If you are thinking of taking up the art of timber framing, or post and beam construction, or mortise and tenon joinery, that's a great thing. Seriously, it's becoming more and more important and valuable as a skill and it's a great trade, too. But before you head off to the nearest Timber Framing Workshop, Apprenticeship or Intensive, here are my top five recommendations to you, for your consideration. Number One: What is your skill level? This is important because it ma

Last fall, we had two apprentices, Emma and Taylor, who wanted to work on a project, and had seen the plans someone had sent me for making beam horses. Sometimes, I've heard them called 'trestle ponies' or 'saw horses', and some people call them 'bunks' or 'cribbing'. Evidently, these things are called by a lot of different names. However, the point is, it's nice to have horses that you can put your beams on, and keep them at the right height, and work on cutting, sawing

It's been cold this winter. Really, really cold. And at the same time, we've been pretty much shut down as far as full scale framing right now, as the shop isn't insulated and it's tough to keep it warm enough to do a lot of work in there. However, we have a big year coming up. We have frames on the docket, and projects and apprentices coming for their three month apprenticeships. We'll have a lot of people in the shop, working on beams and pegs and all kinds of other