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Timber Framing course at Lee Valley

I took a one-day Timber Framing course at Lee Valley a few weeks ago, in between my trips to Germany and England. I became interested in Timber Frame construction in 2002, but had since dismissed it as something that I would likely never get to take part in. The course has now led me to believe otherwise. The instructor, Mike Symons, a professional timber framer, was fantastic, and under his guidance I got to cut part of several common timber frame joints. We build a section of a wall something like 9' high by 10' wide, which will be part of a shed. The mortice/tennon and knee-brace connections below are somewhat like what we did.


The image is captured from Google Sketchup. If anyone reading this wants the file, I got it from a Sketchup file archive. Do a search for Level1Joinery.skp.

I can't stop thinking about what kind of project I can build. Even before my workshop is complete, I'm thinking about building a 12' x 16' garden shed.

The idea of putting an addition on the house has been with me since we moved in, and I think that Timber Frame might be really nice. I've started working on some shed plans using Sketchup, and thinking that building the exact frame that I would attach to the house, except smaller, would be a cool idea to practice. Below is a frame I designed on the plane to Germany, purely from memory, after re-reading Steve K. Chappell's "A Timber Framer's Workshop:" last week.



This is a frame I got from Sketchup repository. Search for radkey.skp. It's somewhat similar, so I think that I'm pretty close to the mark.