Tony Grassi, owner of the Mill at Freedom Falls, will be discussing its rehabilitation with Jennifer Rooks on MPBN’s Maine Watch this week. The show airs Thursday, December 13 at 8 pm, Friday at 9 pm and Sunday at 5 pm. It will also be on the radio on Friday at 12:30 pm. Read more about our participation in the project here, but Grassi’s blog has better photos, so check it out!
On Wednesday, the crew down at iFarm raised a new timber-framed kitchen ell. The modified English frame is based closely on joinery found in the late-18th century house. We based the size and location of the addition on evidence found in the house frame of an original, and now demolished, ell. Like the house frame, the reproduction ell is constructed of White Oak and Eastern White Pine, in addition to Spruce, a species dictated by engineering requirements. We worked with structural engineer Joe Fix, and architect Ben Nutter, as well as Howell Custom Builders, to build an historically accurate, traditionally-joined frame that met all Massachusetts building codes and regulations. Click on the slideshow below for more information:
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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:
Built by Elias Carter in 1821, the Acworth Meetinghouse, with its double lantern spire, is a masterful representation of historic building craft. But by 2008, the building was in desperate need of repair. PTF was called in to give an estimate, but Acworth, NH is far, and endowed already with a number of seasoned carpenters. Arron, along with members of the Acworth Meetinghouse Restoration Project, developed a model by which the Acworth meetinghouse was repaired by local craftspeople who were trained and supervised by PTF in techniques unique to steeple repair, and timber framing. Last month, at the National Preservation conference in Buffalo, New York, the Acworth Meetinghouse Restoration Project was awarded a Preservation Honor Award. Read more about the award here. Now, the Acworth Meetinghouse serves not only as an example of New England’s architectural history, but as an example of how preservation creates jobs, expands skills, and builds community.
On Friday we erected the Ice House, c. 1770. This small, 10′ x 13′, frame is an exact replica of the larger barn to which it was found adjacent. The Ice House had been fully sheathed inside and out, and the wall cavities filled with sawdust, for insulation. It is extremely rare to find an extant ice house frame, and we were honored to work on it.
The repairs were first initiated a few years ago, and the frame’s small size allowed its transport to a number of preservation conferences and its use in a semester’s long workshop with high school students. While the Ice House was an incredible teaching tool, its age and significance prompt us to start looking for a good, final home.
The final repairs were made with the help of two of this year’s Maine Preservation interns, Callie Douglass, and Matt Corbett.
We began by assembling the deck inside the shop. The frame required new sills, one of which was cut from a hewn sleeper reclaimed from the Damariscotta Steeple. We filled in the deck with log joists from a frame that was not able to be salvaged.*
Callie has experience with new timber frames, and was eager to learn how to preserve old ones. Her first repair was an under-squinted scarf joint in one of the original 7′ posts. When she was finished with her scarf, she hewed down the fix to match the old material. This was the first time Callie had used an adze, but Arron helpfully counseled, “It’s just like golf, Callie, all about the follow through.” Which may be the only apt analogy between timber framing and golf. Despite her lack of experience, golfing and otherwise, Callie found she really had a knack for hewing.
Because of the age of this building, we were repairing, rather than replacing, almost all of the studs, and Matt Corbett performed many of these repairs. In addition to his historic preservation education, Matt had an undergraduate background in sculpture, so he was acquainted with some of the power tools in our shop. In the process of repairing the stud feet, however, he most enjoyed the precision of hand tools, and took a shine to hand planing.
After the fixes were complete, we were hoping that the test assembly in the shop would go smoothly. The “Front Eave” plate fit nicely, with a parade of matching marriage marks down the posts, studs and braces. The gable tie beams dropped on and stiffened the entire frame. When we went to drop on the middle tie, however, we noticed that the half dovetail pocket was facing the wrong direction. A half dovetail is a beautiful joint that allows the tie beam to hold the top of the wall in place, preventing it from spreading with the weight of the rafters. We were mystified that the Front Eave plate, as labeled by its tag, fit so well, even though the wide part of the dovetail mortise was facing the interior of the building. The dovetail on the middle tie beam was no help, because the tenon that connected to this plate was so deteriorated that it no longer had a sloped shoulder. Matt suggested that maybe the original builders had made a mistake, but we shushed him out of reverence for the old timers.
