Jim, I was not actually there, but have since been there virtually. I was out touring.

Tim

Tim, it must be raining hard up there in Maine for you to be online at this time of day......

Hi Ken:

Yes, the Tee Axe was an oddity and drew many onlookers (including Gabel who wanted to try some hewing).

This interest is just what I was refering to back a couple posts about why this axe fell into obscurity. I mean if we're drawn to it and folks like Will T. and Gabel like using it, why did it "disappear?" Perhaps something replaced it (hand planes?) for smoothing planks, etc...

Anyway, glad we could all see the video at last. I should have listed those who appeared. I thought most everone knew who Gabel was from previous conferences, etc...

My take on the T axe after using it is that is a smoothing tool -- to be used as much for planks and other scantlings as anything else. It's really cool, but not much use for the kind of hewing I do.

I still want one badly, though, as it is such a well made tool and I'm sure I can find a use for it...

I want one.

Hi Don,

Re Jack's observations about exact 18" separations on scoring marks this rang a bell inside me. A few years back when I was doing recording work in the Bishop's Camera roof at Farnham Castle I noted that the 6" wide x 5" deep rafters were set exactly on 18" centres. This means that there is a gap of only 12" between each rafter. I frequently have arguments with aspiring old building recorders about using feet and inches rather than metres and centimeters to measure and record old buildings. English Heritage insists on using metres but 2.4384 metres just doesn't mean as much to me as 8ft, nor can one derive much sense from it. But I digress, the rafters in the Camera roof were beautifully smooth and so I examined the surface finish in the somewhat dim light to try and establish whether this was a planed, hewn, adzed or sawn finish and I never did manage to arrive at a conclusion. Now the rafters on this roof have been dendro dated to about 1380 ( http://www.dbrg.org.uk/DENDRO/dendrolist4FC.html ) and I am now wondering if what I was seeing was a tee axe finish. We know for sure that this axe was around in 1066 and from other reports its use was widespread over Europe so as Don asks above when did its use expire and why ?

Anyone wanting to make a virtual tour of this roof can drop me an email and I will send them a naviagable *.mov file that permits full 360 degree (spherical) rotation and zoom in and out. I will also try and figure out how this can be posted on this forum for download (about 2.5mb).

Joel, how do I do this ?

Regards

Ken Hume

Try this link,

http://cid-a449afe501ee8113.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Movies/Bishops%20Camera%20Roof.mov?ccr=3364

Ken Hume

Do you have to download Win Live ID ? I opened it in Miro and something ain't right.

As a sidenote - I thought it was bad enough that we built the NMT building in that base ten nonsense, but to record historical structures built in Imperial with it seems absurd.

One of the coolest things I've ever held in my hands was at Frame '02 when I saw you last, Mr Goodburn's pieces of Roman wharf constructions from deep in the mud of the Thames at Lundinium, chunks of joined timber two millennia old, with measureable 2" M&T's and 1" pegholes. Are they perhaps recorded in Mils somewhere in the dark halls of academia ?

In theory, this Forum will now accept image attachments, including .mov files, up to a half megabyte in size.

That "Camera Roof" virtual tour is neat. It took some figuring in order to get it to "play," but after reading Ken's comment:

Shift key to zoom in, Control key to zoom out
Look around - Use your mouse to circle around the roof.

I was able to view the interior of the roof, which can make you dizzy!!

That rafter spacing is very tight; the building's a fortress of timber. Must have had a very strict (or paranoid) code enforcment officer back in the day!!

And feet and inches makes the most sense to me. But then again, I'm an American born and raised on the "foot and inch."

As an aside, that's great news about being able to upload small files here. Kudos to Joel, (bow).

.MOV files can be a bit problematic for non-Mac users. I'm guessing Will had a problem viewing Ken's link because of this. .MOV is a "Quicktime" or Apple-based format. Windows Media Player will not play these files b/c Windows and Apple are arch enemies.

.MOV files will open and play just fine on "RealPlayer" or "QuickTime" (both free to download from the web.