The Timber Framer Building Barns Without a Single Blueprint
Jack Sobon, a timber framer based in Windsor, Massachusetts, has raised over two hundred structures using traditional methods predating architectural drawing. His barns, houses, and workshops are designed through proportional geometry, laid out full-scale on the timber itself, and assembled without blueprints, working from material and deep understanding of structural principles.
The traditional method, called scribe rule, involves fitting each joint individually to account for natural irregularity of hand-hewn timbers. Unlike modern square rule where timbers are milled to uniform dimensions, scribe rule acknowledges every timber is unique and adjusts joinery accordingly.
Layout begins on the framing floor where timbers are arranged in structural relationships and joints scribed directly from one timber to its mating partner. This ensures precision of fit standardised methods cannot achieve with irregular timbers, because each joint is tailored to the actual dimensions.
Layout begins on the framing floor where timbers are arranged in their structural relationships and joints are scribed, meaning they are marked directly from one timber to its mating partner using compass and straightedge. This ensures a precision of fit that standardised methods cannot achieve with irregular timbers, because each joint is tailored to the actual dimensions of the two specific timbers it connects.
The timbers are hewn from logs with a broadaxe, producing a surface with distinctive facets that is both aesthetically appealing and structurally sound. The axe follows wood's natural grain rather than cutting through it as a sawmill does, preserving continuous fibres for maximum strength.
The timbers themselves are hewn from logs with a broadaxe, a wide-bladed axe used to flatten round logs into rectangular beams. Hewing produces a surface with a distinctive texture of shallow facets that is both aesthetically appealing and structurally sound, because the axe follows the wood's natural grain rather than cutting through it as a sawmill blade inevitably does. Learn more at https://www.jacksobon.com
