions with a good tight fit. These braces I might say were tricky to make and install but once in place they were truly a strong bracing mechanism.
I think Timbeal that you need to consider what you are proposing in the later part of your reply above. In my opinion it was much easier and more accurate to place the timber sill level on the large load bearing stones, using the framing lines as a reference medium for this job, and then work from the framing lines upwards to the seatings.
Another aspect to consider is of course the rough hewn surface of the upper part of the timber sill being that they are hand hewn and rough and uneven, here again in my opinion it would be not good workmanship to just place the vertical timbers in their respective mortises giving no thought to what was going to happen further up the line.
I have to say though that the purlin posts's feet where they sat on and were mortised into the large cross girts were not gained into the the top surface. Under close examination it seemed to me that the original hewers were working under very close tolerances, and the need for anyseating at these points were unnecessary. We in turn paid cose attention to this detail and the reconstruction included this feature.
This barn's large doors also had very unusual door hinges being fashioned entirely from wood. Here again we were able to examine and copy the original hinges and install them to a very high accuracy rating.
This barn was a 3 bay English barn but exhibited traces of the German Dutch framing characteristics that seemed to have been included, such as no overhang on the eve, and the wooden doors hinges.
Thanks for the comments and questions Timbeal, and I am open to more questions if anyone wishes to put them forward.
During the TTRAG Conference in Morrisburg a few years back I took the group at that time to visit this barn and we had quite a discussion on the many points
