Preservation Timber Framing

Traditional repair of timber-framed barns, homes, churches and steeples

Author: Jessica MilNeil

O’Kane Notebook X: Guest Writer Chappy Cox

A Window Apart, photo by Brian Cox

Brian Cox is managing the removal and inventory of the O’Kane windows, and he sends us the following report:

As the O’Kane house continues to be examined, documented, and carefully disassembled, the windows in the ell have begun to be removed. They were previously photographed, measured, and assigned an alpha-numeric designation consistent with other elements.

Window Disassembly sheet

There are thirteen windows in the one-story ell. Of these, ten are nine-over-six, double-hung sash. The rails and stiles are of a mortise-and-tenon joinery construction, with these joints being secured with pegs. The sash has and plain, or flush, meeting rail and the lower, moveable/operable sash has a lock on the stile. The muntin joinery varies, sometimes the vertical elements run long, from rail to rail, other times the horizontal muntins run long, from stile to stile. Each variation has been noted in a window disassembly sheet (above).

Wrought Nails in Jamb, photo by Brian Cox

The jambs of the windows are held together using half-lap joinery in conjunction with wrought nails. One detail worth noting is the construction of the jambs and sill.

Jamb and Sill Joinery, photo by Brian Cox

The sill and jamb create a “rabbet/cog”, where the jamb has a portion of the wood removed, allowing the sheathing to be captured by the jamb and sill. The sills measure 2”x3” at the long point. This supports a casing made of flat stock with an applied backband detail. This detail varies slightly in that on the “B” wall it is of one piece. On the “D” wall, the top profile of the backband is separate. On top of this element is a wooden flashing detail, shaped like an “L” in profile, which the clapboard overlaps.

Stud markings on sheathing, photo by Brian Cox

The windows were fastened through the casing only; there were no fasteners through the jambs going into the studs. Each window had approximately one dozen wrought nails holding it in place. The windows were removed by carefully using a pry bar to loosen the casing nails, tilting the entire window frame out of the rough opening and then lifting the frame off of the sheathing. The sheathing has a weather joint and the joints have less than a ¼” gap between adjoining sheathing boards; in many cases, the gap is much smaller. The sheathing has an etched marking where the vertical casing elements exist and a series of “x” marks are visible, noting the locations of the studs.

More on sheathing in an upcoming post…

July 2, 2012
O’Kane Notebook IX: Down, Cape, DOWN!

Dave, Jim, Scott and Andrew, dismantling rafters, with Pete represented by the lull forks

Over the past month, an injection of new blood has invigorated the dismantling process. Not only have we three new Maine Preservation interns; Dave Ewing, Andrew Cushing and Noah Kerr, but Jim and Kendra, two clutch workers, to boot. Brian Cox has been on site, managing the inventorying and dismantling of the windows (stay tuned for his upcoming window article) and Pete Dellea has been working his lull magic. The eager crew dismantled the entire cape ell one full week ahead of schedule. We can only hope that the rain stays away, and the house comes down as smoothly.

The Neat Stuff Update:

Dragon Spikes!

Dragon Spike

These spikes were used to pin the main house and ell frames together. There were seven spikes in all, one in a rafter, one in the front gable tie, and five distributed between a corner post and a beefy stud.

Scott and Dave, Vanquishing the Dragon Spike

Using levers, and some brute force, the rafter, post and stud were able to be pried, preserving master smithery. The spike that did need cutting was in the gable tie beam, which needed to be lifted straight up, and could not be pried out. It took six sawzall blades, ground to nubs, to cut through that unlucky nail.

Half Doves!

Tie Beam to Plate Joinery

For those non-timber-framers out there, a half dovetail is just like the first dovetail in a drawer, with one straight side, and one slanted one. The geometry that a drawer-dovetail employs in order to resist the outward pull of the drawer front is the same geometry that is used in buildings; the half dovetail in a tie beam is resisting the outward thrust created by rafters.

Half dovetailed tie beam (with trunnel hole) and two adjacent joists

In most English barns, only the tie beams have a half-dovetail joint on the end, and the attic joists half-lap over the plate.

Attic Joists, Upside Up and Upside Down, photo by Noah Kerr

In this building, every one of the attic joists had a half-dovetail joint, which helps to explain why these buildings stayed so square and straight for more than 200 years.

