I am just a newby and I have a rather large pile of oak timbers just beginning to find a new existance in a TF addition to my home. On paper everything can be calculated in theory, but when you pull out a timber as I did last week ( for the first time ever) you very quickly find out that the timbers are not even close to the perfect wood you want. They have distortion from he time when they left the mill ( bandsaw) cut by an excelent sawyer. They were stacked and stickered but still checked and distorted over time.
In my case I started with a bent girt and two posts. For reference I chose the top center of the bent girt as my reference and made that level ( or vertical plumb as the timber is on it's side), and then marked the tenons level and on center as best I could. I housed the un-square end of the girt in the post when now I see I could have squared up the girt end first.
on future similar connections I think I will do this.
Very interesting discussion on this topic. I would like to learn a bit more about Japaneese framing techniques who seem to enjoy the challenge of working with timbers that have almost no straight lines anywhere except perhaps in the joint itself.
Any reference books to suggest?? Dave (in NJ)