Hi Nick and others looking in tonight

Well I guess we share similar weather patterns, it has been unseasonaly cool here, it must be because our climate is warming up,or so we are told

Nick you were wondering about what happened to those timbers I was referring to, well here we go--hope you all enjoy a little trip back in time--

Hewing timber is at best trying to create as accurate as possible sectional timber of sizes and lengths that are needed for the job at hand, it might be a small or large building, and sometimes was dictated by the timber types and sizes growing on you own property, or maybe in the case of a church from various properties

One thing for sure the framer whose responsibility was to mould these timbers into a strong straight and true framework eventually becoming whatever building that was needed

Usually the timbers were close to the dimensions needed, but sometimes they lacked a little meat here and there, especially in the case of long timbers, became quite noticeable when the framing began in ernest , and chalk lines were struck along their lengths to position seatings for many vertical and horizontal braces and girts

Ir was not uncommon to indent seatings an inch or more so all the intersecting timbers and posts along the chalk line would have support beyond relying strictly on the tenon

In this regard I always instructed the hewing team to work oversize a bit, and try for accuracy, even then after curing, and storing, timbers would sometimes accept natural curving and twisting, this is to be expected and accepted

What we did as we rolled out the next timber in the framing order was to carefully position it in the framework to best utilize its natural tendencies , and if necessary re hew out some bad bows or twists to bring the seating-s depths to a manageable margin and straighten up the outside face, which is quite important

Now we have been talking about all new hewn timbers, but sometimes the framer was handed many recycled timbers to work with

I have to go now
I have more and will be back

enjoy

richard
NH