I was referred here form a site in the UK. I have done a couple of models using TF. I have a habit of making sure the components in my models are correct, mainly for appearance's sake.
I have not found a resource to suggest proper spacing on the trusses, columns, and connector beams.
Does such a thing exist?

When I build a model I scale off of the prints for the frame.

Here is the first Dutch barn model:

http://youtu.be/6mcIrlYBua8

Bent spacing can be derived at from a number of possibilities. As Dave mentions from the prints. Geometry is another method. The length of the frame could simply be divided up equally, on centers or to reference faces, each method would yield different girt lengths. Bent spacing could be formed via tradition, this is the spacing I use, it is how I was taught and I don't vary from it. Houses were spaced differently than utility building. I wonder how the Swiss may have spaced their bents?

Hi,

I think that you might well be searching for the Holy Grail !

I am not aware of anyone undertaking a statistically significant study that establishes an exactitude for cross frame [bent] spacing. The geometric approach as promoted by Laurie Smith does work in some cases but I rather suspect that economy of use based on available timber lengths and efficient utilisation of same is likely to have been the real deciding factor in determining cross frame spacing.

Which UK site referred you to this knowledge portal ?

Regards

Ken Hume

I believe you may be correct, Ken.

And the holy grail is not all that elusive, but possibly just as many possible examples as bent spacing.

Here is one....
http://www.amanitashop.com/amanita-arthur/mankind1.htm

Tim, the Swiss don't use bents at all, so they don't space them.

But posts are spaced in a variety of ways, varying tremendously from one village to the next, and especially across regions.

Some times, posts are spaced to a rigid spacing, and all windows and doors made to line up with this. But this is boring, and so not often done on houses (common for small buildings though) More often, all windows, doors, and their corresponding posts are made to line up to fairly complex patters -and in this case the posts are placed according to the windows, meaning some will be farther apart and other right next to each other with perhaps a foot of space (maximum spacing usually comes to around 4 feet, sometimes as much as 5).

No one can master the intricacies of post spacing in this system, which means carpenters are apt to stick to local custom with its own unique rules. Which is good, because local tradition endures to this day.

The rafters and joists follow their own spacing, not related to the spacing of the posts at all (or even necessarily to each other), which falls according to regular intervals somewhere around 2 to 3 foot on center. Note also that the joists here double as tie beams.