Courses

The Art of Drafting

Drawing has always been an essential tool for building. This two-day course will teach the skills to put pencil to paper, the traditional art of drafting. Students will learn about the types of drawing mediums, drafting tools and aids, drawing to scale, the various views, lettering, and drawing conventions.

INSTRUCTORS

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Cruck Framing

Cruck frames use large curved timbers to transfer the weight of the roof directly down to the foot of the posts. In this workshop, we will build a small, three-bent cruck frame, from tree selection to layout to raising.

INSTRUCTORS

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Demystifying Roof Geometry - The Stereotomical Approach

Roof geometry is a challenge most framers must face eventually. These problems can be solved either mathematically or visually (drawing by hand). The skill of drawing complex shapes and practicing stereotomy has been taught for centuries by the French, German, and Japanese carpentry traditions; it enables the carpenter to directly measure working angles and scale dimensions rather than calculating them.

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Stereotomy: Building the “Moore” End Table 

The knowledge of stereotomy is so important that UNESCO has classified it on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as of 2009.

In this two-day workshop, students will build their own Moore End Table. Students will be taught how to use the visuospatial part of the brain to visualize in 3D, draw in 2D, and then construct their trestle.

INSTRUCTORS

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Timber Framing for Women & Gender Non-Conforming Folks 

This course is offered as a comfortable space to learn the basics of timber framing for people who may not feel welcomed in the almost-uniformly male culture found in construction. It is specifically and only for women and gender non-conforming folks and will be taught by two women timber framers. 

INSTRUCTORS

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Timber Frame Design & Joinery Decisions

This course is geared towards timber framers and covers the architectural and structural basics for designing timber frame structures that are both beautiful and functional. 

INSTRUCTORS

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Raising & Rigging

This course teaches the few, but necessary, knots needed by timber framers to safely lift heavy loads and equipment. The rigging of blocks and use of tackle will be demonstrated. You will learn how to construct and adjust a gin pole (luffing) using various rope hitches and tackle. Time permitting, we will show you how to arrange, rig, and raise tripods and shear legs (A-frames) and maneuver a load with a jib-arm. More maneuverable and versatile than shear legs, the gin pole requires more rope and guying points (anchors).

Splicing synthetic and manila ropes for eyes and joining lengths will be practiced. Finding lift points, center of gravity (CoG), and how to secure pieces and bents for raising will also be covered, as well as crane signaling and the basics of crane setup and operations.

INSTRUCTORS

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Make & Take Work Bench

In the Workbench Course, students will build a take home Workbench with a laminated 2-1/2 x 24 x 70 work top and a "knock down" mortise & tenon joinery base. Bench features will include a Dominy wood vise and routed "dog holes" (for future use when a metal vise - sorry not course supplied - is added)

Students will work periodically as a group on "standard" part fabrications and individually on personal workbench components using a mix of hand and power tools to complete their work bench.

Course topics will cover workbench design, material selection, and the use of tools.

INSTRUCTORS

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SketchUp For Timber Framing (Intro/Beginner)

This course introduces SketchUp, a powerful and effective, yet user-friendly, 3D computer drawing and modeling program. This workshop will cover the basics of the software and work toward completing a small timber frame design from rough sketch to client presentation. This class is designed for the beginning SketchUp user. No previous experience is required or assumed.

INSTRUCTORS

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Timber Frame Preservation 

A guide to understanding, documenting, and repairing historic timber framed buildings. Students will learn how to document and date historic structures using both traditional methods and high-tech gadgetry. The course will address the evolution of preservation philosophy, the United States Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, and applying for grants and tax credits, as well as the repair of timber framed buildings. 

INSTRUCTORS

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Introduction to compound joinery

This class will explore a Japanese approach to the challenges of compound joinery that result from a splay-legged form. We will be utilizing both a numeric/trigonometric method as well as a developed drawing method to directly discover the layout geometry with a hand made, full-size drawing. Students will create their own stool to take home at the end of the week, cut using hand tools. This is an intermediate-advanced class and prior experience with hand tools, mortise-and-tenon joinery, and basic trigonometry is encouraged.

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english Scribe

The majority of historic timber framed structures in the United States built before 1800 were scribed using a system brought here from the British Isles. It did not involve the use of plumb bobs, piquage, or full-size drawings lofted on a shop floor.

In this seven-day workshop, we will scribe a small English barn. We’ll use both “tumbling” and the “double cut”, the two traditional scribing methods employed in the English scribe. We’ll learn about plumb and level marks, two-foot marks, and we’ll use traditional parts numbering systems. The workshop will culminate with the raising of the frame.

INSTRUCTORS

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