Hand-in-Hand framing
#17934
02/01/09 06:51 PM
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mo
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Howdy, Colonial Era. 1720's. No engineers, self described architects, or general contractors. Just Master Builders. Woolley and Tomlinson were there names (house-carpenters!) 40' x 40' rooms Spanning 40' with a floor system is kinda tricky. 40' timbers might be hard to find and if you did, serious deflection anyhow. So they came up with putting queen post arrangements in the partition walls above the hand-in-hand (or grillage). Does this seem ingenous? Anybody know where they could have found precedence for this? Any other thoughts on hand-in-hand framing. These are kinda of cool to examine. Credit where it is due. Peterson, Charles E. and Nelson, Lee H. Building Early America
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: mo]
#17940
02/02/09 09:05 AM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 959
Ken Hume
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Hi Mo,
Great find ! I can see elements of Serlio floor joist arrangements on the left and right hand side of the floor plan. This is reciprocal framing and if you check out my Christmas book list you will find a reference for a well illustrated new book concentrating on this timber framing technique.
Both the flooring and wall arrangments are typical Georgian town building techniques and this is still present today in significant quantities in major cities like London, Edinburgh & Boston however most of this timberwork is usually completely concealed by plasterwork and floor boards or in the case of high quality work the wall framework is covered by expensive stretched fabric (silk) finishes.
I am interested by your opening statement and would ask how you are able to make this statement with any degree of confidence ? Is there documentary evidence that substantiates this claim ? There are a number of good Georgian timber framed building pattern books (Newlands) and thus I would rather suspect that the design of this type of building is not actually first principals conceptual design work but more stylistic copying.
Can you also please explain your "hand in hand" framing term ?
Regards
Ken Hume
Last edited by Ken Hume; 02/02/09 09:10 AM.
Looking back to see the way ahead !
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: Ken Hume]
#17941
02/02/09 12:01 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 959
Ken Hume
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Hi Mo,
I have checked through my books and can now advise you better on this topic and have taken the liberty of extracting and quoting a small passage from The Repair of Historic Timber Structures by Dr. David Yeomans (ISBN 0-7277-3213-7) where he says:-
"re The New Carpentry
These developments are also dealt with in contemporary carpenters manuals, of which the most important are by Price, Nicholson, Tredgold and Newlands. Francis Price (1733) produced the first, well-illustrated book on carpentry. It was comprehnsive and above all the most accurate of the books appearing in the first half of the 18th century. Peter Nicholson, who first published in 1792, and Thomas Tredgold(1820) described the situation round the turn of the 19th century. A large number of titles were published in the name of Peter Nicholson, continuing till the mid 19th century, while Tredgold's work was revised and updated throughout the century. James Newlands also provides a good account of carpentry at that time."
It would therefore appear that Wooley and Thomlinson were already working in "The New Carpentry" style at least 13 years before the publicatation of Francis Price's book. Can you please reconfirm your date for this work and also provide a full reference re the Peterson, Charles E. and Nelson, Lee H. publication and hopefully also a weblink.
Your discovery is more than just a little exciting being very relevant to our understanding of the devlopment of The New Carpentry style and thus this topic really should have been posted on the TTRAG forum where we could solicit further expert advice.
David Yeomans was our structural lecturer on the Masters course at The Weald & Downland and so if you require I can raise this matter directly with him on your behalf.
Regards
Ken Hume
Looking back to see the way ahead !
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: Ken Hume]
#17942
02/02/09 12:44 PM
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 137
Paul Freeman
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I am very interested in the pins (rivets?) that are attached to the flat straps which are then pinned through the queenpost. The drawing implies an oblong shaped slot presumably shaped so that the strap portion could be slid up through the beam, then the head of the rivet is large enough to overlap the sides of the slot for bearing so that they are not pulled through.
A very small chain mortiser might make easy work of the slot, I suspect they did something different, any thoughts on how this might have been accomplished?
