Right now we are in the middle of cutting the joinery for a nice big timber frame horse barn that we will be raising next month in the next county over.

I have always loved traditional barn architecture and this one is a beauty. We are using kiln dried douglas fir timbers that were resawn after drying to give them a fresh bandsawn surface. There are 503 timbers in this barn and there are over one hundred knee braces. I've been thinking lately about some of the nice old timber frame barns I've seen and studied and how maybe some day in a couple of hundred years some young carpenter will be climbing around on the tie beams, studying the tool marks and trying to figure out how we did it.

Spring timber framing is in full swing. We're working on some great projects right now including a couple of pool houses, a chapel, and a large octagonal pavilion for a municipality.

Here's a rendering of what's currently on the sawhorses.



Here are a few shots from the shop this morning:

The principal rafters all in a row. You can see the peak tenon and the strut mortise on the closest one.Here are the arched braces. The timbers are all western red cedar -- a durable and attractive wood that is good for smaller outdoor projects like this.




And here's Whit cleaning up the jack rafter half laps.

We'll be putting this one up next week which should be a lot of fun. Spring is definitely my favortie time of year for a timber frame raising.

Monroe, Georgia

Whit and Gabel Holder were recently accepted as certified journeyworkers in the newly started Timber Framers Guild Apprenticeship Program.
The Holder Bros. were selected by the TFG as part of the first thirty professional timber framers in the United States to receive the designation of journeyworker as recognized by the Federal Department of Labor in Washington, DC.
The program operates according to the National Standards of Apprenticeship developed by the TFG.
There are currently four apprentices enrolled in the program, and each apprentice must enroll and work under the supervision of a journeyworker.
Apprentice timber framers will spend three years of on the job training using the TFG training curriculum and complete 144 hours of related classroom training.
This program has been in development within the TFG for approximately ten years.

I'm starting to get my swing back finally.

Posted by Gabel.