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. Regards
Ken Hume
Ken, this is an aside, but in the video, Jack stated the juggles were 16" not 18" apart... "16 inches on-center" was his comment.
I am sorry - that mistake was a result of a case of early morning Stanley rule dyslexia. I should of course stated 16".
The Bishop's Camera roof rafter spacing is also 16" as well and very conveniently this works out at 3 x 16 = 48 i.e. 4 ft spacing every 3rd rafter. That means that the nominal space between the rafters is now only 10". A skinny man (not me) can climb through the gap between the collars and into the space above between the scissor braces - just!
I think that I have managed to get it right this time - I hope!
I almost would bet the key figure is 48" and this is split into the 3 segments. Does this fit into the daisy wheel layout system? 12 is an important number now and much more so in the past, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 apostles, and the measuring system in base 12. When did the metric system come into wide use in Europe? We do have 10 fingers but that is too easy.
Gabel, can you shed some light on the daisy wheel and its relation, if any?
My understanding of the 16" framing system is that the size of a brick was established by royal decree.(A roman "brick" took 2 men to handle, the English realized that a better way was to hold a smaller brick in one hand and a trowel in the other) Later it was decreed that a fireplace would be a minimum of 2 bricks wide. This made firewood typically 16" long. Owner builders having moved into their home's shell would while away the winter splitting and applying lath, the easiest source was the woodpile and so they studded accordingly. This came from David Lyle's "The Book of Masonry Stoves". It's the only place I've seen that story.
I burn wood, get it delivered cut & split in standard 16" length, and never considered the origin of this dimension. Fascinating.
Tim, daisy wheel / base-12, etc, would be an excellent new topic. That upcoming geometry workshop w/ Laurie Smith has me drooling. The roots of it all...
Perhaps Gabel can advise, but as I understand it, won't any dimension fit in the daisy-wheel system provided you base your wheel on that particular length to start with? I mean, there's no set wheel diameter, correct? We can use the wheel whether it's a foot wide or 15 feet wide, yes?