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: Paul Freeman]
#17947
02/02/09 03:52 PM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 959
Ken Hume
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Hi Mo,
I sent a note earlier today to Dr. David Yeomans and he has just come back to me with the following interesting information concerning Mo's post and which I am posting here on his behalf :-
" Thanks for bringing this to my attention. A more comprehensive account of the Serlian floor can be found in 'The Serlian Floor', Architectural Research Quarterly, 2 (1997), 74-83 an article by me and refers, inter alia, to the floor at Independence Hall shown by Mo. The origin of Mo's illustration is:- Nelson, Lee, 'Independence hall: its fabric reinforced' in Peterson, Charles E., Building Early America, Radnor, Pa: 1976. Lee Nelson worked for the National Park Service and was the architect in charge of this restoration. It was he who got me interested in restoration. I think Lee used the term hand-in-hand framing. The first published account of it is by Serlio - hence the term that I use, but Villard d'Honnecourt shows something similar used for scaffolding.
I'm not sure how I would add this information myself as I'm not a member of the Timber Framers Guild."
Regards
K Hume p.p. Dr. David Yeomans, Manchester, England.
Looking back to see the way ahead !
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: Ken Hume]
#17957
02/03/09 04:34 AM
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 918
bmike
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Can you also please explain your "hand in hand" framing term ?
Take a look at the floor plan - now imagine those darker lines as arms, with hands at the ends where they meet at a right angle to the connecting beam... 'hand in hand'. Similar to configuration I've seen at 'square', 'contra', or 'called' dancing, with 4 persons circling, each with an arm (hand) in towards another - but all 4 locking together.
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: bmike]
#17959
02/03/09 09:03 AM
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 959
Ken Hume
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Hi Bmike,
This is an absolutely fascinating explanation. I wonder if you or others can provide illustrations for each of those terms. I just checked the TFG Glossary and these terms are not included so we really should get them added for the benefit of all. I shall let Dr. Olga Popovic know about this discovery.
Regards
Ken Hume
Last edited by Ken Hume; 02/03/09 09:04 AM.
Looking back to see the way ahead !
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: Joel McCarty]
#17979
02/04/09 12:25 AM
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Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 850
mo
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Hi everyone, Ken, no I can't back up the opening statement with any degree of proof. I thinking more along the lines of what we think of those professions today. I was reading a little bit of a book about the lives of the carpenters during this era in Philadelphia. I probably am a little bias, in that I want to believe they encompassed all of those roles. The book is: Moss, Jr., Roger William. Master Builders: A History of the Colonial Philadelphia Building Trades. University of Deleware, Ph.D. 1972 This book (a dissertation) describes the lives of these carpenters and their roles in society instead of the works they built. Pretty interesting. According to Nelson, "To the best of our knowledge it was one of the largest buildings in the colonies at the time of construction, which commenced about 1732 and continued in the 1740's" I found the book Reciprocal Framing that you mention when doing research. Neat book. Looking through the Microfilm at the library Tregold was found. Most of the names you have mentioned are familiar with a little research that a team of us was doing. Paul, That is different and an odd shape for those straps. None of the literature in the chapter addresses the tooling process of that diagram. Looks like one bore, then I don't know... Here is a picture of what bmike was talking about. Anyone got any ideas on how they raised this? From the research there are no chase mortises present.
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Re: Hand-in-Hand framing
[Re: mo]
#17985
02/04/09 09:16 AM
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Ken Hume
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Hi Mo,
I have experienced on several occasions when I have established conceptual and / or working designs that once these are delivered into the hands of others that a perceived change in ownership can take place especially where money has changed hands. The builder has a high public visibility and is often credited with the work whereas in fact he really might do nothing more than construct the ideas of others. There are also opposities to this experience, for example, it is generally accepted that Hugh Herland devised, designed and built the new hammer beam roof for Westminster Hall (1390's) but it is unlikely that he built this himself. It is more likely that someone like the Bishop of Winchester who maintained a large workforce and operated in a similar fashion as a general contractor does today actually built this edifice. Who should get the credit ?
Thanks for the illustration and the term "Hand-in-Hand" now makes perfect sense.
I can send you a PM of the full refs for the books referenced by Dr. David Yeomans if that will help you with your researches.
The author of the Reciprocal Frames book - Dr. Olga Popovic will attend the UK Carpenters Fellowship Frame 2009 event in September and this will provide those interested in this technique with an opportunity to learn a bit more about her researches on this and other timber framing topics.
This is a good post Mo and has promoted interesting discussion. More please.
Regards
Ken Hume
Last edited by Ken Hume; 02/04/09 09:16 AM.
Looking back to see the way ahead !
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