Thanks for everyone's comments.
To answer the question about braces, the braces were sawed 3X4's and 2X4's without pegs. Even among those sizes, they varied. Shouldn't the braces have pegs?
I am confused about the statement:
"but in house should face northward i.e. oppposite to frame 5 or in a barn probably indicates that an upper floor (hay loft) is / was present."
What do you mean by "in house" and why would this indicate that an upper floor was present? By upper floor do you mean joists across the main cross tie beams of bents 4 and 5? This was not there.
I am a bit confused about how this barn was used. I noticed that the bays on both gable ends had a sort of half wall (about 3 or 4 feet high) that was build into bents 2 and 4. Why was this there. Was it to hold hay in that area. How high would the hay be stacked typically and given that, what use would this low wall have?
What was done on the threshing floor? I assume removing seeds from a harvested crop? How was this process done. Was this floor expected to be able to support a wagon full of hay (loose or square baled) while it was unloaded. That is, you back a wagon up the ramp and onto the threshing floor as it was referred to. I assumed hay would be stored in the whole barn but did notice that the floor joists in the gable bays ran north to south (length wise) and were spaced at 3 feet centers but the joists in the middle two bays ran east west spaced at 4ft centers and supported at their midpoint with another beam under them running north south. This floor did not look like it could handle as much weight as the gable bays.
What joist sizes where common. They were 11" or 12" in diameter(logs) on the big end and ran the whole 36 foot length of the width of the barn floor. The ones running the other direction (north to south) in the gable bays were a bit smaller but spanned only 15ft(3ft centers) instead of 18ft(4ft centers) How high was the hay stacked typically?
The reason I have all these questions is because I did some detailed drawings of the whole barn because I am going to copy the design and build it on my place including the 2ft thick field stone foundation. Did these stone walls usually sit on grade or did they put them down to the frost line. I see some failures starting on the wall and a section of it has been replaced with concrete bricks (does not look right) so I assume it is has suffered from frost heave damage over the years. The mortar was like packed sand. Not very good compared to mortar you can get today.
Thanks again,
Steve.