Teasel tenons!

Post hacked back, revealing mortise and pin that used to hold teasel tenon

In an English tie joint, the tie beam cogs over the plate with the aforementioned half dove. The tie beam is also connected to the post directly below it, by means of a teasel tenon. The confluence of so much joinery at the top of one post, i.e. tenon into plate AND tenon into tie beam, results in most posts flaring at the top, to as much as 11 1/2 inches in the case of the O’Kane house.

Two Mortises, One Plate, photo by Noah Kerr

One tenon runs parallel with the eave of the house, and inserts into a mortise in the plate, (pictured directly above), and the other tenon runs perpendicular to the plate, parallel to the tie beam, and extends from the interior plane of the flared post. This tenon inserts into a mortise on the underside of the tie beam. If that’s difficult to imagine, a few of the posts in the O’Kane ell were shaved back, revealing the innards of teasel tenon joinery (previous photo, above).

Interns!

Andrew and Kendra, preserving wrought nails

We are fortunate to have been blessed with so many terrific Maine Preservation interns, as well as interns from North Bennett Street School and other interns with an unaffiliated, but unabashed interest in preservation. They are always eager to learn and participate, as well as share their varied knowledge and experiences. Thanks to interns past and present for your indelible contributions.

Please peruse the slideshow below for more photos of our process:

June 29, 2012
O’Kane Notebook VIII: Joinery, Exposed!

Room 101 (The Pink Parlor), Wall D, Photo by John Butler

On Friday, Scott finished removing the trim from the Pink Parlor, pictured above. I had eagerly anticipated the joinery surrounding the fireplace, given our recent work on another fireplace surround. The displaced surround, turned upside-down, is below:

Pink Parlor Surround Turned Upside Down

When I think about the era in which this house was built, in a relatively new country, with newly earned independence, it can feel very foreign to me. I struggle to understand the mindset of these post-colonial carpenters. But when I see the joinery detail below, and a fireplace surround constructed nearly the same way I’d construct it today, I feel much closer and more connected with our region’s history. I realize that we are still a young country, and in the context of the rest of the world, this is a pretty young house. The importance of preservation is emphasized not simply because the house is “old,” but because so much hard work went into constructing it.

Mid Rail and Stile Joinery

Oh, and the stiles were buried deep, just like in the Blue Room.

Buried Stile

For more photos of last week’s progress, click on the slideshow, below:

May 17, 2012
O’Kane Notebook VII: the Pink Parlor

Dan and Pete washing the Pink Parlor floor

On Tuesday, Dan was removing southern yellow pine flooring in a room we’ve dubbed “the Pink Parlor.” As an earlier layer of flooring was uncovered, he detected beneath the scrim of sand and dust a pattern in the mottled finish. A little washing revealed a fine stenciling.

Stenciling Detail

Scott had also been working on dismantling the Pink Parlor, and discovered some craftsmanship that has made me re-think a hasty declaration about the best way to field panels

Fielded Wall Panel

The crisp beveled edges of these raised panels are beautiful. It’s hard to believe that this was the back face, appreciated by the carpenter alone. Large panels need to have a certain amount of thickness for stability, but their edges must be narrow in order to fit into a groove that runs along the inner edges of the stiles and rails. At O’Kane, we have discovered a variety of techniques for relieving that edge, each one more impressive than the last.

Wall Panel Detail

When we were first assessing the room, and removing the plaster, many of us thought that the wall beneath the chair rail was finished in plaster, because the wall section was so wide, and smooth. In our day and age, it is hard to believe that a 24 inch, 17 foot wall section could be composed of a single, clear board, but in this building’s day and age, that was entirely possible.

Scott removing nails from wainscot panel

The wainscot that Scott removed was 24 1/2 inches wide, tightly grained, and completely free of knots and defects. Lain upon the horses, in the strafing light, the scallops left by the joiner’s plane were obvious.

