Hey Will, Sean, Brad, et.al,

Was up in the UP of Michigan raising another little Asian Style cabin with a former student that just came out grand! Line Ruled of course, yet I had no way to post here and seem to have gotten behind in the conversation....sorry. I will do my best to catch up...and thanks for the great discussion about this wonderful topic!

As for links to the topic...I will try to give some basic blurbs I share with folks (and the one I think I shared with Sean quite a few years ago now...ha, ha,) on this subject with a few added updates. This isn't by far even close to the extent that exists and I am diligently compiling and trying to develop a manuscript for publication that will have this topic covered. I have consider a co-facilitation at next year's conference (perhaps a pre/post con workshop to go with it) that covers "Layout Methods" and have several co-facilitator coverage on it to really give it some breadth...

This is another student/friend demonstrating the basis in a short article I wrote for Permies.com.
http://permies.com/t/42793/timber/Line-Rule-methods-layout-Timber

Here are a few Google links (I use Japanese as one good example though there is comparable information in Korean and Chinese as well) that can lead to a number of viewings and other information on the topic. Doing searches in the orgin languages greatly helps understanding these systems of layout application and context much better.

Sumidzuke (sumitsuke) is (in general) term for “layout” but literally means “Blackening the face,” in Japanese. I wish I could post the kanji here for better clarity, yet our TFG forum does not support foreign script, and you would only see number code...so...look at the search line for the kanji for this word.

Sumidzuke

Some video of interest perhaps?

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/4m6SQ1X74H0[/video]

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/7wHBDcB8qao[/video]

This young man has done one of the best basic videos I have seen of late covering Line Layout. Joshua is learning to master many of these crafts quite effectively and demonstrates the methods in a very simplistic and unobstructed way!

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/LMPfzOVmtqo[/video]



I share that in the historical record/text that I can locate on the subject over the years, that the common interpretation that Scribe Rule has any snapped lines is not reflected in literature from the period that I have found. It has not been reflected in the limited descriptions I have had related to me orally as well. If any do have such literary examples I would very much love reading those references, especially around the orgin periods between 1760's to 1820's.



That seems to be a very common misconception of the actual (or maybe I should say original..??) systems of Line Layout. Learning Edge Rule and Scribe Rule both from strictly a Dutch/Germanic oral tradition (Old Order Amish) I can share that their use of the technique was the same as all historic records I have found, and did not employ any snapped lines of any kind. That was (and is??) a completely separate method. They did, on occasion, snap a...Grease Line...(rolled on a spool and comprised of soot, render, and sometimes a powdered dye used in coloring wool.) This method again was considered an entirely different method of layout, much as I would later find in Middle East and Asian systems of Line Layout. I have never seen, or read a written example of this method of layout (as they demonstrated and employed) in a European/North American context within a historic record. Their method of Line Layout may have been unique (in a European context) to this style of layout that got handed down to them within their tradition as a oral history only understanding.

In all context of the term and meaning of actual Line Rule (aka Sumidzuke as just one example in the Japanese forms)...I would suggest that it is very much (if not extremely) different in form and understanding of layout systems that predates Square Rule (aka in the contemporary Edge/Mill Rule that are very similar to Square Rule...or the same in some folks view??) by millenia of existence and method application/context. The only system older than...Line Rule.... (that I can find in research and application) is...Scribe Rule... which also has a very distinct difference in approach modalities in many (not all) ways from what is found in the West.

Line Rule has no bearing on either a reference edge or plane on a timber as it very much does in Edge Rule related systems of layout in it historical (not modern) application...which do not historically employ lines snapped on the timber in any way that I have seen as part of that system on old frames or in literature. I would love to see any literary citation that any could offer to suggest otherwise? Again understanding that Edge Rule only came into being in the late 1700's. Line Rule actually represents the Kodama Shinzumi (Spirit Line) of timber to be jointed. This reference line that can't actually be seen or touched at all, it being single line/ray of reference within the timber or several of them...some may actually be at different angles. It is only in the mind of the Timberwright and/or designer of the frame and not an actual tangible line one can touch. It is represented by single points (most often but not always) on both the ends of the timber being jointed. Often in the old Asian blueprints or Plane boards (literally Cedar boards) the Line would only be designated in plan view as a single ink dot on the board and from this Dot Point one must extrapolate (or understand) a wealth of unseen, and/or given information about the architecture to be constructed.

I would also point out that in several Scribe Rule methods of joinery...there are indeed housings, yet not as commonly found in the European traditions yet found in the Eastern Mediterranean boat building traditions and on into Africa, Middle East and Asia, though (I do believe???) a Let In Brace (most common scribed brace in the European tradition) is considered a Housed Joint.



Jame's foundational understanding of Line Rule (aka his "Virtual Rule") is almost completely (if not completely?) in the Asian context and much of it influenced by (if memory serves) from "The Complete Japanese Joinery" (– 1995 by Hideo Sato (Author), Yasua Nakahara (Author), Koichi Paul Nii (Translator) which is actually a poor translation and reprint of two original books only found in Japanese. Overall a great little book for experienced timber framers interested in Japanese Timber framing, but inundated with mis referenced pages, and typos, that would only be caught by a language speaker or those well versed in the Japanese traditions the book is meant to reflect.

No..."can of worms opened"... but one heck of a great conversation and exchange on the subject for our forum!!!