We took the frame apart, and tried turning the plate end for end, with the dovetail mortise oriented correctly, but nothing fit. So we switched the plates, thinking that they had been labeled wrong, and there we found our answer. With the plate on the opposite wall, the joints still didn’t fit, but sunlight streamed in from the upper windows and illuminated our joinery. We could see a distinct shadow line from the shoulder of the tie beam on what should have been the exterior of the plate. The old timers who built it had made a mistake (and made the Ice House today all the more interesting in the process). They reversed the dovetail mortise on one plate and then reduced the tie beam tenon on that end to fit. So we re-assembled the frame the way it was originally built, and the middle tie slipped easily into place, locking up the frame. A pretty parade of matching marriage marks left no one the wiser.
Click on the photos below to see the marriage marks, Matt’s tie beam fix, and more information about our process, and parts and pieces.
*At PTF, we try to avoid Frankenstein frames, but believe there are cases where reuse of certain rare pieces is appropriate (and better than sending them to a burn pile).
A few months back, we disassembled a barn in Lebanon, Maine. Since then, we took the pieces back to the shop, repaired what we could, and re-designed the rest. This Spring, we assembled the frame using original and remade pieces, and Shawn and his crew have been busy hanging the cornice.
For more photos, explore our Flickr album.
During the past few months, Ed has been busy at the shop cutting a reproduction barn frame for a client. The original barn fell in a Nor’Easter, and we salvaged as much as we could. We will re-use much of the bracing, an upper gable, and a front gable drive post that has a large slot through which the front door will slide. Click on the photos below for more information:
The most interesting part of working on the Abyssinian has been the process of discovery. When we first started working on the restoration, we encountered dank apartments and the absence of much of the original truss framing. There was little architectural documentation of the building at the height of its use, except for a turn-of-the century sketch from an old member’s memory. But as we’ve carefully removed the latest additions, we’ve discovered telling clues. When we removed the 1920s plaster and lath, we found the original rough window openings, cut into the adjacent posts and studs. Likewise, when we removed the vinyl and aluminum siding, and shingles from the front gable, we found evidence of the original trim elements. The following is first part of a series about how we determined the trim details for the restored front facade.
CROWN TOWN
After we removed most of the aluminum siding that covered the trim, and found nothing, we lost hope that we would find evidence of the original crown. We began researching similar buildings in Portland, like Mariner’s Church (1828) and the Fire Museum, in order to make an educated guess. We debated between profiles like a Cyma Recta, or an elongated Cavetto which would have made sense given the building’s Greek Revival silhouette. But when we began the roofing phase, and finished removing the aluminum, we found the ten-foot long section of the crown pictured here. It had typical Federal profile which is appropriate for 1828, at the transition between Federal and Greek Revival styles.
The only remaining section of original crown was found along the rake, the sloped edge of the roof, and this generated a new mystery. Traditionally, in order for eave crown and raking crown to have the same projection from the building, the molding profile of the raking crown will need be stretched, so that the raking and eave crowns will meet evenly at the corner of the building. Two separate molding planes (or knives) were required to create these two separate profiles. Using a slice of the original raking crown molding, and pitch of the roof, we calculated what the eave molding would have had to look like. The resulting molding profile was squished, the convex portion looking like a crown roll of fat.
Another solution to the eave/rake crown problem is to allow the raking crown to have a shallower projection, or stand up a little bit more, while the eave crown juts farther out. Then, the crowns will match at the corners, but the carpenter only needs to cut different backing angles on the rake and eave crowns. This allows a carpenter to use the same molding cutters, and many do this today. Given the chubby eave profile calculated from the crown we found on the rake, we surmise that the original carpenters employed this second option.
BED DOWN
Is this just another boring photo of nail holes? Oh no, it isn’t! This photo was taken at the underside of the soffit, along the rake. The ruler measures the distance of a line of nail holes that runs parallel to the rake. The nail hole at 2 1/2 inches indicates how far beneath the soffit the bed molding was nailed.
The second photo shows how we used paint lines to determine how far the bed molding projected from the face of the building, 3 1/8 inches. Combined with the nail holes running beneath the soffit, we were able to guess the projections and angle of the bed molding. The crown molding profile found on the rake fit these measurements and we guess that the original carpenters not only used the same molding profile for rake and eave crown, they also used it for the bed molding between the flush siding and soffit. Absent evidence of some other molding profile, re-using the crown profile was our best guess.
Coming up: In The City of P, we discover flashing holes that outline a tripartite arch in the Tympanum.
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