Wainscot Panels

This is a limited selection of what we’ve revealed in the past week. For more, see the slideshow below:

May 11, 2012
O’Kane Notebook VI: The Nuts and Bolts of No Nuts and Bolts

Wall 105.A, Outlined. Photo by John Butler

This is post about a persnickety process:

After a piece of trim is removed from an O’Kane wall, it is taken over to a photograph of that wall and traced with a fine tip marker. The dis-assembler then writes a description of the piece on the item list for that wall and assigns it an item number. The room number, wall letter and item number are written on a piece of masking tape, which is affixed to the upper left, backhand corner of the piece. The piece is carefully de-nailed, and then a final “acquisition” number is etched into a patch of white shellac using a Dremel tool. The piece is wrapped in shrink wrap with his cohorts, and tightly stacked in an assiduously organized, and mapped trailer. I have just finished re-tracing all the photographs of those walls which have been completely denuded. The results, below:

May 5, 2012
O’Kane Notebook V: Pulvinated Panels!

Blue Parlor Fireplace, photo by John Butler

Before it was dismantled, the fireplace in O’Kane’s Blue Parlor got a lot of attention. It is a simple-looking surround, with a single large panel above and an applied mantle, but it’s a good representation of the vernacular style from its era. Aside from a little bit of backband added in a Greek Revival-era renovation, the surround was intact, and allowed a visitor to feel transported in time. While I found the piece pleasing aesthetically, I didn’t fully appreciate the workmanship until it was dismantled, revealing another chapter in the story of this building.

After Scott removed the adjacent paneling, and had cut or pulled the wrought nails attaching it to the wooden lintels, we realized that removing the surround wouldn’t be so easy. The stiles on either side of the panel and fireplace opening extended past the first layer of brick, but we could never have guessed just how deeply. After removing a piece of subfloor and digging into crumbled clay mortar, we found that the stiles extended below the surface of the subfloor by 8 inches. Eight Inches!

We haven’t found anything like this elsewhere in the building, and, based on the adjacent wall paneling, which went no deeper than the first layer of flooring, there is no reason to think that the original floor was eight inches lower. My theory is this: while the frame was being fit, joiners were cutting this and the other frame & panel walls (joinery shots, below). As soon as the frame was erected and sheathed, joiners installed this surround first so that this hearth could warm and feed the carpenters as they finished the rest of the house.

After digging out the stiles, we carefully laid the surround onto a specialized piece of preservation equipment called a Trash Can, and then we discovered something AWESOME.

A Pulvinated Panel! I have a thing for pulvinated, or “breasted” panels (would an analyst draw some connection between my interest and being a woman in a male-dominated field?) I have loved them ever since I first encountered them at Hancock Shaker Village on a NBSS class trip. At Hancock, the technique is seen on the front of the panel, and elsewhere, it seems to refer largely to friezes. I just think it is The Number One Most Elegant Way to field a panel, and ought to be used more often, and visibly. It is appealing to me how present the crafts-person is in this method of shaping a panel. The curve is shaped by his eye and hand, rather than a combination square. To me, the process is nearer to the construction of a chair than that of the austere wall panel.

Pulvinated Panel at Hancock Shaker Village

Given that the back of the panel we found was mostly rough, and totally invisible, the gently curved backside was not really where this crafts-person showed his stuff. That was in the triple stub tenon we found in the wide bottom rail, and the double tenon up top. The joinery involved is partly what leads us to believe that the surround may have been made ahead of time, off-site.

To see more photos of our process click on the slideshow, below

May 2, 2012
O’Kane Notebook IV: The Ghost Pantry

Blue Parlor Wall, Dismantled. Photo by John Butler

One of the first treasures we uncovered at O’Kane was a wall of horizontal featheredge sheathing painted in bright yellow. It was hidden behind plaster in the Blue Parlor, and had shadow lines delineating where once there were shelves. Where the boards terminate, on the left side, we think there was originally a wall, creating three rooms in the back half of the house. Two smaller rooms flanked the Blue Parlor with its large central hearth. The yellow paneling probably turned the corner, creating a pantry in what was originally the kitchen, given the large fireplace. Throughout the house, we have continued to find boards and shards in the same chrome yellow, used as padding and strapping. This helps to the date those walls, and solve the mystery of the house’s original layout.

