I was wondering if anyone out there in Guild land has had any experience applying panels to frames made of green timber, like the oak frames built here in the UK?Panels don't seem to be used here to enclose timber frames, so i'm curious as to what effect the rapidly shrinking and twisting timbers might have on interior panel finishes, connections, etc.

The situation you describe is very common here in the US.

Since the majority of shrinkage will be along the tangential axis of the timber, care is taken to not have the panel attachment constrain the timbers in that direction. Twisting, of course, is a different story and impossible to predict. This explains the rising interest in using kiln dried timbers.

I am not a timberframer, just an interested party. I recently looked at the website of a timberframing company in Texas that uses kiln dried timbers. They are called Red Suspenders and their website url is:

http://www.redsuspenderstf.com/company.html

I believe that their techniques might prevent various concerns such as twisting, checking, joints loosening, etc. Any comments and are any others using kiln drying? Thanks.