This course will be a survey of timber framing’s heritage world-wide, with specific emphasis on the influences on North American building styles and techniques. Although "timber framing" may be interpreted elsewhere in the world as any wooden framing method - including using small dimensional lumber - here we interpret it to be heavy timber connected with wooden joinery.

We will identify and describe the history and evolutionary progress of timber framing and joinery techniques and the key historic periods of development in timber framing style and form. We’ll examine the general types and forms of timber structures, including religious buildings, dwellings, barns, mills and bridges. We’ll learn how to determine the age of a building by examining details of it’s construction, including form, conversion method, joinery, tooling, fasteners and dendrochronology.

We’ll also discuss the historical development of hand tools, including augers, saws, axes and marking devices, and see how to determine a building’s age and the methods used to construct it by examining the tool marks.

This course meets requirements of the Timber Framers Guild Training Curriculum (Part 3: Historic Timber Framing), and an optional assessment will be offered after the course for those wishing to receive credit.

Instructor Jack Sobon is an architect, timber framer and author of Timber Frame Construction, Historic American Timber Joinery, and Build a Classic Timber Framed House.