Speaking of scarf joints, I ran across one this last week in a covered bridge in Parke County, Indiana. I hadn't ever seen one like this before, so I was wondering if anyone else had? I haven't done much work with covered bridges though, so is this something that is typical in the bottom chord of burr arches and others?

The vertical metal bars are a 1/4" thick and they are notched into the beam. They touch the edge of the bolts, so I presume they are for extra bearing area in the connection to increase its tensile capacity.


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