Timber Framing Schools and Workshops

Our Timber Framing Workshops give you hands-on experience in timber framing – a true craft. http://www.youtube.com/embed/WgGp8hDszzY It offers you a unique opportunity to work with timbers as well as with others of like mind. For some, this experience could be a doorway into the rich world of wooden architecture and perhaps the beginnings of a career in timber framing. Regardless of your intent, the process of transforming a tree into one of the “bones” of a home is magical.

In this five-day workshop, you will review the history of timber framing and contemporary practices used to build modern timber frame homes. Students will learn the basic principles of crafting a timber frame and will develop the following skills:

• Wood selection: Learn how to choose the right timber in the correct orientation to transform a tree into a structural member of a home
• Shop drawings: Make sense of complex shop drawings by learning to understand the details and dimension lines necessary to producing accurate work
• Layout: Learn how to take information from drawings and accurately and efficiently transfer them to the timbers before cutting.
• Joinery: Learn to precisely cut mortise and tenon joinery with hand and power tools.
• Sharpening: Using Japanese water stones, gain proficiency in giving your chisels, slicks and planes a supreme cutting edge.
• Assembly: Learn to mate joints with wooden pegs and assemble timbers into bents and walls.
• Raising: Participate in the experience of erecting a timber frame and see your patient hand-work become a three-dimensional reality.

• Website: http://econest.com/
• Ashland, Oregon, USA
• Phone: tel: 541-488-9508

Adirondack Folk School

What defines Adirondack Folk School (AFS) is its commitment to teaching and promulgating arts, crafts and skilled trades
unique to the Adirondacks. The work of AFS preserves the distinctive cultural heritage of the region, instills self-reliance,
and promotes community as well as ecological sustainability. The sense of wonder that hundreds of AFS student-artisans
and tradespeople’s experience at the school is palpable, and no less valuable than their extraordinary work, hand-made to
last for generations.
The AFS Timber Framing class series ranks among the school’s most popular and enduring offerings. It includes
introductory work in Trestle Ponies and Custom Mailbox construction to more advanced work making the Adirondack
Woodshed and Adirondack Cabin, during which students also learn about raising techniques, roofing, siding and
different types of foundations.

• Email: info@adirondackfolkschool.org
• Lake Luzerne, New York, USA
• Phone: (518) 696-2400
• Fax: (518) 696-2409
• Website: www.adirondackfolkschool.org

North House Folk School

Timber frame courses at North House Folk School emphasize hands-on experience and offer a range of learning formats, from introductory workshops to build-your-own structures. Timber frame classes have been a featured theme at North House since our beginning in 1997. During each course, students have the opportunity to use professional timber framing power tools, utilize traditional hand-powered tools, learn sharpening skills, read timber frame joinery plans, and much more. Our campus features seven timbered structures, a fantastic resource for learning.
Examples of timber framing courses include:
– Basic Timber Framing
– Build Your Own Large or Small Timber Frame
– Grindbygg – Norwegian ‘Trestle Frame’ Timber Framing
– Build Timbered Sawhorse Trestles

Find more information and a complete listing of North House’s Timber Frame courses here: http://www.northhouse.org/courses/themes/timberframing/index.htm

 

School

North House Folk School is a small educational 503(c) non-profit organization on the shore of Lake Superior in Grand Marais, Minnesota. We foster a non-competitive learning environment devoted to teaching traditional northern craft. We offer over 350 courses year round in everything from timber framing to woodworking, blacksmithing to fiber arts. Learn more and see a complete course schedule at www.northhouse.org.

Contact info:

• 888-387-9762
• Grand Marais, Minnesota, USA
• info@northhouse.org
• www.northhouse.org

The American College of the Building Arts

About ACBA: 

The American College of the Building Arts is the only college in the world to offer the four-year Bachelor in Applied Science in Building Arts (B.A.S.) degree. We also offer an Associates degree (A.A.S). Students major in the Building Arts and select one of the six areas of Craft Specialization in which to focus the work in a trade.  Students select a Craft Specialization from the following to provide a focus for their craft education: Stone Carving, Architectural Carpentry, Forged Architectural Iron, Masonry, Plaster, and Timber Framing. The B.A.S. degree is designed to synthesize a traditional liberal arts degree with the Craft Specialization and training in the Building Arts. After completing the degree, students may seek employment within the fields of architecture, design, construction, and preservation, among others.

Students pursue a hybrid curriculum that embraces tradition without ignoring the present – a foot in the past to be able to go forward into the future.  Trade classes are integrated with general education classes to the point where a debate about ironwork can happen in English class and research papers show up in the blacksmith’s shop.  Borrowing from the real-world emphasis of European programs like the Compagnon du Devoir in France, ACBA has developed a world-class internship program that has sent students abroad to work on castles and cathedrals.

Timber Framing Overview:  At ACBA, the carpentry and timber framing programs are combined for the first two years due to the commonality of material, joinery, and most of the tools used in the two trades. The first part of the curriculum covers the basics of hand tools, wood science, and shop safety. Students will learn how to properly use, maintain, and sharpen any tools, from hand tools to portable electric tools as well as all stationary equipment commonly used in carpentry and timber framing shops.

Through a series of small projects, students will be introduced to stick framing as well as mill rule layout, the most basic and modern approach to timber framing. Through these projects, they will learn how to layout and cut the joinery typically used in carpentry and timber framing. Students then learn the principles of laying out, cutting, and assembling straight and winder staircases, and progress into the introduction of sophisticated spiral staircases. Senior students are required to produce a “capstone” project prior to graduation. This project is meant to be representative of at least one aspect of their broad education. This process often requires extensive research, design, and estimating work, as well as the time and labor involved in creating an actual finished product. Projects range from elegant and complex scaled models to smaller full-scale installations for local clients.

Contact info:

• Charleston, South Carolina, USA
  
• https://acba.edu/
• (843) 266-7835

SIPschool

A large percentage of Timber Frames utilize Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) as the preferred method of enclosure. SIPschool provides classroom and hands-on instruction to individuals and businesses that seek SIP industry-recognized training.

Established in 2006 by SIP industry veteran Al Cobb, the school’s instructors have many years and hundreds of timber frames worth of experience. Most importantly, the school is not affiliated with any manufacturer and maintains an impartial and unbiased view on various types of panels and variations in details and techniques.

Consider SIPschool if you’re looking for dedicated SIP training and how it can enhance your timber frame or timber frame business. Learn more about SIPschool at www.sipschool.org.

Spring 2016 – April 21-22, 2016 SIPs 202 Two Day Installation Workshop

Shenandoah Junction, West Virginia, USA

Contact annie@sipschool.org for more information.