The Special Touch

My design was functional. And a bit boring. The contruction manager talked me into extending the front entrance bay forward. He tried to talk me into an exterior truss for decoration but it had no functionality so I resisted. We took the design to the timber framers. They proposed changing a boring striaght part of my structure at the rafters with a much more interesting truss that featured an acorn. And they proposed one more truss in front to bring a hint of the structure outdoors.

Now, since the external truss was a repetition of the internal trusses, it made sense! The result was a design made special by committee! So the steps in making these trusses were a very special part of the process for me to be able to watch.

The bottom of each truss is an arch that is cut at the center. Physics pushes the arch down, pinching at the center where the cut is.

The arches are cut with a bandsaw.

They are planed with a curved planer.

The edges are chamfered with a special power tool.

The tenons are cut with power saw, Japanese hand saw, and chisel.

Holes are drilled for the pegs.

Each peice of the frame is sanded smooth.

A kingpin is place in this opening, braced against the rafters, separating the parts of the arch.

Arch braces on either side add more stability.

The acorn is the seed of the mighty oak. The symbol chosen to represent our hometown in Illinois is the acorn. My gallery is Prairie Oak Artisans after the bur oak, the prairie oak. My children learned about the prairie under the sheltering limbs of a bur oak tree at the Morton Arboretum. For many Plains Indians, the acorn was their staple food. In a mature prairie, oak trees shelter black raspberry and blackberry brambles. There could not be a more fitting ornament to grace this home and hang above those who will inhabit her.