Catching up: Frame Raising

Feb 11th, 2006 40 degrees and rainy ... what a perfect day for a traditional frame raising. It was sunny for the week before and late the night before it started raining and raining. Not the heavy stuff but more of the continuous mist. Bone chilling.

We sent out and evite to all of our family and friends. Over 100 people RSVPd. I guess this was an odd enough of an event that people wanted to see it. Two musical groups were there (Celtic violin and bluegrass). It was like planning for a wedding without the bride and groom.


About 35 people ended up showing up for Saturday. It was most of the people who were there to work and not to watch. Our minimum we thought we needed was 25 or so.

After some confusion as far as what to do first (Side note: the morning of the raising I realized that I had never even been inside a real timber frame structure). We had read all of the main books on the topic (about 4 or 5) multiple times and our good friend Daryl, who attended a week long seminar on timber framing was there.

The first bent went up around 9:30 or 10 am and the other 4 after that. We were able to get the main structure up by the end of the day and about 8 of us placed the purlins.

Scott S. a new friend that I met on the Forestry Forum came by with his tool (JLG Man Lift) which helped with placing the purlins and getting the great camera shots that Jack took. He is preparing a DVD of the event.


Fast forward now 6 weeks and the roof is going on and we are dried in.