Hi Jim,

Your reply has got me thinking and I might well have seen a tin ceiling a few years ago when visiting a delapidated house in Royalston, Mass. The parlour ceiling had a "pressed" pattern texture which looked a bit like moulded plaster and I am sure that someone mentioned that this was made out of tin sheet which I dismissed at the time because it was painted and looked like plaster to me. Maybe I have seen a tin ceiling after all !

Roger,

Yes I have heard the term chord used in bridge building - especially much used by Ed Levin and of course the trusses here are based on the use of geometric arcs and chords.

I don't think that it would be proper for me to say that one person's version of a term definition is more correct than another's. This is usually determined locally and by common use and hence acceptance of the validity of the definition.

I think that The Oxford Dictionary bases (includes and revises) the meaning of words based on the earliest recorded use of those words in published form e.g. newspaper, book, etc. and so your reference to Newlands would be a very early standard against which we could measure our use and hence acceptance of the meaning of the use of the word "primary" in respect of timber frame components.

Regards

Ken Hume

Ken, you wrote, "Yes I have heard the term chord used in bridge building - especially much used by Ed Levin and of course the trusses here are based on the use of geometric arcs and chords." I agree but I think about chords differently. In one sense chord and cord is the same word and truss can mean tie up, as with string or line. Also the carpenters of the past could both build and butcher, so I also think that chord could mean sinew and muscle.

Enjoy the snow. Roger

I would think the added metal could be over-kill for a 28' span. It sure wouldn't hurt though.

As for the tin ceiling, perhaps the church thought they had to keep up with the Jones'.

Did we loose the original poster?

Tim