Barrett Farm Restoration 2007- Cont'd
We used the old English Scribe
method for re-building the north wall of the Barrett house. Scribe rule allows the
use of curved and irregular (hewn) timber to create tight mortise and tenon joinery. Each piece is marked and cut for its mortise so it can't be
interchanged. We use all hand tools for joinery including antique
hand-cranked boring machines for drilling mortises, chisels for cleaning and
shaping, a froe for peg stock, and a shavehorse for cutting pegs.
Traditional joinery was used to repair
the rotten post bottom sections and an adze to shape the ends of floor
joists. The old virgin white oak posts found in the kitchen pre-date the
1705 Barrett House building based on the joinery evidence and the use
of chamfers on the edges. The project's architect, Rick Detweiller, believes
they were reused from a house built sometime in the mid to late 1600's.
We kept as much of the original posts as we could to preserve the evidence
of their use but the floor joists were all rotten.