Pictured above is the paneled wall that we uncovered in the room directly above the Blue Parlor. The right portion of the paneled wall is original, and you can make out the hinges from the original door opening on the second panel from the right. The door opening was filled with one wide, nondescript board and a board with the same chrome yellow paint and shadow lines. During one period of renovation, this yellow pantry board was probably taken from the partition wall downstairs and installed upstairs to create what became a UNH student’s bedroom.

We have found other pieces of this doorway elsewhere in that upstairs bedroom. In the closet, the head casing was being used as a shelf cleat, allowing us to determine the width of the original door. Time and again during the dismantling process, we are reminded to be thankful for that Yankee thrift.

May 1, 2012
O’Kane Notebook III: Making Wedges

We’ve been using softwood wedges, made from 2x stock, to carefully remove delicate moldings and wide wall panels. Either the wedges loosen the nails completely, or they provide use with enough room to slip a sawblade behind to cut the nail. Like ziploc tupperware, they can be reused, but eventually the edges get grungy, and need to be thrown away. Using a sled on the tablesaw, I can safely make buckets of fine, sharp wedges.

Some of the wedge templates are pictured above. The larger wedges, 15″ x 1 1/2″, and 12″ x 1″, are used for flooring , and wide wall panels. Smaller wedges in 5″, 7″ and 9″ by 1/2″ sizes help with smaller, more delicate moldings.

This is a photo of the template after it has been screwed to the tablesaw sled. I added a fence (pine, left) whose top is co-planar with the top of the stock to be ripped (pine, right). Then I screw a cap onto the fence which covers the stock and holds it down as it is pushed through the blade. This allows me to cut the wedge safely, my fingers far from the blade. The sled is then retracted, the wedge popped out from beneath the cap, and the next blank squeezed in.

Jig with the cap screwed in place, above.

Profile view of jig, devoid of stock.

I know that some people use a bandsaw to make wedges. That method has the benefit of a thinner kerf and less waste, but for us, this method was safe, speedy and accurate.

April 25, 2012
Freedom (Mill)! You’ve Gotta Give for What You Take

PTF has recently embarked upon a worthy away job to preserve a mill in Freedom, ME. Originally a grist mill, it was later converted into a wood turning mill, which closed in 1967. The building has lain dormant since. When the project is completed, the water turbines in the basement of the mill will generate electricity. Those of us yet to visit are eager to see the building and its progress, Ed Bell was happy to oblige. See his photos, below:

April 18, 2012
O’Kane Notebook II: Post-colonial Builder Stoked on Sweet, New Plane

Over the past week, we have been using up our supply of softwood wedges at the O’Kane House. In the effort to gently remove the delicate, hand-planed moldings, we tap narrow wedges in along the paint lines, crushing the wedges with repeated use (and saving the edges of the trim). It is a slow, thoughtful process and along the way, we speculate about what the original carpenters of 1790 might have been thinking.

There is strong evidence that the trim carpenter who finished the front hall and the upstairs bedrooms was thinking, “OMG, Can’t get enuf of this sweet, new reeding plane!” The pattern of five 3/16 inch half round “reeds” is used to create a variety of decorations around the room. So far, all of this molding has been hung with wrought nails. The accordian lath behind it was hung with a combination of cut and wrought nails. This was typical for the time period, according to A Building History of Northern New England, by James Garvin. Cut nails broke more, but were less expensive to make, so a few wrought nails were used to hold the lath in place, and then the field was filled in with cut nails. It makes sense to me that the carpenter wouldn’t risk breaking a cut nail as he hung his precious, hand-milled moldings. It was worth it to stick with the more trusted technology, the wrought nail.

He used it in multiple runs adjacent one another to adorn the echinus of the pilasters next to the front door.

And he ran multiple passes on one 6 or 7 inch board that he then cut on the diagonal and reassembled to dress up the simple fireplace surround.

We get sort of excited when we see mistakes like this one. When we turned the board over, we saw the knot that caused the plane to go off-track. I like to imagine commiserating with the post-colonial carpenter around the horse trough. It’s evidence like this that will remind the client that he lives in a wholly handmade house. There are some moldings that we may have to reproduce, and for short sections, it is easier to do by hand. If anyone out there has seen a plane like this one, please let us know.

For more photos on the process, check out the photos below, updated regularly with our daily finds.

April 3, 2012

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