Engineering:List of timber framing tools

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Illustration of carpentry (charpente) in the French Encyclopédie showing hewing, mortising, pit sawing on trestles. Tools include dividers, axes, chisel and mallet, beam cart, pit saw, trestles, and bisaigue . The men talking may be holding a story pole and rule (or walking cane). Shear legs are hoisting a timber. Below, the sticks on the log are winding sticks used to align the ends of a timber.

Tools used in traditional timber framing date back thousands of years. Similar tools are used in many cultures, but the shapes vary and some are pulled rather than pushed.

Gallery

  • A folding type of race knife

  • Race knife capable of making circles.(ritsmes en ritspasser met uitgeklapt). Image:Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands

  • Hand boring machine (Carpentry and Joinery magazine, 1925)

  • A type of mortising chisel called in German a Stossaxt (Stoßaxt) or stichaxt. No wooden handle is inserted in the head, the metal head itself is the tools grip.

  • A chain mortiser.

  • Draw-bore pins (hook pins) are the metal pins sticking out of the plank above the plank being added to the USS Constitution during restoration.

  • A hook pin or draw-bore pin

Preparing timbers

  • Conversion of logs into timbers was often done by someone other than the timber framer including a lumberjack, sawyer, farmer, or laborer using a variety of tools including:
  • Historically most timbers were used green but some went through a process of wood drying using some tools and equipment.

Marking and measuring tools

  • A Japanese ink line called a Sumitsubo. Miki City Hardware Museum, Japan. 10s3200

  • Winding sticks are used to measure twist (winding) by viewing across one stick and comparing how parallel the other stick is.

Tools for marking out and measuring:

  • A rule, now better known as a ruler and similar to a yard stick, is used to measure.
  • Repeated measurements often use a storey pole
  • Carpenter's marks were made with a race knife, chisel, gouge, saw, grease pencil, chalk pencil, or lead pencil.
  • Chalk line or ink line used to snap lines on the wood. Ink and a slurry of charcoal were used like chalk.
  • Carpenter pencil
  • Scratch awl or similar tools were used to scratch lines on wood before the pencil was commonly used beginning in the 19th century in the U.S.
  • Try square
  • Steel square is also known as a framing square. Historically a square with measurement markings on it was known as a "square rule" which is also a layout method.
  • Combination square
  • A Plumb-bob on a string is sometimes used with a plumb-rule or plumb-square to measure vertical or horizontal and to transfer marks between timbers while scribing.
  • Spirit level
  • Dividers Used in measuring and proportioning
  • Layout floor - a large, flat surface to mark lines and scribe timbers.

Hand powered cutting tools

  • Saw
    • Crosscut saws to cut timbers to length and in making joints.
    • Japanese saws are special saws used in woodworking including timber framing
  • Axes were sometimes used to cut timbers to length and in joinery.
  • Hatchet
  • Adzes are of many shapes and names.
  • Framing Chisels are heavy duty. In Western carpentry common sizes are 1 1/2 and 2 inches wide. They are designed to be struck with a mallet
  • A slick is a very large chisel designed to be pushed by hand, not struck.
  • drills for boring holes in timber framing were typically T-auger. The cutting edge of the bit can be of many shapes, the spiral auger being the standard shape since the 19th century.
  • Timber framers boring machines were invented by 1830 and hold an auger bit. They made mortising easier and faster.
  • Draw knives are used to chamfer edges of beams and shape pegs (treenails)
  • Sometimes, particularly in wooden bridge building the pegs were shaped by being driven through a hole in a heavy piece metal.
  • Historically timbers meant to be seen in houses were smoothed with a hand plane (Japanese plane including what is called a spear plane, yariganna or yari-kanna) and decorated with a chamfer or bead.
  • Twybil The name literally "two blades", historically rare in the U.S.
  • Bisaigue A French tool with similarities to a long handled twybill

Powered cutting tools

  • Circular saw
  • Drill
  • Band saw
  • Router (woodworking)
  • Power planers
    • One or two sided stationary rotary, thickness planers in a shop and up to a four-sided planer (timber sizer) at a mill.
    • Hand held rotary power planers up to twelve inches wide.
  • Chain mortiser
  • A few modern framers use computer numerical control (CNC) machines to cut joinery.
  • Chain saw

Splitting tools

A Froe is struck with a mallet to split blocks of wood into rough sizes for making pegs. Large and long timbers are split (riven) with wedges

Holding tools

  • Shaving horse may be used in making pegs
  • Draw-bore pins temporarily hold a frame together during construction.
  • Iron dogs or log dogs are used to hold timers during hewing, scribing or historically to repair or reinforce a joint
  • Sawhorses, short sawhorses are called ponies.

Material handling tools and equipment

  • Gin pole or shear legs may be used in lifting wall sections or timbers.
  • Pike pole used to push wall sections up during a barn raising
  • Rope is used to lift or pull objects, sometimes in combination with a windlass, bullwheel, or block and tackle.
  • Cranes are sometimes used to lift assemblies and materials.
  • Commander or beetel is a large, long handled mallet for forcing timbers together or apart.
  • Rollers, carts, or other lifting equipment are used to move the heavy timbers

Tool maintenance

Tools require sharpening and replacing handles.

  • file (tool)
  • sharpening stone
  • Grindstone (tool)
  • hiring a blacksmith
  • mechanics tools for general repairs such as repairing power cords, changing bits, etc.

Access

Safety

External links



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