I was not aware of the existence of "level assembly" dragon ties in England and this just goes to show that building practices are probably not necessarily that widespread. Where can these buildings be seen in England ?
Re variant versus different typology my initial thoughts were as per your advice above but later I recognised that unless the plate is specifically positioned then it would not be able to accept common rafters whereas CG's can be variably positioned at different elevations but then of necessity a common purlin roof has to be employed. So is the Shirley barn a CG variant or simply an interrupted wall plate as per Jack Sobon's article in TF No 56.
Re the dragon ties employed at the corners of a building with fully hipped roof I agree that these are fitted primarly to facilitate the construction of the roof structure i.e. this component is really part of the roof whereas the primary function of the dragon ties employed between wall plate and tie beam on intermediate and gable frames are part of the (wall plate & tie) frame structure.
I well realise that some of this might appear to some as being symantics but in order to arrive at a classification acceptable to all then there would need to be some logical basis for decision making. Who is the arbiter on these matters ? I wish that Jack would occasionally chime in on the forum to offer his opinions.
I was probably wrong to say that Jack's article can be downloaded from the TFG website but it can certainly can be reviewed in TF 56 or providing I am not breaking any copyright rules I can send any one reviewing the content of this forum thread with a *pdf copy (0.8mb) of this article by email.
