First post for press cut to length and being hewn

Stuart,
Today we were in Berne, Indiana and visited the museum where the giant cider press is held.

Word's cannot describe the size of this thing, and I cannot in my mind fathom how they handled it in 1864.

But on the topic of raising and lowering, we also visited their cheese house nad observed the press, also a beam press. It had an ingenious mechanism. There is a round log section with both ends pivoting to which a chain is attached that is also fastened to the end of the pressing beam. To this cylinder is attached a long arm, on the end of which is a rope with handle. When you pull down on the rope, the cylinder rotates, drawing up the chain and in turn the press beam. in this way, very little effort is needed to move the 1500 pound white oak beam.

Pictures?

are worth...

seeing

unfortunately, I didn't manage any. Pictures can't do it justice anyhow.

but they do have this video of it, which I think I've posted here before...

Or if you mean pictures of the cheese press lift mechanism, I could whip you up a sketch of that too

That would be good.

How do you asses whether a species of tree is good to use or not?

For you Americans you probably don't have to because all your woods have already been assessed as to what is good and what is not for a particular job.

The reason I ask is because there are a number of trees in my area that are generally excepted to be good for fire wood and not much else.

Two cases in point are Peppermint (actually two species but they are similar) and mana gum. They have rather high tangential and radial shrinkage (P 6%r,11%t, Mana 6%r,12%t) and hence are a night mare to mill without significant degrade but could they be used in timber framing?

I was thinking that anything with a tenon might be a bad idea unless the members were quite small but posts might be all right? Or purlins or common rafters that are just pegged to principal rafters? Or battens that are pegged to common rafters?

Or what about pegs themselves? If they were kept inside so that they were extra dry then they would swell after they had been hammered into the frame? Would you have to be careful in that they could swell too much and split the wood they passed through?

Other than shrinkage rates what other information would you look for to asses a species suitability for a particular framing member. Details that I have already are density, modulous of rupture, modulus of elasticity and maximum crushing stregnth.

From those properties can you determine figures for vertical shear, horizontal shear, Fb and such?

It is very important when researching wood properties that you try to find the relationship between ultimate values and acceptable and approved design values.

The US Forest Products Lab publishes data on wood properties of species used in domestic and international commerce. Australia must have an agency that mirrors the USFPL.