r/timberframe

last year i applied for the heritage carpentry program through fleming college and i was very excited and then when the ford gov made all the changes to osap, bunch of schools cut programs and that program was one of them.
i still really want to find a pathway to a proper apprencticeship but its been so hard to find.
i would very much like to focus on timber frame and also fine/ finish joinery etc.
any suggestions?

Hi folks - I finally have everything ready to start milling my white pine logs for the Will Beemer build. As I’m doing square rule layout - my initial thinking was I’d mill the beams oversized for instance the 7x7 would be 7.5x7.5. This seems the safest means for me to ensure that I get a final building that is the exact dimension I want.

I’m thinking about this correctly right? Just want to double check before I start milling.

Hey if anyone is going to be in the PNW this Saturday, Port Townsend is having a Japanese Woodworking Festival put on by the PT woodworking school. There will be talks, demos and the entire event is free. I’ll be going and doing a talk on apprenticeship realities and doing some quick chisel sharpening demos with some modern techniques I picked up in Japan. Let me know if you will be going and please come say hi.

Hi!

I watched a video from Essential Craftsman yesterday where he interviewed a guy in the States that talked about a course at ISBA in British Columbia and I was wondering if anybody knows if they're still teaching there?

I did take a course at Northmen in Latvia but I feel like 10 days log building AND timber framing wasn't quite sufficient.

I'm a GC in the Bitterroot Valley, building an open-sided post-frame structure to cover a client's fifth wheel (2022 Jayco North Point, ~43' long). Rough specs: 18' wide x 46' long, 15' eave height stepping up to an 18'-9" ridge (5/12 pitch), 14 posts at 8' O.C. down both long sides on concrete footings, a beam running the length, and engineered roof trusses on top. Open on all sides — no walls, just posts and roof, with black hardware throughout for a timber-frame look. Metal roofing, brown Box Rib panels.

I've got a rough materials plan together but want a real engineer's sign-off on the structural pieces (footings, beam depth, truss/purlin spacing) before ordering anything, and I'm also trying to sanity-check some of the numbers other local post-frame guys have given me against what's actually standard practice. Posting my current questions below — appreciate any input from people who've built similar structures, especially in real snow country.

Structural / Engineering

1. For an 18' clear-span post-frame truss at that snow load, what depth should I expect on a 7.5"x7.5" glulam beam spanning 8' between posts — does 7.5" depth sound right or undersized?
2. Is 8' O.C. truss spacing standard practice for post-frame in heavy snow country, or does that vary more than "everyone locally says never wider than 3'"?
3. For an open-sided (no walls) post-frame structure, what's a reasonable ballpark on footing depth/diameter and whether belled footings are actually necessary vs. straight sonotubes, given Ravalli County frost depth (~42")?
4. Anyone have real experience with beam splices on glulam — is a black steel plate through-bolted on both faces (sandwiching the joint, landing over a post) the standard way to do this, or is there a better/more common detail?
5. For truss-to-beam hurricane ties, is it normal to wait for the truss company's stamped uplift reaction numbers before picking a tie model, or is there a rule-of-thumb tie that's safely oversized for something this scale?
6. Do purlin clips (uplift-rated) actually get used at every truss crossing in practice, or is that overkill for a residential-scale post-frame roof?
7. Any input on whether additional lateral/diagonal wind bracing is typically needed on a fully open post-frame structure beyond standard knee braces at each post?

Material choice
9. Solid 8x8 timber vs. boxed LVL vs. straight glulam for exposed posts/beams on a timber-frame-look structure — what's actually held up best for people long-term, especially in a high-swing climate (hot summers, real winters)?
10. Anyone had issues with incised PT lumber checking/cracking badly enough to regret using it on an exposed structure, vs. going untreated DF/L in a covered, bracket-mounted application?

Hey guys 🤙

I’m a timber framer with more than a decade of experience. I came up in the preservation world in New England, and transitioned to running a shop cutting new frames, where we incorporated lots of natural forms, crotched trees, live edge braces and curves.

I’m interested in offering design services and consulting, thinking this could be especially helpful to owner builders, “hobbyists” if you want to use that word, small operations who just want to cut and not design, etc. If this describes you, would you ever be interested in paying for this?

The main offering would be 3d modeling, shop drawings, and getting these engineered if required.

Secondary would be consulting calls to help facilitate accomplishing the actual build.

Let me know what y’all think or if this piques your interest