Hi guys:
very interesting, and I have a story to tell--
A few years ago I had the pleasure of reconstructing an English three bay barn 1840 vintage.
hewing started by hand, with rough surfaces, taking 4 or 5 months to accomplish this, in the meantime the hewn timber finished are warping and shrinking. The cutting of the tenants, and mortises, along with the braces start to take place.
The measurements were deadly accurate for each timber, but there again old man shrinkage comes along. Then the Twister shows up just to complicate things, and to cap this off we had to hold over things for the winter months so Jack frost had his way. Old man Sun and Wayward Rain also came and went.
I did not sweat knowing that those before me had experienced these visitors, and many good building went up and are still up, so I forged ahead with my gang, and what do you know it all seemed to fit with alittle adjusting here and there--as one restoration achitect told me--Richard throw away the level and use your eye that is all that is needed.
there is nothing that looks nicer than a naked frame just raised without its cladding in the early morning raising sun.
not planed on its exterior surfaces, or plumbed into a perfect vertical line, but rather like it is just setting there ready to take on its clothing, to cover up the minute 1\4" gaps, or the 1\2" humps and bumps from the bite of the axe or adze, and after the end of it all, to get the fiddler in and have a hoe down on the threshing floor, I am sure no one noticed that the posts were not really plumb or the braces all tight, but tight enough to stand Mr. wind and Mr Storm for the next hundred years, creaking and groaning from time to time.
Adios
NH
