Long time no post...things have been sailing on my frame. But....I have a problem.

I have a white oak 8"x8"x15'6" plate that will have at the far end a 2"x5"x4"d mortise, and another one at 12'. There is a single fully housed brace at the far end, and two on either side of the center post mortise at 12'. The near side brace mortise has it's back side, 2" from a 2' long halved and bladed scarf placed near the brace (per Sobon's book pic), which I plan to key.

Here the problem. The plate has a slight warp. As I stretch a line from end to end, the concave side (bottom) is 5/8ths in. I'm not thinking I can draw peg that straight. The beam has only dried about .75" in, but I don't have a space shuttle to park on it to straighten it.

The nice thing is, that at this position, it'll have no real load (literally none). Question still is, should I measure off the string and use it as the reference so my brace mortises are not too deep, or do I just realize there won't be much contact and not draw bore them? Likewise, near the posts, I'd expect it to behave a bit better. Of course since it'll sit for a while before I erect it, it may just be a pain overall.

Incidentally, it's the beam you see in the middle of the pic. Any ideas? Firewood?

Oh, and I hope the was intelligible. I'm still learning.

Thanks.

So you have been using edge square rule for layout? I don't see why you could not use snap line square rule on this piece along with edge rule on others.

Seconded. I faced exactly this problem with my Douglas Fir frame. One of the last girts to be cut had dried sufficiently to result in a clear twist. I snapped chalk lines to mark the tenon width and others to mark the base of the seats for the joists and the depth of those seats. Then I cut from those lines. The resulting beam was actually the easiest to fit in the frame since the tenons were perfectly aligned, unlike those cut using edge square rule where the slight twist acquired by the beams required "persuading" with a very large lever.

Hi Andy,

It's good to read that things have been moving along for you and this project.

I see this challenge all the time with folks practicing the more common "edge" or "mill" rule layout methods that are used here in North America predominantly. Unlike "line rule" or "scribe rule" the assumption is the timber is always going to be perfectly straight. Even with well milled timbers and the new form of "edge rule" that has come forth in "mill rule," almost every tiber on a frame has some camber or twist. Thus comes the erroneous assumption too often that the "draw bore" and/or strapping and pulling will "straighten things out," which is seldom the case and/or will this "straightening" last the life of the frame.

I use and teach "line rule" and other Asian layout modalities almost exclusively at this point and really find the others too archaic to adapt to the presumption that a timber will ever actually be striaght. "Scribe rule" and its related methods are "historically" very young; taking place around the beginning of the Victorian period and the industrial revolution. Before this, in Europe we had "scribe rule" and "lofting methods," while in parts of Eastern Europe, Middle East, and dominating in Asia, we had (and still have) "Line rule."

As Tim and Jon have suggested, having a twist or bend in a timber is not a "show stopper" by any means and your timber does not need to end up in a "firewood pile." I would take this a step further and suggest that we never really look at such things anymore when assessing timbers. I tend to work in live edge, tapered, and twisted timbers as a mainstay. It is not uncommon to have over 30 mm of camber and as much as 60 mm in twist in some timbers...Sometimes even more. None of this affects the joinery, nor the strength of the frame.

What I have found, additionally, is that often the "twisted, warped, and cambered" timbers tend to be much stronger, and in many designs this "added strength" from twists and bends is actually not only sought out in timbers but some forest management systems promote it. This can be found in the Tempo hari-Gun Beam sometimes called in different regions Ushihari-Cow Beam and/or Chonahari-Clam Beam, we find in many Japanese Minka-Farm House.

I can post something here later today outlining the basics of this modality if you think it would help...

Regards,

j

Jay,

I've wanted to ask you this for a while now. So how would you layout the middle piece on this drawing with your method?



Let's assume that the 2 timbers on either side are twisted too.

Also what are talking about with scribing being new/Victorian? Every wooden building in western Europe was scribed, certainly long before the 1800s.