Here's a link to the story I wrote about our barn tour. It's written for a layman audience.

I hope I got most things right regarding timber framing, though there maye be a few blatant fallacies. I am but human.

http://www.independentpub.com/gray/articles/2008071704.htm

Hi Don,

Despite the "laymen" warnings your article actually contains a significant ammount of sophisticated discussion and terms. For example, almost immediately you use undefined terms like "wall plate" which potentially might not mean much to Joe Public. A drawing or better still a set of comparative drawings with glossary descriptions would have helped your article (or were these published earlier ?).

The publication of timber frame craft articles in local newspapers is a difficult area and a name that springs to mind that might help provide you with some inspiration and example is the "Seeing Eye" series published in the Surrey Advertiser England from the late 60's through till the early 90's by artist and timber frame expert John Baker. John published over 800 articles and thus the scope for others to publish in a simliar fashion is actually quite good. Many people were known to clip and keep John's articles and these now form an unrivalled corpus of knowledge. Anyone who would like to view a typical *.pdf example of John's beautifully illustrated articles can send me an email request.

It is really important to publish findings and I commend your efforts and look forward to reading the follow up article. I shall now re study your article.

Regards

Ken Hume

Nice article Don. Tim

Good. Thanks guys. From your comments it looks like I'm understanding square and scribe enough to be able to explain it on the page. I had my reservations...

Ken,

I wish I had more space for these stories. When I submitted the story, a photo of a wall section w/ a brief caption that showed what I mean by "plate-less" was included. It seems my editor didn't have space for extra pictures or found it visually uninteresting... (they love shots of people!)

I have little control after I submit my pieces. At least the editor kept my chosen title this time around! And at a little over 1300 words, he was gracious not to force me to trim it back-- most of my pieces are 800 or so words.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Please send me along a sample or two of John Baker to my email. I'd love to see what he did/ his style, etc.

My recent story was prefaced a bit by the weekly series I did over the winter. Many in town had followed it, and were aware to some extent about the whole "plate" thing.

thanks--

Hi Don,

I have just sent you and "the team" copies of the articles as requested.

Have a load of the photos that you posted on the site now disappeared ? I was just trying to find the group shot to check the attendee list on your recording day.

Tim,
I do not appear to have your email address.

Regards

Ken Hume

Ken, I just updated my profile with my email. I would also find the John Baker article sampler interesting, thanks.

Don, My Dad was the Machias Bureau Chief and I remember his comments on editors and photos not used, most of his photos had people in them. Tim

Too much has been said since I last checked this forum to address all of the information.

Tim, the second barn showed no signs of being moved onto a new foundation and does not seem likely to me in this case. The cut nails pritty much guarantee the barn is not 18th century.

This thread and barn tour is the kind of thing I was hoping to encourage with the Maine Traditional Building Group, and I am sure there will be more tours and discussions in th future. There will be a barn tour at the Guild conference this November and possibly another in March 2009 at the TTRAG conference which is also in Maine. I am on the committee to do an architectural survey of historic buildings here in Waldoboro, and when I get several interesting buildings lined up will host a tour.

One thing I have finally realized is these cg barns with common purlins essentially have NO PLATES!They are possibly the only building types in the world without plates?


Jim

Hi Tim,

Your email copy of the Baker articles have now been sent to you.

I agree that photos of old buildings with people included seem to be more captivating. Possibly this is because the old clothing and accessories provide a bonafide date stamp.

Regards

Ken Hume

Ken:

The pictures are still there on pg. 11 of this thread

Thanks so much for "The Seeing Eye" samples of John Baker. That's a great name for a column. It reminds me of Jim Derby's "the closer you look, the more you see..."

I will print these out to read when I get back to work on Monday.

thanks much

Funny. It's really true... I only usually write feature stories (not news) and often the editorship doesn't even like stories that aren't about people... The weekly barn thing was a tough sell, which inevitably got the "axe." (little pun for the forum!!) But people really liked the series and wrote in to tell the paper.