Hi Dave,

Betty's book requires close inspection. I look forward to your opinions about the "eyes".

Regards

Ken Hume

It's going to take about a month to get here, it's coming from somewhere near you. There was one in the U.S., but it was more than three times the money, and was also going to take a month. It will indeed get close scrutiny.

Ken,

We actually did one tie as continuous and half-lapped, the other mortise and tenoned and discontinuous. An educational experience. I guess I never noticed the lack of wall braces.

The wall post and cruck blade each have their own tenon, and are skew pegged together (see pic). Ken, do you have any comments on skew pegging (how they hold up over time, etc). Don't see it much (or at all) over hear with our boring rectlinear frames.

Hi Brad,

That picture is quite informative and as you will probably already know the methods employed to fix wall posts to crucks blades is many and varied.



I have inserted a digi pic above of the skewed square pegs employed at the top joint between a truncated cruck blade and half lap collar. You will note that bark can still be seen on the outside face of the cruck blade and a profiled make up piece has been added and then a large packer on top of that to align the side purlins from cross frame to cross frame. You can see how the purlin has twisted or rotated in its 600 years of service life. The black on the elm timbers is from the original open hall fire smoke.



The second picture is of the same cruck blade but taken from the opposite side and from lower down - about 4 feet from the ground floor. The cruck blade is painted. The drilled hole that is seen to emerge from the side of the cruck blade has been made using some kind of spoon bit auger (Jim, please add any comments and / or advice on the tool employed please). It demonstrates that the long pegs used to secure the cruck wall post to the back of the cruck blade (i.e. as per your photo above) were also set on the skew but the pegs did not reach right through the blade and appear to have stopped short. I think that the end of the peg can just be seen about to emerge on the left.

One does see a mixture of both mortice & tenon, lap and simple skew peg attachment of components in the same cruck frame and thus these joint selection decisions are obviously made by the carpenter based on the materials to hand.

Our recording team get quite excited by the relative simplicity of the design of the cruck frame being recorded and quite a few of them suggested that we build our own cruck frame. I have a woodlot that stands idle most of the time so all we need is someone to fell the trees, hew out the blades, cut the frame and raise it. Anyone who is keen to have a go please get in touch - no money required.

Regards

Ken Hume

p.s. we found almost no evidence of piece marking of timbers but plenty of hewing and framing leveling stations.

I angled the pegs in the lapped saddle on my blacksmith shop. You have to picture how the timbers will dry and the new shape and movement they will take on and apply the pegs counter to this to add more resistance and enhance the holding power. Mental acrobatics for my dyslexic/ADD mind, I have to be completely present to perform or I start to wander. I think I got them right.

Tim

Hi Tim,

Excellent point about the shrinkage - I hadn't even thought about that effect. If the practice shown in the first photo is correct then the pegs will be pinched together in one plane by the collar and then again in another by the cruck blade which are not quite set at 90 degrees to each other so maybe the cone or teepee shape that the pegs are currently seen to form handle this best. I shall keep an eye out more examples.

Regards

Ken Hume

Received "Cruck Buildings" today. Ken, I did get a rise out of Jack when I mentioned I had ordered it. I will be perusing it during the next few evenings. It was a former Sheffield University library book, in great condition.

The frame for the cruck workshop will be two bents, according to the paperwork I received, not three, as I had previously thought.

Hi Dave,

It might be a surprise to most but Sheffield is / was the cruck capital of the UK so your book is from a good source however why should they be disposing of such a gem from their library collection ?

Check out page 19 re "the eyes". Keep this secret to yourself.

Please keep us appraised of the cruck workshop and it would be nice to see a few digi pics.

Regards

Ken Hume

re: eyes. Very interesting, to be sure. I will have my digi camera at the workshops.

Didn't your mum tell you it wasn't nice to whisper. What is up with the eyes?

Tim