Mentioned a while back about slide rules and Amish folks...thought of that in my 4 AM wanderings of my mind...how did folks measure as tightly as they did for post and beam construction 150 years ago?? We had chains, as surveyors, but what did your average carpenter have, I know it wasn't a nice 33' Lufkin and a chain saw like I built my house with. OH YEAH, the football game is on, how come so many folks are on line?
Get the frame square with ropes, then cut every piece a little long. After you hold it up to where it goes, mark it for final cutting.
Just a guess, I know nothing about carpentry.
🙂
Thanks for the reply, but that is what made me wonder...I once helped to put up a 12" /12" by I think 30' long beam in a log home, being built by a modern time surveyor...with tight dimensions, there was to be no," hold it up and measure and then cut". It was all that 8 of us young heros could hold up and put in place, with pre-cut everything!!! I think maybe they must have had some kind of gin-poles, and maybe critters for help...maybe it was as simple as marking a rope, for rafter 1, and another for beam 2, don't know...but I have measured up the perimeter of some old barns, and when you add them through, they close better than modern houses!!! I see there are only 23 viewers now, very sad...the only thing good is the poor millionaires are having to put up with some cold weather....wonder how many in the stands are unemployed???
Not sure I understand the question. They have had measuring devices, tapes, carpenter square, etc., for centuries. The last building me and a buddy built was square within about 1/32" and perfectly level for all intents. All we used was 2 25' tapes, a carpenter framing square and a 4' level.
Carpentry is mostly about ratios, angles and straight lines. Basically, just simple 6th grade geometry except on a bigger scale.
If you are talking about ship hull building (shipwright), that's an entirely different matter.
BRE... 'Cos NO engineers or architects were involved....
RADU
I have an some old book set in New England, and part of one of the stories is building a barn. I can't remember the exact details, but they basically cut some light poles to use as measuring sticks and often dimensions were multiples of other dimensions. There pole might be say 10' long, then they could use multiples of that for different dimensions. 60 foot long, 40 foot wide, 20 foot high, etc.
Thanks for that link Rich!! Mr. Sloane was prolific, with 38 books, and 15,000 paintings. I plan to look into his books, because I love old barns, wooden bridges and weather. Turns out he started the first "weather broadcast"...Thanks again!
You are fooling yourself if you think it was that close.
My father (a surveyor) started building his house in the manner you describe. It would be perfect one day, then the wood would swell, or shrink and it would be off. It was a battle until he gave up and learned to be a carpenter. JRL
