Author Archive
Amusement Park Timber Framing
If you’ve visited Six Flags in New Jersey in the past couple of years, you probably haven’t had enough time to admire the phenomenal timbers that are located at the Camp Adventura load platform, or the store, or the Safari Station. It’s okay if you were distracted. I understand it’s […]
Timber Framing vs. Post and Beam Construction
Timber Framing vs Post and Beam Construction Something that is commonly confused is the difference between timber framing and post and beam construction. The major difference, really the only difference, is the type of joinery that is used. A timber framed building uses traditional joinery, like mortise and tenon, […]
Tools of the Timber Trade: The Wire Wheel
To finish the Tools of the Timber Trade series, I would like to visit one of the unsung heroes of timber fabrication, the Wire Wheel and Angled Grinder. Every tool that we have visited in the past couple of weeks is used to make the traditional joints that we cut […]
Tools of the Timber Trade: 16″ Circular Saw
Over the past couple weeks in our Tools of the Timber Trade blog series, we have traveled to the Chain Mortise world, we walked down the Maebiki Oga saw trail, and we sauntered through chisel land. Today we will navigate one of the big hitters; the 16″ circular saw, which […]
Tools of the Timber Trade: The Chisel
The chisel is one of the earliest created tools. Man (or some form of man) has been using tools for the past 2.6 million years, which, when taken at face value, were stones that were chipped/broken to create sharp edges. These tools were categorized by Mary Leakey, a British paleoanthropologist. […]
Tools of the Timber Trade: Maebiki Oga
Today our timber framing tool journey takes us to Japan where we will discuss the Maebiki Oga saw, or as the English call it “The Whale Back Saw”. Below you will see a photo of Dan Devine, our resident “Tool Guru” using his personal Oga saw. According to Amemiya-Daiku, a […]
Tools of the Timber Trade: Chain Mortiser
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be showing you some of the tools that are particular to the timber framing industry. One of the Vermont Timber Works pillars is that we hand cut all of our timber frames. This certainly isn’t the easiest way to fabricate, but it is […]
Timber Frame Project Start to Finish: Reclaimed Oak Timbers
As we continue our journey through the timber frame process, we will touch on several different projects, designs, specifications and materials. This time we will be focusing on the essence of timber framing, the timber. There are so many different qualifications of the timbers we use, the species: Douglas Fir, […]
Timber Frame Project Start to Finish: Boat House
One of my favorite parts of living in Vermont now, and New Hampshire growing up, are all of the lakes that we get to enjoy. You can throw a rock in any direction and find a body of water that I would love to spend the day fishing, kayaking, tubing, […]
Timber Frame Project Start to Finish: St. Andrew’s Church
Over the next several weeks I’ll be taking you through the timber framing process from start to finish, the way that Vermont Timber Works does it. These blogs should help give an idea of what goes into the design, materials, engineering, fabrication, and erection. I’m starting the series with St. […]
What’s a tree doing up there?
Have you ever been driving by a construction site and thought to yourself, “Why is there a tree on top of that building? It seems like a very odd time to be celebrating Christmas? Furthermore, why would they go through the trouble to get it up there, they’re just going […]
Power Tools
I recently had a gentleman ask me what brand of power tools we use the most. My immediate answer was Makita. Then I thought, well, maybe I should go into the shop and look. Sure enough, as I walk through the shop I see that almost all of our tools […]
