Ken,

It was our contract. However, Jordan was hired on for the job as a sub-contractor.

Mo,

Thanks, mo it was a nice project.

Keeping the hijack brief...

-white oak

-fiber cement backer board grooved into the sides and bottoms of all timbers with backer rod in the groove. Render (basically stucco) on that with permachink at all edges of the panels. Inside the FC panel, insulation, DW, and plaster. Only posts, plates, window studs, and window cills show inside. Not our design, but we did groove all the studs, posts, and plates and scribe each FC panel as we built each frame and install them as the frame went up.

-Tried to turn sapwood in, but couldn't always.

-All exposed sapwood was treated with a borate product (name escapes me). Not sure if anything more was done by others.

End of hijack.

There is more information about reverse assembly frames in the U.S.A. in the works.

On to dropped tie framing, also known as H-bent framing. This type is very common in Dutch-, German- and English-American buildings. John Stevens mentioned in his book Dutch Vernacular Architecture in North America, 1640-1830 that H-bent framing originated in Germany, but is characteristic of Dutch-American buildings. Maine is loaded with dropped tie buildings sometimes with the large posts and close spacing in the Dutch style.

The tie beam is usually joined to the post with a wedged half-dovetail joint anywhere from six inches to more than ten feet below the rafters in the case of anchor beam barns. I find that the plates in buildings with the tie dropped more than about two feet often bow outward. The posts often bow, also.

Below is a image of a poorly designed dropped tie where the tie and braces landed in the same part of the 6" x 6" post leaving very little strength to resist the outward thrust of the rafters. Two of the posts broke at this joint. Note the iron dog helping to hold the joint together.

Here is my house, possibly built in 1851 in Waldoboro, Maine. There is a board shelf from the plate to the interior wall, if you are wondering what "that thing" is. The 4" x 6" tie beams are the floor joists and run the full width of the house (about 25 feet) supported by the vertical planks that form the interior walls, a typical detail for houses around here:


My house has iron tie rods near the middle to help the plate from bowing outward, they may help but the walls still bow a few inches even with a half-pitch roof. The tie rod is near the vertical sewer vent pipe and wraps around a large hand-spike in the tie (image from before restoration).


Sometimes wood braces with a lapped half-dovetail are used like the iron tie rod to help prevent the plates from bowing.

I have not noticed anyone calling an anchor beam a dropped tie, but to me it is. Anchor beams are dropped so far I doubt they are effective, but we do not have this type of framing in New England so I have no first hand experience to know how often anchor beam barns have spreading issues in the center aisle. if they don't it must be because the side aisles act as buttresses rather than those beautiful, huge anchor beams with huge through tenons and wedges actually do much!

Jim

Quickly, before I fall face first onto my key board... in the geometric workshop we built a small Dutch frame with H-bents. They were about 4' apart, I never checked them. So in a Dutch frame the anchor beams, as we called them were close together, and in the Maine barn with the dropped tie they are space at a much greater distance. This applies far more force on them than the closer spaced Dutch house frames allowing the bow in the plate. We discussed this in the workshop as well, I think it was during a slide show which Jack presented in the evening.

It was hard for me not to call the anchor beams ties.

I saw a similar close spaced H-bent house locally here in Lubec which was taken down, it was reported to have been built be a Scottish fellow in his late teens, very Dutch if you ask me.

Tim

As I was thinking more about it, the bent spacing was closer to 3'.

Tim

I'm confused now. I thought it was the English barn which used the "Dropped Tie" H-frame. I have only seen pictures of the Dutch Anchor beam. Is this what is refered to as the H-frame?

Hi Thane and Tim;

Ethnicity of building types is a very tricky business!

"English" barns use normal assembly, read this about anchor beams:

http://www.dutchbarns.org/dbpsnewssp93pt2.htm

Jim

Could it be said that the anchor beams in barns are internal members, where as dropped ties extend from one exterior wall the other? They are similar but at the same time different. While in Dutch house construction you will see " anchor beams" acting as dropped ties?

Tim