A Timber Framer's Workshop: Joinery & Design Essentials for Building Traditional Timber Frames

by Steve K. Chappell

This revised edition of A Timber Framer s Workshop has over 150 new photos and includes updated engineering specifications for pegged joinery, along with expanded in-depth technical information on the joinery, design and construction of Traditional Timber Frames. The major portion of A Timber Framer's Workshop was first written back in 1983. Over a period of a number of years several revisions and additions took place, as it was used as the handout workshop manual for Fox Maple Timber Framing Workshops. At last, it was published for general distribution in 1998. When this book was first published in 1998, scientific testing results for pegged mortise and tenon joinery simply did not exist. The corollaries that could be made at that time were drawn from testing results for bolted connections. This is common in engineering as the essential physical laws concerning force and motion, primarily Newtonian physics, are symmetrical. However, nothing ever beats a direct test for a specific condition as the results end with an emphatic exclamation point. In the past five or six years testing has at last been carried out for a number of the most common pegged joinery conditions and the results have been published. The impetus for this revision was in large part to update and to include these new testing results so that the readers would be privy to the latest engineering results available for timber frame joinery. Along the way, over 150 new photos and drawings were added and editorial additions were made to clarify specific conditions, or to more fully explain a critical aspect of timber framing. While the essential book is the same, virtually every element is expanded in some way to paint a more vibrant picture of the technical aspects of how to build a traditional timber frame. In addition, there is an expanded element of color and nuance to help the reader more fully understand the magic of timber framing... and that timber framing really is the Jazz of building. Illustrated with over 500 photos and CAD drawings.

Genres: Woodwork, Construction, Architecture

252 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, practical guide to timber framing that's a bit too unstructured to actually be used as a practical guide: Chappell changes his mind about whether he actually wants his readers to frame their own buildings a few times throughout the book. Still, he clearly did set out to write The Only Book You'll Ever Need on timber framing, going so far as to include dozens of tables of numbers and formulae, only some of which are clearly bullshit; he just doesn't want you to use them, you should consult a licensed engineer instead.
But you could if you wanted to.
Just don't.

(I'm going to.)

[Chris Bolton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine book with good illustrations of the joinery required to make a timber framed building. A little disjointed in trying to be all things to all situations. This is however one of the better books in the field.
I refer to it often