hello everyone tonight

hi nick and others

you mention layout------

hmmm--layout, and then there is really layout using rough hewn timber, twisted timber, over sized timber, under sized timber, no measuring tapes, no nails, or very few, no front end loaders, no cranes, no transits, no fancy blueprints, no skill saws,, no electricity, but in the end the braces have to fit, the tenons on the twisted timber, have to enter the mortises with a nice sliding fit, the newly formed trusses have to be hoisted up their positions, sometimes 25 to 30 feet above the ground, each bent as it is formed has to be an exact copy of the previous on, unless its position indicates necessary changes, like the wall, like the central aisle, with large doors--

here i am rambling on but just reminiscing from days gone by when the head framer faced the above challenges, it reminded me of many church frames i have studied each one had to span 45 feet or more without central support, but the catcher is the sometimes the gothic arch of the interior ceiling, needed to be built into the truss timbers, what beautiful work!

one church in particular, had been created with one half the weight of the spire resting on the first truss, what the framer did was to create a railroad truss to give extra support, not noticeable from the interior of the church

most churches created walls of stone and brick just to support the spires, and then as i studied the trusses, what beautiful work the hewers did, and can you imagine the trees that produced 10 by 12 timbers 45 feet long and no wane edges that i could see for the bottom truss chords, and the wall plates 65 feet long 8 by 8`s my, my--i can see those trees falling, and teams of men hewing and scoring in a steady rhythm where they fell, and then transporting them to the constructing area, i really don`t think that there would be room for measuring errors on the part of the framer

my father (Ross) one time said to Robert Lecorre the cabinet maker at UCV --you know Robert, when you make a mistake you just heave it in the trash can, but what do i do with a 30 foot timber cut too short by 3 inches--

well have to go

enjoy

richard
NH